Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 57155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Kira’s upper lip curls in distaste as she walks around, looking at the presentation. “You can make gemstones out of a person’s ashes? Ew.”
“Kira, don’t choose based on cost. I’m going to cover the expenses.”
“Why?” She almost sounds angry.
“Because I want to. The bratva ruined her life. Paying for her funeral seems like the least we can do.”
“Did…” she works to swallow. “Did you know her, Maykl?”
“I knew many women like her,” I say in a tired voice.
She nods and turns away, blinking back tears as she picks up a book showing the various casket options and flips through it.
“Do you want to bury her here?” I ask. When she gives me a blank look, I clarify. “In America?”
“Oh.” It’s like she hadn’t considered what a burial would mean. “No.” She shakes her head, agitation making her shoulders creep up toward her ears.
“You want the body transported home?”
“No.” She appears sickened by the idea. “I guess I want…her ashes.”
“So thinking of cremation?” The funeral director enters the room. She’s a young woman in a staid, navy-blue suit with an appropriately somber expression.
“Yes.”
“Have a seat. I can go over the options and fill out the necessary paperwork.”
Ninety minutes later, the arrangements are made. Despite my offer to cover any expense, Kira went with the most basic options. The hundred-dollar cardboard container for the ashes. No service. No remembrances. The entire cost was twelve hundred dollars, which I paid for in cash. Plus another five thousand to get it turned around by tomorrow instead of the two weeks she originally quoted us.
I didn’t pay out of guilt. It’s not that I feel directly responsible in any way for the woman’s demise. But I make good money working for Ravil. I have a very large nest egg. The money is nothing to me, and if I can help Kira move through her grief with more ease, I want to do it.
Especially when Kira gives me a soft “thank you, Maykl” when we get in the car.
I reach for her hand and squeeze it. When she looks over at me with those ice-blue eyes, there’s a vulnerability behind them that makes my chest squeeze. Gone is the warrior, and the woman in her place looks lost.
Kira
It takes me most of the afternoon to recover my footing from the outing to the funeral home. My grief has always been coated in anger. It fuels my strength. Made me join the politsiya. Not that I had delusions the police would fix the crime and corruption in my city. I just didn’t want to feel weak. I wanted to be able to handle myself. To carry a weapon and wield a little more power than the average citizen.
Something about having Maykl’s solid form beside me, feeling like someone had my back for the first time in so many years, made the grief feel more like…grief. Something painful and sticky I couldn’t shake.
Maykl took me to lunch after the funeral home then back to the building. His pakhan wasn’t available to see me today, so he left me in his apartment while he went back to work an evening shift.
I shower. Work out again in Maykl’s living room. Now, I check in with Stepanov.
“Koslova.” He answers immediately. “I heard two of the bugs are already online.”
“Yes, sir. I placed one in each elevator. Tonight, I will deactivate the security cams and place the others throughout the building. Tomorrow I will see their pakhan.”
“Excellent work. Tell me about the security system.”
I hesitate. Why is my boss so intensely interested in this mission? It’s more interest than he ever showed on my cases back home. “Did you decide to fly out here, sir?”
“Yes. I’m en route now.”
That takes my breath. “You are?”
“I’ll be there by midnight. The FBI are asking for a full description of the layout of the building including exits and entrances, as well as details about the security and HVAC system. They expect trouble when they go in to make arrests and wish to be prepared.”
I lean my head against the window overlooking the lake. The idea of a show-down here in this building makes my stomach knot. If that happens, people will die. Many people on both sides.
I shouldn’t care, but Maykl could be killed. He’s right at their front door. Their gatekeeper. He’d be the first line of defense.
After the generosity he showed me today, betraying his kindness and hospitality doesn’t feel like a win. But I didn’t come here to make friends. I came to get my nephew and take down the bratva.
Using Maykl is the path to that end goal.
That thought doesn’t quiet the discomfort fizzing up my neck, though.
I switch my brain back to business, though. “The locks are all electronic, activated with keycards. There’s a keypad at the front door. I believe the code is 87847. I can verify that for certain tonight.” I memorized it when I watched Maykl lock up the night I arrived. He’d shielded the screen from my view, but I watched the movements of his finger and, using a mental map of the keypad, guessed at the sequence. “There are cameras above the outside entrance and in every hallway and elevator, but not in the apartments themselves. At least, not that I’ve seen.”