Page 113 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

“That’s tough, Dima,” Gennady warns when I’m finished. “Not a lot of specifics there.”

“I thought you were the best in the business?”

“I am,” he bristles. “Of course I am. I just… fuck, how soon do you need this?”

I check my watch. “How about now?”

“Oh, sure,nowyou get a sense of humor. Funny how that works.”

“This is just a minor detour,” I rumble. “Arya needs this for… for closure. But we can’t let the Butcher slip through our fingers again. The sooner we get to him, the sooner we can find that Arnaud bitch and her brother and get back my son. Then we can move onto slaughtering Zotov.”

“About all that…”

My jaw clenches and my fist tightens on the bedsheet. “About what,Gennady?”

I can hear him wincing. He doesn’t want to tell me the next bit of news.

“I can find the girl, no problem,” he says. “I need an hour at most. But that’s easy. Those are civilians. These other targets… they know how to hide, Dima. We got lucky seeing the Butcher once. We won’t get that lucky again. So I need time. I’m working as fast as I can.”

“They have my son, Gennady,” I remind him coldly. “Those motherfuckers have my boy.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he snaps uncharacteristically. His voice is weary and strained. “I haven’t slept more than fifteen minutes at a time in days. I’m running from motel room to motel room, calling in favors older than I am. This shit isn’t easy, Dima, but I’m fucking slaving for you because that’s what I do. That’s what I always do. Don’t ever question my loyalty or my effort.”

I pause, taken aback. In all the years that I’ve known Gennady, he’s almost never spoken to me like that. He’s always respected who I am. What our relationship must be.

He must be exhausted. Mentally, physically, spiritually. This war is weighing heavily on everyone.

“I’m sorry, friend,” I tell him as gently as I can. “I’ve never questioned your loyalty even once. You’re my brother-in-arms. I wouldn’t want to go to battle with anyone else.”

He sighs and relents. “I know. Likewise and all that. You’re just a crotchety old bastard, you know that?”

I bark out a laugh. “Tell me something I don’t know,sobrat.I’m trying to be better. We all are.”

We say our goodbyes and hang up the phone.

Afterwards, I’m buzzing with adrenaline. Itching to lay waste to all the people who’ve wronged me. Who’ve wronged my family.

I want to stack bodies high—Brigitte’s, Erik’s, Zotov’s, the Butcher’s. But I’ll have to wait until the moment is right.

For now, we have something else to do. A different kind of wrong to avenge.

Then I can return to my city and take back everything that belongs to me.

40

Arya

ONE DAY LATER—A TRAILER PARK OUTSIDE OF ALBANY, NEW YORK

The trailer park is depressing.

The color scheme never left the 1980s and four decades of harsh New York winters haven’t done the paint job any favors. The plots are crudely demarcated with bricks buried in lines in the dead grass. Most of the windows are rusted-out and boarded-over.

The home I’m standing in front of, however, is well-maintained.

It’s easy to see the fading paint around the windows and the sagging wooden porch. But obvious love and care have gone into the hand-painted “Welcome” sign by the front door and the arrangement of ceramic frogs of all shapes, sizes, and colors sitting on a short stepstool by the stairs.

Fancy or not, this is their home.

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