Chapter 41
forty-one
I watch from beneath the cover of a coppice of pine and willow as they lower my empty casket into the cold ground.
There is just enough room between the crowd of people to make out the face of my most trusted men.
Their heads are lowered respectfully as Father Michaels presents my pre-planned eulogy.
It is short and concise, and the priest is known for epigrammatic ripostes that keep the crowd from falling in too deep a melancholy. I never wanted people to cry at my funeral. Fake or not. Death is something to be celebrated and not mourned.
My gaze wanders, searching through the faces as they sweep past me with an almost concerning amount of unawareness. They wouldn’t recognize me. Not with my disguise, but that doesn’t make it any better. How easy it would be for someone to penetrate the unassuming crowd and open fire.
Even with the cemetery highly guarded, my gut churns.
That could also be the gunshot wound that is still healing.
One week is barely enough time to recover after having major surgery, but I am insistent.
Maxim shifts in his spot just behind my wife, his head tilting slightly to the right as he tugs on his earlobe nonchalantly.
Everything is clear.
Taking my place at the back of the receiving line, my black umbrella allows for just enough coverage to keep me from looking suspicious as the rain drops against it, the sound loud amongst the silent mourners.
I keep my gaze from wandering too much and drawing suspicion.
There are only a handful of people who know I am still alive and drawing attention to myself is something I don’t need in case I am recognized. That is a complication I don’t need.
The line trudges forward, and I take the time to simply look at her. My wife. The woman I took a bullet for.
Her jaw is clenched, emerald eyes hard as she clenches and unclenches her fists at her side. A sign she is expecting something bad.
Vas hasn’t informed her of what is coming next. Ava is no doubt under the impression she will be cast aside once the funeral ends. That isn’t the case. She has just inherited the largest, most powerful criminal organization on the west coast. Soon she will learn more about who I am. What I do.
That I am not merely just the leader of the Bratva. I am also the founder and CEO of a multi-billion-dollar security company.
We’ve discussed the company before, but in the short time we were married I never fully discuss with her just how far of a reach I have both legally and criminally. The world’s largest target is now painted on Ava’s back.
All because I needed to fake my death.
There is a threat out there worse than Christian, and it needs to be taken care of. Something I can only do if everyone believes me to be gone.
My wife is stunning in a pair of high waisted black trousers that cling to her shapely legs.
She tucked a cream silk blouse into the waistline and covered herself with a brass buttoned Armani blazer.
I am slightly miffed that Vas didn’t make her wear a thicker jacket. It isn’t fucking summer out here.
Ava shifts slightly from side to side uncomfortably, her heels sinking into the wet earth beneath her feet. She left her hair down, the luxurious red curls framing her porcelain features that are highlighted by a minimal amount of makeup.
She doesn’t paint herself up like most women her age, but she does try to appear stronger and more resilient than she feels.
It is easy to spot in the way she holds her shoulders erect, spine stiff.
Her emerald eyes are hard as she quietly greets the men and women who came to pay their respects to the new Pakhan, no doubt believing the soft platitudes are meant for Vas.
Ava will soon come to realize what I left her.
What I will be back to claim.
Just as soon as I take care of my own problems.
Starting with Kirill Kasyanov and that fucking bastard who calls himself Jonathon Archer. He might be a real FBI agent, but everything from his name to his background is false. I knew it from the moment I saw him on the video feed Neil provided me of Ava while she was held captive by Christian.
It is the reason I turned to Serena the night of the gala. Her family’s involvement with my father goes back long before I was born. I needed that information and so I put the plan together the minute I learned about Kenzi.
It pained me to keep what I knew about her sister secret when Ava had been nothing but worried for Kenzi, but I couldn’t risk putting my wife even further in danger.
“Isn’t spying on your wife at your own funeral a bit morbid?
” The voice is light but there is a hardness that taints it, an edge that she can’t quite hide.
I barely hear her approach. Her footsteps are light on the grass, shadow barely visible due to the dim clouds crowding the sky.
I wonder what my wife would think if she knew the truth about the woman who so casually snuck up on me.
How she spent the last few years of her life training to be an assassin.
A ghost.
“Isn’t showing up at the funeral of the man you killed a bit stereotypical for a psychopath?” I shoot back, my eyes never falling from my wife. “It’s terribly predictable, don’t you think?”
“Sociopath,” she corrects calmly. As if it makes any difference what you call it. Crazy is crazy and wherever she has been has given that to her in spades.
Keeping my eyes forward, I shift slightly, drawing her into my periphery. After all, one should never turn their back on a serial killer.
A paid one at that.
I can’t help but point out one thing, though. “If my wife sees you, Kenzi,” I smirk. “She’ll kill you.”
The sociopath shrugs nonchalantly, her jacket rustling slightly.
“Vas even told me she has a picture of you with your eyes scratched out pinned to her wall with one of my knives,” I continue just to see if I can get a rise out of her. “The tip goes straight through your throat.”
“Sisters disagree all the time.” Kenzi smiles widely, her lips parting to reveal pearly white teeth. Fuck, she resembles a Strzyga. A female demon in Russian folklore that is much like a vampire. At least she isn’t a rotting corpse, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t drink the blood of her enemies.
Hell, the bitch probably bathes in it.
“She’ll get over it,” Kenzi sighs softly, her light tone dipping slightly before she pulls it back in place like nothing happened. “Especially once she finds out I didn’t, in fact, kill you.”
“Still shot me though,” I mutter a bit petulantly, the pain in my abdomen flaring at the memory. I can still hear Ava screaming my name. Her wail haunts my dreams.
“You told me to make it look real.”
“And you did.” My lips curl in distaste. “By blowing up the ambulance. You could have shot me in the shoulder.”
The woman falls silent for a brief pause before she snorts the thought away. “Nah.” She scrunches up her nose at the thought. “Needed to make it believable. No one would have panicked as much if you had been shot in the shoulder.”
“That was what we agreed to.”
“And I altered our agreement,” she presses on. “Stop being such a big Russian baby about it. It’s not attractive.”
We lapse into silence which isn’t all that uncomfortable seeing as how we are two predators standing side by side. Two people who had violence thrust upon us without our consent.
We are kindred souls in that aspect.
Compared to her sister, Kenzi is an enigma.
I wonder if she had the same knack for lying before she was sold to the Chameleon Agency or if it is the result of her training.
I’ve talked to her several times and her ability to switch her emotions on and off at the drop of a hat is something both awe inspiring and concerning.
She is obviously trained to fit into any situation she can, flipping from one personality to the next like she is turning the pages of her favorite book.
Little is known about the secret underground agency, but from the intel I managed to gather they are a mediator of sorts.
Who gave themselves a horrible name.
The Chameleon Agency.
Pfft.
There are rumors floating around the underground about a group who have been buying up women left and right before they ever hit the sex auction.
Whispers laden the streets these days, hushed conversations on missing girls of all ages.
Ones no one would care about, and the police would never search for.
It all leads back to one place.
The Dollhouse.
Kenzi mentions the name a time or two, but beyond that, she refuses to give up any information. Not out of any sorted twisted loyalty that I can glean from her, but from the one thing that motivates people the most to keep their mouth shut.
Fear.
Kenzi, the serial killing sociopath, is afraid.
And rightly so.
Since learning their name, I have connected the Dollhouse to more than a dozen high-target assassinations in the last ten years.
Congressmen, presidents, Al Qaeda leaders, the list goes on and those are only the ones I can find.
Who knows how many more people they have murdered or how many events they have controlled?
“You don’t have to go back, you know,” I whisper. The receiving line is dying down, and it won’t be long before I am noticed. Maksim scratches his nose. Another signal.
It is time to go.
With a heavy heart, I turn away from my wife and walk away. She is the woman I once called my weakness and the chink in my armor, but I had been wrong. Ava makes me stronger without even knowing it. I was blind for so long to it.
Slowly, I make my way toward the modest sized SUV parked at the far end of the cemetery.
“They’re already suspicious,” Kenzi admits with a bite to her lip. She follows just behind me; her body angled mildly toward me. It is a smart move. If either me or one of my men makes to incapacitate her, she could easily knife me between the ribs as she makes her escape.
I have no plans to betray her.