Page 53 of In Her Blood
Objectively, as it was Artem, they could move to the set of more comfortable chairs. But she kind of just wanted to toss them out alongside the throw rug they sat on, despite that no blood actually marred them.
Otto followed behind her and put his back to a wall, blocking no one’s line of sight but keeping himself close.
At some point, they were going to have to take a moment to discuss and re-evaluate roles. She trusted him most and did want him at her back, but she did not want him forever slotted to the role of staff and subordinate. She wanted him as her partner. She wanted him to do what he did hopefully because he desired to, with perhaps more awareness as to when his survival also became relevant.
But now is not the time.
She blew out a breath and waited for Artem to swing one of the chairs around, drop it carelessly over the blood, and settle in. She willed herself not to blush and kept her hands in herlap. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. You said earlier you had something I needed to know, and I’ve had so much going on I didn’t process that.” She waved a hand pointlessly. “Which hasn’t exactly lessened, either. So, you first. What’s your news?”
Something that might have been surprise flashed across his eyes, there and gone.
Evelina patted herself on the back at the notion she might be learning some portion of his expressions.
Artem settled into the chair, arms hanging over the shorter edges of the armrests, and obliged her. “Last night, my crew had been scheduled to pick up a weapons shipment one of our regular suppliers was bringing in. It’d been in the works for weeks, nothing out of the ordinary. Except when we rolled up, the scene was a littletooquiet—the kind that gets your guard up.”
Evelina nodded. She may not have field experience, but she knew what he meant. Just like she understood what he’d already said and feared what was about to drop. She hadn’t been ignorant to the dark side of her family’s business since she was a young girl, and she knew well that weapons were one of their more important commodities. Sometimes they traded off what they received for a higher cut, sometimes they kept them to resupply or bolster their own stock. Weapons were constantly in demand in their business, after all.
And that was what made her nervous.
Artem continued, speaking calmly, but also quietly, “We should’ve been met by a crew of four, minimum. They should’ve had one or two trucks, depending on the vehicle’ssize. We were expecting a dozen crates, each loaded with guns. I have a list of specifics.”
“Forward it to me,” Evelina said. It would be easier to have a reference than to try and remember that type of detail.
Artem nodded. “What we found instead was nothing—almost.” His brow furrowed. “There wasonecrate, the lid just resting on top. And inside was one of the guys from the crew we were supposed to meet, with a hole between his eyes.” He reached inside his coat pocket and extracted a piece of torn-off notepaper. “This was paperclipped to his collar.”
Otto pinched the obviously bloodied paper from Artem’s grasp, stepped slightly back, and read it aloud. “To, chto bylo tvoim, teper’ moye.”
Evelina let her head drop back against the tall headrest of what had once been her father’s chair.
What was yours is now mine.
“So, Pyotr’s sabotaging the entire clan in his efforts to thwart me, and he’s not even hiding it now.” There was no one else with motivation to leave a message like that, least of all for the only brigadier who’d outwardly sworn loyalty to her.
“I don’t know what else there is for us to think,” Artem said, his tone grave. “The boy has been suspiciously invisible today.”
That wasquitesuspicious. More than Artem yet knew, and she did need to remedy that.
Otto silently set the stained paper down on the desk and moved back into position.
Evelina glanced at it, then returned her focus to Artem. “Is there more?”
Artem shook his head. “Not especially. I took the note for obvious reasons, and in the interest of unnecessary complications, we left without touching anything else. Who or how many others on our contacts’ side may have known we were the ones they were supposed to meet, I can’t say. We had a mutually non-specific agreement. But I doubt very strongly that Pyotr left the rest of the delivery crew in better shape, so that bridge is burned, regardless.”
“And now Pyotr and whomever is supporting him has an upgraded supply of weaponry.”
“And that, yes.” Artem’s lips twitched. “On the bright side, I hear he’s just recently lost his newest brigadier.”
Otto grunted. “Interesting. I did just get a new gun.”
The men exchanged weird, bonding chuckles and Evelina felt herself smiling as if she were a part of the moment.Am I? Bozhe moy, I might be.
The moment passed, and Artem’s expression sobered. “Regarding the sweep upstairs,” he said. “The body in your bedroom is definitely Chek. Looks like they left him to bleed out on your sofa. I’m afraid the entire suite is as trashed as the front space you saw. We’d need a more detailed comb-through to identify any pieces not destroyed.” His gaze flicked between them. “We found that pass-through you mentioned in the closet, and unfortunately, the other room was hit, too. Although not as thoroughly. And no dead bodies were left behind.”
Evelina nodded as a sort of numbness crawled up her chest. It was the information she’d expected. It was a huge problem, because where the hell was she supposed to sleep if both hersand Otto’s rooms had been thrashed? Then there was Chek. A man she’d never met, never even seen the face of, who’d died because he liked her in some way more than her bastard cousin and been assigned to stand in front of an empty room. Or, arguably, who’d died because she’d been too stupid to remember the danger suddenly posed by the closet passage. When the numbness wore off again, she’d surely feel worse about that.
Otto spoke while she was still attempting to process. “We’re gonna need those bags I dropped in the hall.”
“I brought them down, actually,” Artem replied, jerking a thumb toward the door. “Just wasn’t sure how much blood had spilled in here.”
