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“Eighteen months ago, I had another surgery.New surgeon, new technique.”Alex bounced on the balls of his feet a few times.“Much better now.”
“What’s next?A marathon dressed as a unicorn?”
He leaned in close.“If you suggest that to Bradley, I’ll cut out your tongue as you sleep.”
For a moment, our gazes locked, and suddenly, the house felt really, really warm.Was there a problem with the thermostat?I tried to voice the question, but no words came out, and I ran the tip of my tongue over too-dry lips instead.Then Alex stepped back and the heat was gone, replaced by an odd hollow feeling I was unfamiliar with.
“Do you want a drink?”he asked.
“This is my house.Shouldn’t I be the one offering?”
“Thanks, I’ll have coffee.”
“Asshole.”
“Black, no sugar.”
I jerked a thumb over my shoulder.“The kitchen’s that way.Help yourself.”
But he didn’t.He followed me instead.“Where are you going?”
“If ever there was a day that called for liquor, it’s this one.”
The “Don’t worry, be happy” mirror opened on a hinge, and I flipped the light switch to illuminate the stairs behind it.When Alex paused at the top, I turned and crooked a finger.
“Will you walk into my parlour, said a spider to a fly.”
He didn’t heed the warning, just trailed me down the steps until we reached my favourite room in the house.My basement lair.Part gym, part surveillance centre, part weapons locker.At the far end, I’d laid out mats and a weight bench with a treadmill in one corner.A punching bag hung from the ceiling, and I’d screwed mirrors to the wall so I could identify my mistakes and correct them.Opposite the stairs, a bank of monitors showed me every room of my home and the Craft Cabin, and sound was available too.People sure did say interesting things when they thought you weren’t listening.A locked strongroom to the right of the stairs held my toys, some I’d bought and more that I’d retrieved from weapons caches when I judged enough time had passed.I’d emptied three so far.At another two, someone had beaten me to the punch, and I’d once thought that Zacharov had found them, but now I suspected Ilya or Vik.Or possibly Ana.Maybe I should ask her?Only the four of us remaining had known the precise locations.
A squashy leather sofa nestled beside the weapons locker because sometimes I liked to sit and read.Or sleep.Even with the silent alarms that I’d installed around the perimeter of the property watching over me, I felt safer down here than I did upstairs.
“Drink?”I offered my solitary shot glass to Alex.“I can drive you back to the Peninsula before I drown my sorrows.”
“I can walk there.”
“You’re not tired?”
He just stared at me.Right.Spetsnaz.He didn’t get tired.
“I have four kinds of horilka,” I said.
“No Russian vodka?”
“No.”Switching to the Ukrainian version had been another act of rebellion.My mother came from Kyiv, and she’d always told me that I had her spirit.Now I took it literally.
“Okay.”Alex didn’t question me further, and for that, I was grateful.“Surprise me.”
“Didn’t I do that already today?”
“More than once.”
I poured medova z pertsem—traditional horilka with chilli peppers and honey—for Alex, then chose ternivka for myself.A bittersweet moment, and I wasn’t talking about the flavour.When I was small, I’d spent summer days picking sloes with my mama so she could make her own ternivka, and even now, those memories hurt.
Block it out, Dasha.
“Budmo.”Let’s live for the moment.
I held up the bottle in a toast, then drank straight from it.Poured the damn stuff down my throat.Why even pretend I was going to stay sober tonight?