I drag a hand down my face and turn away from him toward the window I’m thinking about punching. Outside, the grounds are dark, and the perimeter lights are on. Somewhere beyond the tree line, the world is continuing with the indifferent momentum it always carries.
Like none of what happened matters.
It fucking matters.
The words come out as a growl, and I don’t do anything to soften it. “He rammed the car. After the shooting. Vet was already down, and that motherfucker rammed the car. With my wife inside it. With my children inside her.”
“I know.”
“He knew she was pregnant. He had to.” The words come out through something clenched. “He knew, Igor. He’s Fedor. There’s no way he didn’t know. He chose that car on that road at that time because he knew exactly who was in it and exactly what it would do to me.”
“Yes,” Igor says. “He did. And he was right, which is the problem.”
A pause, and I can hear him deciding his angle, choosing the approach with the tactical care he applies to everything. Trouble is, I don’t fucking care what his argument is.
Igor goes on, “Because right now, Fedor has exactly what he wanted. He wanted you like this. Reactive. Running on instinct instead of intelligence. A man running on instinct makes predictable moves, and Fedor has been preparing for your predictable moves for seven years.”
I turn from the window. “What would you have me do? Absorb it. File it. Take a breath and write a strongly worded letter?—”
“I would have you think.” He says it without inflection, which is more effective than if he had said it with any. “I would have you be the man who outmaneuvered Fedor for seven years before he went to prison rather than the man Fedor is counting on you to be tonight. Be the man I came to work for, instead of an asshole who runs on Fedor’s bullshit.”
I cross the room, and I stand behind the desk opposite Igor because I need something between me and him for his safety. Animal, beastly logic presses forward through every rational layer I have constructed. I don’t want to be right about what I’m going to say. But if I am, I don’t want him in arm’s reach.
I’ll throw him out the window if I’m right. “How long?”
Igor looks at me. “How long what?”
“How long have you been feeding him information?”
His face turns to stone.
“You knew about everything. You’ve known Molly since she came to work for me. You’re friendly with her, so you know a lot about her. You knew we were fucking. You knew when she got pregnant. The move to Southampton. Vet’s assignment. You have known everything, because I have told you everything, because I trusted you.”
Igor looks at me. He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t stand. He doesn’t reach for the thing I know he carries, because every man in my organization does.
He simply looks at me, and what is in that look is something I have never been the recipient of—a look I have seen him level at other men. Dead men.
The look lasts approximately four seconds.
Then it passes, and Igor’s face returns to its composure, and he says nothing at all.
And even with his lack of argument, the guilt swamps me. “Igor.” My voice has changed. The animal has retreated far enough that what is left sounds like me, or closer to me than the last several minutes have produced. “I?—”
“You are in pain. You are frightened for your wife and your children, and you are running on no sleep and dwelling in the fury of a man who has been hit somewhere he cannot protect. I understand all of that.” A stiff pause. “Do not do it again.”
“I won’t.” The words land in the room with the weight they deserve. “I know it wasn’t you—I knew it while I was saying it, and I said it anyway, which is shitty of me. I’m sorry.”
Igor receives the apology in his way, just a simple nod. Then he leans forward in the chair. “Kozlovsky’s widow.”
The name lands like a fist. “What are you talking about?”
“You remember what happened,” he says.
“Everyone remembers what happened. Why bring her up now?”
“After Kozlovsky was gone, Fedor didn’t need to do anything else—the threat was neutralized, the point had been made, there was nothing left to prove. Kozlovsky was dead. Tortured to death. His body left on the courthouse steps to make sure every wound was accounted for, public knowledge?—”
“I am aware. So what?”
