Deathless (The Ferrymen #3)

Prologue

Moscow, Russia. Ten years ago.

My daughter's forehead was cold when I kissed it.

I knew it would be. She'd been dead for seven months. The machines had kept her body going long enough for the child inside her to be viable, but the brilliant, beautiful woman I’d been so proud of was gone. It was time to say goodbye.

I stood and looked down at her face one last time. She had my jaw and the cheekbones that my mother had before me, and her mother before that. I ran my thumb along the curve of her cheek and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

Then I reached down and pulled the plug from the wall.

The ventilator seized mid-breath and choked into silence. The monitors screamed, a flat shriek that the nurses could hear at their station, and I let it scream. I wanted them to know. I wanted every person on this floor to hear the exact moment I decided my daughter was finished.

The door burst open, and the nurse came in and stopped. She looked at me, then at the cord on the floor.

"Bring me my granddaughter," I demanded.

Her eyes went to Nadia on the bed, the still chest, the monitors flatlining, then back to me.

"Now."

She scrambled out.

I moved to the window while I waited and buttoned my jacket because I needed something to do with my hands.

The nurse came back carrying a bundle smaller than my forearm. She held the baby out to me the way people hold things they're afraid of dropping, both hands, elbows locked, not breathing. I took my granddaughter from her, and the nurse backed out of the room without turning around.

The baby stared up at me with eyes that hadn't decided what color they were going to be. She closed her fist around the lapel of my jacket. I looked down at her face, my daughter's face rebuilt in miniature, and I tightened my grip before I could stop myself.

Then I sighed and loosened it.

"Your mother is dead," I told her. "But don't you worry.

I'm going to take good care of you. As for your father.

.." I shook my head. "You know, I knew he'd be trouble the first time I saw him.

He was knee high and full of spite. Like a pint-sized feral cat with a scowl that could've peeled the makeup right off a clown.

I suppose it was inevitable that your mom would fall for him.

I mean, who can blame her? He was talented.

Handsome. Powerful. He was everything I made him to be.

And that's why I should've known better.

You see, the thing about your old man, kiddo, is.

.." I rocked her gently. "Well, I'm great at training killers to kill.

But love... not so much. In a way, I suppose he was only doing what I'd taught him.

That was the mistake I made with him. I let him love. "

My cell phone rang, and I shifted the baby in my arms to answer. “Yes?”

“How is she?” My son, Achilles. Impeccable timing, as always.

"It's done," I told him. "She's gone."

He was quiet for a beat. Then: "Should I send the alert now?"

I closed my eyes. I’d been putting it off for months. It was sentimentality. Hephaestus was the son I’d always wanted, everything Achilles would never be. Competent, strong, one of the best swordsmen I’d ever trained. Once I gave the order to declare him atimia, it couldn’t be undone.

“Papa,” Achilles lowered his voice. “It’s been months. He’s already off the radar. If you delay any further, we might never find him. And then what justice will there be for Nadia?”

“Justice?” I scoffed. No matter how many times Hephaestus rose and fell, no matter how many years he suffered, or how great the suffering, there would never be justice for what he’d done to my beautiful, sweet Nadia.

An eye for an eye was fine in principle, but in practice…

I put the phone down in the empty crib and put it on speaker. “Call central. Update his status to atimia immediately. Any accounts that remain open, freeze them. Burn the safe houses. Every alias. I want his picture up at every establishment as persona non grata.”

"Finally,” Achilles mumbled. “He’ll be dead within the day."

“No,” I growled, and the baby in my arms squirmed.

I continued in a more gentle tone. “No, Achilles. When you find him—and I have no doubt you will eventually—you’re to bring him to me.

I want to look him in the eye as he explains himself.

And then I want him to look back at me and see the extent of my mercy as I kill him myself. ”

“But papa—”

“Do as I say, Achilles.”

He snorted. “Yes, sir,” he said, and then hung up.

I hung up and then stood alone with my daughter's body, my granddaughter in my arms. The machines were silent. The cord lay on the floor where I'd dropped it.

She was mine. The last thing Nadia had made, and the first thing I was going to build from scratch. She would be stronger than her mother. Stronger than Hephaestus. Stronger than Achilles. Stronger even than me.