Chapter 17 For Mother
For Mother
The Forger:
I stare at the open stainless-steel freezer. Inside lies my most recent inconvenience.
"Fuck, this is the problem with fucking emotions."
I can't have her accidentally opening that door. Can't have her seeing the doctor's dismembered body when she'll already be terrified about her sister's medical emergency. The body has begun to develop ice crystals along the eyelashes and beard.
Three months of freezing does that. Enough time to ensure I had all the bio markers needed. Aesthetically interesting, if one appreciates such things. I don't.
Three months of this impromptu deviation from my plan. Fee started as collateral damage, but that changed when I saw her whole beauty. Now I need to get rid of this body, soon, preferably before she gets here.
The occasion calls for flowers, not a corpse.
Killing three doctors wasn't part of my initial plan.
The OB/GYN just got into a car accident, rushing to the Carlucci's mansion, caused by a traffic light malfunction I engineered.
No mess to clean. Lorenzo's personal physician's heart condition was easy to manipulate into a heart attack. The hospital cleaned that body up.
Closing the freezer door, I start moving through the apartment, stripping off the latex gloves I wore to handle the freezer. I throw them in the trash, which I will also have to dispose of.
The place still holds the lingering scent of its former occupant, Doctor Alessandro Esposito. I can smell his cologne and coffee. It's not my taste, but I've learned to inhabit other men's spaces, to wear their lives like borrowed suits.
Dr. Esposito was perfect, born to an Italian father and Russian mother, a stroke of luck that made vocal inflections easier to manage.
New to Providence, which meant fewer established relationships to navigate. The Cosa Nostra vetted him thoroughly before allowing him near Lorenzo and his pregnant wife. They checked education records, practice history, patient reviews. All doctored perfectly by me.
The Cosa Nostra's vetting process was thorough but ultimately futile. They never anticipated that someone had already become him. Someone who survived the torture of a Russian prison without spilling a word.
That experience left its mark on Aleh in ways that perfectly serve our purpose. His torture-damaged voice actually helped. It makes him seem more experienced, weathered. Patients trusted the gravelly authority in his tone.
Aleh's military background gives him the bearing of a combat-trained physician who could operate in a foxhole or a mansion with equal competence.
I walk toward the office and sit in front of my screens, which flicker with live feeds from traffic cams and a bank of monitors tracking Fee's digital footprint.
In my peripheral vision, the bathroom door opens. Aleh emerges, his transformation complete—the perfect doppelg?nger of Dr. Esposito. His damaged left hand is carefully hidden in his suit pocket, his posture conveying medical authority.
"Send the signal the minute Fee arrives." I swivel my chair to face him.
"Mrs. Carlucci's blood pressure has been rising steadily. The licorice root extract I added to her supplements has been effective," Aleh says.
My jaw clenches. "And the baby? No danger?"
"Not yet. Keeping measurements precise. Baby is healthy."
"Make sure it stays that way. Mrs. Carlucci must stay safe, and so does the baby."
If something happens to Moira or her baby, Fee will never forgive me. Fee will never trust me. Fee will never love me.
"I will ensure their safety," Aleh assures me. His phone chimes. "Lorenzo called five minutes ago and just texted. I'll administer a medication to lower her blood pressure as soon as I arrive. It should minimize the danger to the mother and the child."
I turn back. "The moment Fee arrives, send the signal."
"Understood."
"And Aleh, Fee is not to be harmed. Not physically, not emotionally. If she suffers in any way under your watch, what happened to you in that prison will seem like a vacation."
"Ms. Quinn will be safe. Anything else, sir? I should leave, otherwise Lorenzo will be pissed," he says.
"Go on. I'll see you soon." Aleh leaves, and I hear the apartment door closing as he exits. On the screens, I see him getting in the elevator.
With one piece moving into position, I return to monitoring the other, their precious shipment. Now re-routed, lost in the system, nowhere to be found. The Quinns and Basovs will be scrambling to locate their missing cargo while I focus on what truly matters.
As the shipment disappears from tracking systems, I can't help but think Vadim would have appreciated the elegance of this plan. He should be here, sitting beside me, planning operations, not rotting in the ground because of Anton.
I open my desk drawer and remove the titanium case containing my combat preparations. Inside lies an array of pharmaceuticals, each with a specific purpose. Not the crude cocktails street fighters use, but precision instruments designed for enhanced performance, block pain, and delay blood loss.
In the bathroom, I remove my shirt and lay out the black tactical shirt I'll wear for the next phase.
I examine myself in the mirror. Combat scars mark my transformation, knife wounds from specialized training in Belarus, bullet grazes from live-fire exercises in Kazakhstan, burns from endurance testing.
Each mark represents lessons learned, skills acquired, all to ensure Anton doesn't walk away from our reunion.
I've been a ghost who walks in daylight, a predator who's forged many personas and disguises, an executive in one city, an ordinary man in another.
This operation is different. While Aleh has been running the physical disguise as Dr. Esposito, I've disguised myself in the digital world, becoming Fee's trusted online friend.
And I've ensured they'll trust a face that belongs to a corpse.
I inject myself in the shoulder. The shot burns, and the metallic tang hits the back of my throat. When I look in the mirror, my pupils dilate slightly. My heart rate increases to optimal performance levels without the scattered focus of natural adrenaline.
The compound courses through my veins, bringing with it not just heightened focus but memories of why I'm here. Mother used to look into my eyes and say that I reminded her of Vadim too much. I got her the best doctors, but nobody can treat a broken heart, which is what finally killed her.
I check the time: 11:43 AM. I need to leave for the next phase in less than two hours.
For Anton, I'll be the ghost from his past, the brother of the man he killed, the son of the woman who died from grief.
I was barely eighteen when I lost everything.
I remember the night clearly. I was waiting for Vadim to return from the job I told him not to finish.
He was a determined man. Instead, police came to our door with news that shattered our world.
My mother collapsed. I held her as she wailed into the night.
We fled within hours. I became the man of the house overnight while she withered before my eyes. No more college plans. No more normal teenage bullshit. Just survival and vengeance.
A notification dings from my laptop, and I feel the excitement that she brings into my life. Fee is online. I run to the office like a fucking teenager who's had too many energy drinks. I rush over to my laptop.
She's using her phone, trying to mask her location.
I track her signal jumping between cell towers, the digital breadcrumbs she doesn't realize she's leaving. She's good, really good, but I can still find her.
I'll teach her how to hide in plain sight. How to become anyone, anywhere, anytime—just like me.
I wait patiently, but it's killing me. I've deviated from my plans for her. This is new to me, something I've never done.
Fee inspires improvisation in me. She pushes me to step out, beyond my firm plans. She pushes me into something more primal, more creative.
She's made me better already. I wonder what else she'll bring out in me when I finally have her in my bed, when she realizes who I really am.
I don't want to scare her. I want to please her, to make her feel a pleasure she's never felt before. She might fight at first, but eventually, she'll beg for me.
A message appears:
Fee: Did you take the calculus test yet?
I consider my response. This is a normal conversation topic between college friends. I type:
Phoenix: I'll take it later. You?
Fee: Yes, maybe later.
Phoenix: Oh!
Fee: Was hoping you took it. Wanted to know how long it took you.
I smile. Even in trivial exchanges, she's strategic—gathering intelligence before making her move. We're so alike.
Phoenix: Need help? We could hack the school, you know.
Fee: No, I'll take it later. Family issues.
My heart rate increases. Family issues, Moira.
Phoenix: Hope everything is good.
The cursor blinks. Fee doesn't respond right away. She's been skittish with Phoenix lately, perhaps sensing something off in our exchanges. I wonder if she's begun to suspect anything.
Fee: Everything is going to shit. I need to go see my sister. It'd be great if you could take the test now so you can tell me how hard it is.
Phoenix: I can do that.
Fee: Thanks, bye now.
I close the laptop. We'll be saying hello very soon.