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8
NINE
After seventeen years spent doing the mad general’s bidding, I’d always thought nothing could surprise me, but it turned out I’d been wrong.Of all the things I’d considered might be in the forest, Nastya and her murderous little friend hadn’t even made the list.
Nastya… I noticed the second blonde, the tough one, called her Ana, but in the beginning, she’d been Nastya.It wasn’t until we’d started learning English and the boys began calling her Nasty A that she’d stopped answering to the old nickname.They didn’t call her Nasty A in front of the general, of course, or Nastya, or even Ana.He hadn’t liked us to use names, period.To him, we were numbers, tools, barely human at all.
Seven of Ten.
Nine of Ten.
Could he really be dead?
I found it difficult to believe, but if he was alive, then how was I still breathing?Nastya could have slit my throat where I lay and melted away into her world of darkness, and all the Lucas and Colts in the world wouldn’t have been able to find her.My death would have become nothing but a footnote in Baldwin’s Shore history.
And who was the new blonde?
She walked on ahead as I leaned on Nastya’s arm, faking a limp.In truth, Ihadtweaked my ankle when I kicked the blondesuka, though it was just a niggle, barely even Advil-worthy.But if I needed an excuse to take time off to deal with this…thismess, then it wouldn’t hurt for Luca to believe I was injured.A few days in hand would give me a head start if I needed to run, or the space to hunt for Shauna’s “cougar” without Brooke and Paulo breathing down my neck.
What was Nastya’s game?Would she truly leave Baldwin’s Shore as she’d suggested?Even if she did, the thought of her knowing my location left me twitchy.Should I disappear again?I was better prepared this time—I had money, a backup vehicle, a plan—but this town was my home now.If I left, where would it end?Would I still be running at sixty?Seventy?I’d wanted to believe those days were over.
I glanced at Nastya, but she was focused on our surroundings.A mistake, if I felt inclined to slice open her carotid artery.What’s that, you say?I didn’t have a knife?Beg to differ—Nastya and her friend had both missed the scalpel blade in my hair clip.Tsk-tsk-tsk.They should have known better.
Nastya… The baby of the team, although she’d certainly had to grow up in a hurry.I’d just turned fourteen when I was dragged into the cut-throat world of professional assassination, but she’d still been two months shy of thirteen.We’d all been kids.Ilya was the oldest, and also the biggest prick with the exception of the general himself.
My phone buzzed with a text.
Luca: Going to the hospital with our mystery victim.Can you keep an eye on the two strangers until I get back?Do you feel safe around them?
And that was why I didn’t want to leave.I might not have close friends, but there were people here who cared whether I lived or died, and that was oddly comforting.
Me: They don’t worry me.How long will you be?
Luca: Couple of hours?I’ll keep you updated.
Good.That gave me time to fix my arm.An emergency-room visit was out of the question, as was stitching the wound single-handed, but I could probably do something with glue.This wasn’t the first time I’d had to do running repairs on myself, and it wouldn’t be the last.
We reached the rear entrance to the store, and I let us inside.Nastya had carried the jump bag, and as soon as we got through the door, the tough blonde began rummaging through it.She came up with a bottle of pills and swallowed a couple dry.
“Advil?”she offered.
“No thanks.”
I wasn’t ingesting anything provided by her.
“Pass them here?”Nastya asked.“I have a headache now.”
The thinner blonde wasn’t like Nastya and the bitch.She fidgeted from foot to foot before she finally spoke.
“Emmy?What happened out there?”
So Emmywasher real name?I’d figured there was a fifty-fifty chance she’d lied to Luca.She peered at her face in the full-length mirror Paulo had hung beside the couch, assessing the damage.
“A tourist got worked over by an unknown assailant.”
“How do you know she was a tourist?”
“Firstly, Darla here didn’t recognise her, and secondly, the woman had a room key from the Peninsula in her pocket.Did you happen to bump into anyone called Leona while we were there?”