Page 48 of Secret Weapon

“I’ve made peace with it.”

“How did you wind up here?In the US, I mean?”

“I wasn’t going to let a Russian cut me open again.”

“You came here for surgery?”

“At that time, the best orthopaedic surgeon in the world worked out of New York.I had savings, not enough, but because I had no insurance, he agreed to lower the fee.So I came to America.My uncle knew a guy in Virginia, and he offered me a place to stay while I recovered so I could go back for the follow-up appointments.All I had to do was work a few hours in his gym, training assholes to lift weights, until it was time to go home to Smolensk.”

“But you’re still here?”

“Da.Because I married his niece.”

Alex wasmarried?That shouldn’t have mattered, so why did it feel like a punch to the gut?

“Congratulations.I guess it’s too late to send a card?”

He laughed.“I don’t even know where she lives now.”

“You’re not together anymore?”

“We were hitched for five years, which was four years too many.The day I signed the divorce papers, Bradley brought the champagne and I drank the whole bottle.”

“So you already trained Emmy in those days?”

“Da.”A chuckle.“Colette hated Emmy, and Emmy used to call her ‘the toothache.’”

“How did you end up working for Emmy?”

“Her husband hired me to kick her ass when he went out of town.”

“Wait,Emmy’smarried?”

“For sixteen years now.But in the early days, there was no love lost between the two of them.”

“How did you meet him?”

“At a bar.Colette liked to spend money we didn’t have, so I took a second job as a doorman.Black—Emmy’s husband—used to go there with a buddy to pick up women.”

“He hired you from a bar?”

“My job interview was dumping five punks onto the sidewalk.”

Since my own “job interview” had consisted of putting a knife through my stepfather’s heart—a feat I’d achieved more through luck than judgment—I figured I couldn’t be too critical of Black’s hiring process.

“You like the job?”

“Most of the time.Do you like owning a craft store?”

“I like being my own boss and not getting shot at on a daily basis.But do I like the actual crafts?Not so much.How can people get excited over folding paper and knitting blankets and making their own Christmas decorations?I mean, they clearly do because the store’s doing well, better than I ever thought, but…Bargello.”

“Is that an expletive?What language?”

No, but it should have been.

“It’s a type of needlepoint.”

“Right.So if you don’t much like crafts, then I have to ask the question… Why?”

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