Page 43 of Beautiful Ruin

So I shrug, pushing the burning in my veins back down so I can breathe again. “Better to have two eyes on it than one. Maybe you can find something else I haven’t been able to.”

For a moment, he doesn’t move.

A tiny part of me feels guilty for putting him in a position like this. The larger part of me refuses to apologize, however. I had no hand in twisting his arm. Rowan made his choice all on his own. He called my uncle, heard the order on the other end of the phone, lied to me about it, and kept driving anyway. Whatever he wants to call it now, obedience is no longer the correct answer.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Rowan lifts one hand from the steering wheel and places it on the folder. His fingers spread over the worn surface, hooking around the edge of it to pull it closer. His eyes scan the page in front of him, lifting it a few moments later to turn to the next one, and the one after that.

He pauses when he reaches one of the last few pages toward the back, his body suddenly going still.

“What?” I ask.

“The gun that was found at your mother’s crime scene… it’s similar to the ones that were used during your uncle’s assassination attempt,” he murmurs.

I blink, leaning quickly across the center console to look at the page in his lap. “How do you know?”

His fingers trace the photo of the gun taken at the crime scene nearly twenty years ago. The image is grainy, slightly washed out from age and bad photocopying, but the weapon is still clear enough beneath the harsh flash of old forensic photography to reveal a very obvious missing serial number.

Rowan taps the photo twice. “Parts like these are distributed mainly through mid-tier gangs. They’re known for shifting weapons caches around for the quickest profit turnaround. Bratvas like ours don’t necessarily deal with that. We mainly focus on procurement and shipping. Once they are out of our hands, it’s not our business what is done with them.”

I stare down at the photo, at the object that had been used to end my mother’s life. There is something obscene about it, that this old, ugly little piece of metal had been capable of stealing a bright light from this world and from me.

I scan the paragraph underneath the photo, searching for something that will either confirm or destroy what he just said. There is nothing but the same general descriptions that have appeared throughout the entirety of the file.

Basic firearm. Recovered at the scene. No viable prints. No confirmed ownership. Ballistic trauma consistent with close-range discharge.

The clinical language reveals nothing new.

I shift against the door behind me. “There was no DNA evidence linking it to anyone specific. How can you be sure the gun used to kill my mother is the same variety as my uncle’s?”

“There was no DNA hit in the database,” he corrects. “Not the same thing as having no evidence.”

My eyes shoot up to meet his.

He continues, “All I’m saying is that there is a good possibility one answer will lead to another. I’m not familiar with the local gangs in the area that the Kuznetsovs don’t personally do business with. But I know where we can find them to get answers.”

For a moment, I can only stare at him. Then, I feel a slow smile start to tug at my lips.

After years of questions, after weeks of being told no, maybe I finally have a trail to follow.

12

ROWAN

The apartment complex is a crumbling tomb.

One glance at the boarded-up windows, sagging balconies, and the strategic placement of lookouts posing as bored loiterers on the front steps tells me everything I need to know. This isn’t a home, it’s a hideout. A rat’s nest dressed up in peeling paint and broken concrete steps.

I don’t even consider parking on the main road like an amateur. Instead, I turn down a narrow alley across the street and park in between the buildings. I kill the engine and let the heavy quiet swallow us. It’s broken up only by distant traffic on the next street over and the occasional echo of someone shouting from several blocks away.

Sofia turns toward me just as I lift the file to settle it into her lap. My hand brushes over hers, finding it warm and soft against my own cold, callused one. My entire body freezes for less than a second, but I know she’s caught me by the small noise she lets out under her breath.

I quickly retrieve my hand and force myself to toss the file at her before leaning across the center console to pop open the glovebox. A pair of battered binoculars sits nestled inside, the strap worn from years of use and being moved from vehicle to vehicle within the fleet.

The glove box clicks loudly when I slam it shut, and I ignore the way Sofia flinches slightly from it.

For the next two hours, we simply sit back and watch.

I lift the binoculars in slow, methodical sweeps, murmuring updates under my breath like I’m narrating combat footage.