Page 38 of Blood Mosaic

“I’m just saying.” Oleg shrugged. “We all have our distractions.”

“You called this bookkeeperyours.”

“Because she is.” He felt the plane start to descend. “Just likeyou’remine. And Elene. And Grigor and Roman and Marta at the office.” He spread his arms. “My people, Mika.Mine.”

And those that were his were not to be harmed save by his own hand.

Especially Tatyana Vorona.

Chapter Ten

Tatyana was in her office, tapping away in a private chat room with one of the few friends she’d kept in touch with from her university days while Pushkin slept on the futon behind her, purring furiously.

The friend was a young man who went by 6R1M4C3 or Grimace online, and he called her P1dg3n or Pidge, which was a name no one in her real life had ever heard or ever would.

—still have all the drives you sent me, Grimace typed. —they’re safe.

—thank you.

—want me to send them somewhere?

—not now. not yet. not sure where this is going.

—you know how to get in touch.

Tatyana was fairly sure Grimace had intended his name to sound dangerous and menacing when he chose it, but all Tatyana could think of was the giant purple monster who stole the hamburgers of her youth.

She threw out an idea.—if you wanted to hide thirty million dollars, how would you hide it?

—not in russia.

—no kidding.

She was pretty sure Grimace was still in Kyiv, but she had no idea if that would last. His post office box was in Kyiv, but there were forwarding services and he was paranoid.

—real estate and gold,he finally typed back.—definitely gold. real estate if I have lawyers in other countries.

Tatyana took a deep breath. Zara had lawyers, she was sure of it. Zara probably had lots of lawyers at her beck and call. After all, she had thirty million dollars of Oleg’s money.

—remember the job I was doing last year?she typed.

—the whistleblower thing?

—I think I might have been the bad guy.

—pidge!

—I know.

—I taught you to use your powers for good. you said you and Z were taking down a billionaire.

—I thought I was, but I think I was really helping Z embezzle money.

—fuck.

—I know.

—are you in trouble?

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