Chapter Thirty-One
Tanechka
Viktor glances overat me from the front seat of the car. He’s not used to me dressing as a nun. I’m sure he hoped I never would again. But this outfit will help us get close to the man who can give us information on Kiro. We hope.
It is very much like old times in Moscow when we worked as assassins together. Waiting outside a man’s home. Two hours we have been out here, but the man will come now—we both have the sense of that. We share the sense of it.
It feels good.
“Soon,” I say.
He doesn’t smile, but small dimples appear on his cheeks. Something that comes before a smile. A flash of happiness, I suppose you would call it.
I feel it too.
We’re together again. Dangerous like old times. We’ll find his brother.
This man we pursue—this Gregor—is a Russian mob techie who defected to Lazarus, and he’s quite religious. I know how to move like a nun. How to speak like a nun. He’ll be easy to fool.
We have to take him off the street and make him help us get ears on Lazarus—that’s how Viktor’s brother Aleksio likes to put it. Get ears on a man. Hack into his communications.
Somehow, they’re tracking Kiro. We need to know everything.
Lazarus isn’t a stupid man. Kiro beat him once at the insane asylum. The next time Lazarus goes at Kiro, it will be with an army. Aleksio thinks he’s already chasing him.
I feel as fierce about finding Kiro as Viktor does. As Aleksio does. I want to find him as if he’s my own brother. He will be once Viktor and I are married.
Viktor passes me a pear. “If he comes with more than one, I’m going out with you.”
“There will be no killing,pryanichek.” I slice off the fat side of the fruit. “If there are more than one, I’ll handle them all, and if you come out with me when I don’t need you, I’ll put you back in the hospital, perhaps right next to them.”
“I’ve never wanted to fuck you more than right now, Tanechka.”
I hand him over a slice and smile. I will very much like him to fuck me.
“I’m not letting you fight a group,” he says.
“I tire of this discussion.” The plan is for me to separate Gregor from the herd. “This one respects nuns. His friends too.” I slice off another bit of pear. I hold his eyes and slip it into my mouth. With this I make him think many things.
I no longer strive to be a nun. I can’t be true to Jesus in my body like a nun should. And there were my years of being an assassin; it was easier to aspire to be a nun when I didn’t remember those years. But still Jesus is in my heart. Viktor doesn’t understand, but it’s okay.
My love of Viktor is deeper than it ever was. My concentration is deeper. Even my aim is better. Things are better now that I have this peace.
Viktor and I have made a new home together. The home Viktor made for us before was very much a museum of our old life. I’m glad it burned. Our new home has things from our new life in America, like a giant painting of a fish from IKEA. We have named it “Guppy.”
They let him out of the hospital four weeks back. Gunshot wounds to his midsection. It was mostly his spleen. He hides his pain. He’s not supposed to move around violently. A difficult thing to enforce.
A car slides by—too slowly. Our intelligence is that Gregor will walk home from his dinner at the restaurant, but the car doesn’t move right. We both mark it. A minute later we both ignore it. Texting.
“I should shoot his phone from his hand,” he says.
I slide my gaze to the side mirror. A group of three men. One of them Gregor. “Hey.”
“Gotcha.”
I shoot Viktor a warning look. “No killing.” He puts up his hands in pretend self-defense as I slide out, prayer rope in one hand, switchblade in the other.
I wander up the street, appearing lost.