“I don’t understand.”
“You won’t see me again.”
With that, he turns and walks out, leaving me stunned as I drop on the edge of my bed.
6
Lev
“This is so fucking boring,” Andrei complains for the tenth time this hour. “I don’t see the point of sitting here like a couple of goddamned morons all day waiting for this asshole to screw us over like we know he will.”
I release a breath and stare out the window, attempting to harness what little patience I have left. Being locked in a room with Andrei for twelve hours a day isn’t my idea of a good time either, but this is what Vasily wants. And being that Vasily is delusional enough to believe Andrei will someday take over the business for him, it wouldn’t do much good for me to shove my fist through his skull. For now, I am doomed to spend my days keeping this fuckwit in line. Vasily knows what a fuckup his son is, but he doesn’t want to accept it. It’s much easier for him to put me in charge of babysitting and allow Andrei to feel like he’s actually doing something meaningful.
“I say we just go blow all of their fucking heads off and be done with it,” he grunts, staring at the von Brandt house with a sickening smile on his face.
“That wouldn’t be obvious at all.” I roll my eyes. “What a genius idea, Andrei. The feds won’t have any idea what happened.”
“Fuck the feds,” he snorts. “I have better shit to do than worry about this asshole and his family. Besides, how long are the neighbors going to be on vacation anyway?”
On that, I’m not entirely certain. The neighbor’s house we’re currently camped out in won’t stay vacant forever, but according to the family’s social media posts, it looks like they are still enjoying their time in Hawaii. It’s a temporary solution to a potentially long-running problem.
“Here.” I shove the binoculars in his direction. “Your turn. I need a break.”
He takes the binoculars and whistles when he sees that Nina is outside in her bikini again, making the best of her parents’ hot tub. “Someday, I’m going to tap that ass,” he says. “Preferably before she’s dead.”
“You’re a sick fuck, you know that?” I crack my neck and remove the phone from my pocket, opting to resume my research from earlier. Work has been getting in the way of what I really want to do, which I don’t want to analyze too closely.
“What else am I supposed to do?” Andrei asks. “You sit there on your fucking phone all day looking up shit you won’t even tell me about.”
“That’s because it’s none of your concern.”
He removes a small plastic canister from his shirt pocket and dumps some of the white powder onto the window ledge, snorting a line. It irritates the fuck out of me, and I’m half tempted to shove his face right through the glass, but such an act would swiftly mark my own death.
“You better go make a sandwich or find something else to do for a few minutes.” Andrei unzips his pants as he resumes his visual feast of Nina von Brandt. “Shit’s about to get wild in here.”
Fucking disgusting. I gladly take my leave of the room and make a mental note to bring back some bleach when I return. Downstairs, I find a comfortable spot on the sofa and enjoy the rare silence while I unlock my phone.
I have another text from Alexei, but it isn’t what I want to hear. Alexei is a second cousin who lives in Massachusetts, but he’s become a reliable source of information when I need it. The man the Vory often refer to as the Ghost can typically find anything on anyone, given enough time. But it appears that the mystery surrounding Katerina eludes even him.
Even though he’s sent me everything he has already, I opt to video call him while I have a few moments alone, hoping perhaps there is something else he can try. Alexei is mostly deaf, but he can read lips, and this is the only way to communicate with him besides text.
He answers on the third ring, and it appears I’ve caught him on his way out. He’s just sliding into the driver’s seat of his car, and his wife Talia is beside him, poking her head into the view of the screen and waving.
“Hello, Lev.” She greets me with a smile.
“Talia.” I give her a respectful nod. “How are you?”
“We are well,” she says. “I hope you are too?”
“Always,” I lie.
She seems to recognize the undercurrent of tension in my voice. “I don’t want to monopolize your phone call, but you should come for a visit sometime. You’ve been promising you would for over a year, you know. You’re welcome in our home anytime.”