Gliding along the wall like a shadow, keeping far out of the lights from below, I move past the top floor and leap onto the slanted rooftop, crouching low as I make my way to the opposite side of the house.
The butler was wrong, I realize as a noise pricks my ears. There was at least one guard up here. I press myself up against a chimney in the darkness and wait for him to walk by before slipping up behind the man and dispatching him with the blackjack as I had the first.
Without any more time to waste, I move to the opposite edge of the rooftop.
A small trail of smoke is spiralling up from the balcony below. I know who it belongs to.
As I crane my neck over the side, I see Sergei Slokavich, leaning on the balcony railing and surveying the grounds below with a cigar in his hand. He’s wearing only a silk bathrobe. When I speak, I address him in Russian.
“Even if you scream, the guards won’t be here in time.”
As Sergei whirls around with the pistol he was hiding in his robe, I’m already halfway down upon him, snatching the weapon as if it were a toy and turning it on him an instant after landing.
He holds his hands up, his face pale as he sees me standing over him, his own revolver pointed at his skull. Nevertheless, there’s something troublingly calm in his eyes as he watches me, and after a moment, he even begins to smile.
“So,” he answers in our mother language, “the attack dog turns on its master.”
“You still think I ever cared to be a slave to the likes of you?”
“I know you do. It’s in your blood. I’m your family, Andrei,” he hisses, “the Bratva brought you in, raised you, made you what you are! You owe us everything, and this is how you repay us?”
My mind flashes to the faces of Cassie’s parents, coldly giving her away to be sold off like a piece of meat at the market. “Sometimes, family ties have their limits. You’ve gone too far, Sergei. The common soldiers of the Bratva know that.”
“Bullshit,” he snarls back, sneering. “You are just like the rest of them. You know what all of you are? A bunch of minnows swimming in a sea of big fish.” He pounds his chest, narrowing his eyes at me. “Sharks like me? Sometimes we let you little fish swim alongside us. We give you food from the kills we make, we give you protection from the other sharks that would have you for lunch if you were left alone, and we even go out of our way to give you a little fun on the side. You, Andrei? You’re just my shadow. The shadow of a shark that some of the other little fish want to flock to.”
Now it’s my turn to smile.
“Had time to think that one out, did you? Is that what you tell yourself when you’re selling off women’s lives as if they were cattle? Letting people get slaughtered for your pet project your son was? Something you should have remembered, Sergei,” I say as I cock my gun, “if you treat people like animals, don’t be surprised when they hunt you down like one.”
He lets out a cruel laugh into the night. “Heroic, but too late, my shadow.” I arch a brow, and he nods to the cell phone sitting on the balcony railing. “You don’t think I knew you were coming for me? Didn’t think I’d find your little safehouse?”
My heart stands still a moment as Sergei’s eyes narrow at me, his grin showing off his rotting, stained teeth. “I gave the order before you even jumped down here. Your little bride is already dead.”
With a roar, I lurch forward and seize Sergei Slokavich by the neck, hurling him over the side of the railing and off the balcony, watching his face contort into a scream as he falls down four stories, and there’s a sickening sound as he lands on the tip of the fountain below, the stone point sticking out of his impaled body. His lifeless eyes stare up at me as a handful of alarmed guards gather around him, looking up at the balcony and pointing.
But I’m already gone, flying through the house like a spectre.
A shadow cannot exist without its light.
24
Cassie
I’m sitting in the office of the warehouse in the dark, the room lit only by the unnatural glow of a laptop screen. The little digital clock in the corner of the screen reads 2:27 AM. My nails, formerly smooth and painted bright pink at one of the many salons Andrei took me to, have been bitten down to the quick. I’m shivering, even though I’m perched under three blankets, my legs folded under me on the bedroll. At this point in my pregnancy, this is the closest to comfortable I can possibly manage. Standing up for too long is agony. I’ve tried lying down on my back, my left side, my right side — nothing works. So I just sit.
If I’d been spending all this time alone, I surely would have lost my mind by now. The cold silence and dull, tedious surroundings make a powerful case for cabin fever — a term I learned from a series of excessive, boredom-induced Wikipedia searches. But with Andrei around, the time has been significantly less awful. He’s been so sweet and attentive, even talkative. But now he’s left me here. I’m not sure where he’s gone to, but I know exactly what he is going there to do.