Page 8 of 10 Days to Surrender

“You mean ‘psychology.’ ‘Psychiatry’ would involve drugs.”

“I’m going toneeddrugs to stay sane if you don’t give me some fucking morsel to think about.”

Kosti chuckles as he taps his temple. “Feisty, feisty demons.” After a pause, he adds, “I did get this, though. Not much, but it’s something.”

I drop the block and snatch the offered cell phone out of his hand. On it is a picture of a man in a nightclub booth.

Dragan Vukovic.

He’s got a magnum bottle of champagne clutched in one greedy paw, some silicone-enhanced blonde in the other. The arrogant sneer on his face makes my stomach curdle. Even worse is that I recognize the club name scrawled in neon over his head.

“That’smy fucking club.”

Kosti accepts the phone back and tucks it into his pocket. “He thinks you’re fish food in the Hudson, Sasha. He’s gotten comfortable.”

“Comfortable men make mistakes.”

“So do angry ones.”

I grab the block and start doing lunges in place. “Dead men don’t, though.”

Sighing, Kosti rubs his beard. “You’llbe joining that club if you don’t take it easier on yourself. You are still healing, Sasha, and you have a long way to go until you’re?—”

“Rest is for corpses. I don’t intend to be anything of the sort.” I ignore the lightning bolt of pain shooting up my leg as I keep touching my knees to the grass until my quads burn like hellfire.

“Stubborn bastard,” he accuses.

He isn’t wrong.

“It’s kept me alive thus far.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll correct that oversight soon enough. Now, why don’t you have mercy on that poor cinderblock and come have a glass of water?”

He rests a wrinkled hand on the block cradled in my arms to make me pause for a moment. His eyes flash as he looks at me and arches one thick, hairy brow.

With a grimace, I let the block fall to the grass between us.

We thump up the stairs. Kosti steps into the kitchen to fill two glasses of water. He reemerges and hands me one, then we each take a seat in the rocking chairs.

The cabin looks out on a long, flat stretch of valley. It’s mostly grass, ringed with a few clumps of pine trees. Deer are grazing in one of the fields to the north. For a while, I let myself begrudgingly enjoy the silence.

Kosti, of course, can’t bear to let me do that.

“If you knew where she was,” he interrupts, “would you go to her?”

I grip the glass in my hand hard. “How many times do I have to tell you I don’t want to talk about it?”

He waves a semi-apologetic hand. “I’m an old man. Very forgetful.”

I don’t buy his bullshit for a second. “Very annoying, too.”

“Gratitude is not one of the virtues of today’s youth, is it?” he teases.

“No more than brevity is a virtue of the old.”

He laughs. “You know, I’ve enjoyed these months with you, Sasha. You’re an interesting character. Full of contradictions.”

I rock back and watch as the grazing deer get spooked and go dashing over the fence, up into the foothills of the Adirondacksbeyond. “Nothing about me is contradictory anymore. I’ve got one goal: kill Dragan Vukovic.”

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