Page 93 of At Midnight

More Instructions

Raphael Mirabaud

I knew what the shipment would be.

I just had to hear it from him

before I burned it all down and put us all in danger.

The next meeting with Piotr Ilyin was scheduled for after lunch in a park instead of his usual restaurant. Good to know that Piotr wasn’t stupid.

Raphael flipped his overcoat’s collar up to cover the back ofhis neck and tucked the lapels more closely under his chin. The wind cut through his coat. Frozen air skimmed over Lake Geneva, and blowing ice settled on the city. His thin leather gloves barely slowed the cold’s sharp bite.

Being outside for any length of time in this abominable weather was suspicious. Meeting in a nearly deserted park in early December was suspicious. Rogue Security neededto teach these amateurs some basic tradecraft.

Of course, Raphael wasn’t going to volunteer help to the Ilyin Bratva. If the police caught Piotr, then he got caught. That would be one of the better outcomes of this situation.

The park wasn’t entirely uninhabited. A few pedestrians hurried along the frozen sidewalks amongst the skeletal trees that shivered in the wind.

Not many.

Not enoughfor cover.

Half of them were probably Ilyin’s men.

Up ahead on the sidewalk, Piotr Ilyin was walking toward them, his head down against the wind and his hands tucked deeply in the pockets of his long, black coat. The wind sharpened, and Piotr grabbed his dark fedora, pressing it more firmly on his head.

When the two groups met, Piotr looked around. “No Valerian today?”

“It’s cold,” Raphaelsaid.

“This would be a nice fall day in Moscow,” Piotr said, grinning and rubbing his hands together. “You haven’t done away with him, have you?”

Raphael didn’t move his face. “Now why would I do that?”

Piotr laughed. “I like you, Raphael Mirabaud. You have a Russian sense of humor now. You’re funnier than you were as a teenager. You understand our traditions, and that is invaluable to us.”

He shrugged. Yes, his sense of humor had darkened since he was a youth who thought organized crime was a lark. “Do you have something for me?”

“There will be another shipment coming in that you need to take control of.”

“I don’t think the smash-and-grab will work again. They’ll be smarter.”

“It’s not guns this time, my friend, and we don’t have to steal this one. This transport is addressedto us, so there will be no competition for it. I have fifteen Russian girls coming in from Veliky Novgorod for sale.”

The ice that blasted through Raphael had nothing to do with the weather.

He didn’t so much as blink. “How old are they?”

“That shouldn’t matter to you.”

“I have to identify them. We wouldn’t want to call attention to ourselves by grabbing a group of Catholic schoolgirls whorode the wrong bus.”

“Ah, pragmatic. I like that. Between the ages of eight and fourteen, depending on what their buyers want them for.”

Horror.

That’s what their buyers wanted them for, utter horror. Buying a girl for a night or so was easy. You didn’t have to leave home or spend vast amounts for that. There were even phone apps to have one delivered.