Page 41 of Sinner's Salvation

“Yes, my son. He’s the dirty sheep of the family.”

“Black sheep,” Brian muttered. “We sayblacksheep.”

Movement near the parking lot entrance had everyone’s attention. It was a yellow cab. The driver stopped at the gate and flashed his headlights once.

“That’s Baz,” Brian said, walking toward the car.

Evan didn’t immediately follow. “Baz? As in Bazyli Breznik?”

Anna walked up to him. “Yes, have you investigated him?”

He looked at her. “No, I know him. I served with him a few years ago. The thing is, no one knows you have a son.”

“Only people in our, admittedly small, circle know.”

“How did you hide him?”

“I didn’t. He walked away from the world five hundred years ago and refused to have anything to do with the rest of us.”

“Why?”

She sighed. “That is a very long story. We should go before someone else shows up.”

He grunted. “The way today is going, it could be the Marines.” He walked next to her as they approached the car.

Bazyli was looking at them through the passenger side window and he was staring at Evan hard.

Brian got into the front passenger seat, leaving the back seat for her and Evan. They got in and Baz put the car in gear, driving away from the hospital.

“Gunn,” he said, his tone flat.

“It’s good to see you, Baz,” Evan replied, sounding a lot happier than Baz was.

No one said anything for a few seconds, not until they were well away from the hospital.

“How did you get caught up in whatever the hell is going on?” Baz asked, his voice casual, as if the question was completely unimportant.

Anna had heard that tone in her son’s voice before. Right before he had to make a decision he didn’t want to make. She cleared her throat. “He’s a...friend.”

“A friend?” Baz asked, laughing. “You don’t have any friends. You have relatives, underlings, and occasionally allies, but no friends. Try again.”

Evan coughed. “To be precise, my grandfather was her friend. During the Second World War.”

“Oh yeah, that makes it so much better.” Baz met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “What happened to nobody knows the family business, mom?”

“It was war.” She shrugged. “Poop happened.”

“Shit happened,” Brian muttered. “We say,shithappened.”

“Once again with the shit,” Anna said. “Americans use that word for so many things. Sometimes good things, sometimes bad.” She shook her head. “It’s very confusing.”

Evan chuckled.

Baz glared at her via the mirror. “Keep laughing Gunn, because you won’t be if I decide you need to die.”

“You’re not going to touch him,” she said. It wasn’t a suggestion or a request, it was an order.

The silence in the car sat on her shoulders and gained weight with each passing second.

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