Page 16 of Fire for Effect

This was the day marked in red on my calendar. It was the one appointment I couldn’t miss.

My body thrummed with eagerness, as a lone figure walked up the dirt path towards me. She pulled the driver side door open and hopped in, shivering against the autumn rain.

“Here’s your phone.” Sierra tossed a cell on my lap.

Since I was not a native Russian Speaker, she had to be the one to retrieve my phone from the dead drop in the middle of the park in Chisinau. I should say… she spoke Russian like a native. Calling her a native Russian would likely get me socked in the mouth.

My single request drove my boss bat shit crazy because I was so rigid when it came to this that they had to turn operations upside down to accommodate me. But they were getting a damn good deal, since I literally requested nothing else all year and they got their money’s worth.

I waited, looking at Sierra with a raised brow.

“What?” she said, glowering at me with irritation.

The scar on my thigh throbbed with the pain as the cold of the early morning rain seeped into my skin through my clothes, even over the car’s blasting heater.

“A little privacy?” I said, annoyed. Those were the rules.

“Oh, come on! It’s pissing rain out there!” Her Ukrainian accent was stronger when she was mad. “You’re just crabby because I looked at your personnel file, aren’t you?”

I was. I had been ever since I woke up from my gunshot wound induced unconsciousness to find her with her feet up, my personnel file in her hand, reading it out loud like it was a novel.

She was a pain in the ass but a damn competent field agent, and a really creative killer.

“Rules are rules.” And just because I got to stick her outside in the rain for the next fifteen minutes… well, that was just a bonus.

“For fuck’s sake!” She rolled her eyes, shouldering open the door as she glared at me. “Asshole… Yob tvoyu mat’!”

“The hell did you just say about my mother?” I called with a laugh as she slammed the door so hard that it rocked the whole vehicle.

My knowledge of Ukrainian swear words was growing.

I swiped the screen of the phone and called the only number that was saved.

My Firefly answered on the first ring. “Mom, I don’t want to talk about it!”

I chuckled at her irritation. “She got to you first, huh?”

There was silence on the other end. I could imagine her looking at her phone, realizing it wasn’t who she thought it was. Her furrowed brow, her narrowed eyes. She’d pull the phone away to double check the name. A video call was out of the question, and I was glad of that. It would be unbearable to see her and know that I couldn’t touch her. She’d be able to tell how much I missed her. I’d see with my own eyes that she didn’t miss me the same way.

That would be devastating.

“Hey, Asshole,” she said with a slight laugh on her sigh.

“Happy birthday, Psycho,” I said, a smile tugging on my lips.

Christ, when was the last time I had smiled?

“You’re a day early, dumbass.” I loved her attitude. Over the years, I’d come to enjoy the bite of her sass.

“Bullshit,” I protested. “Check your watch.”

I heard a shuffle, and a laugh. “You’re right. Two minutes after midnight.”

“That’s what I thought.” I really hoped she could feel my smugness over the phone. But just in case she couldn’t, I added, “You don’t have to tell me I’m right. It’s enough to know that you’re wrong.” Her snort made me laugh, “I can hear you rolling your eyes.”

There was a moment of silence where she was just breathing on the other end. I’d bet she was smoking. She always had a stress cigarette after talking to her mother. Poor chick.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d call,” she said.

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