Page 115 of Blood & Snow

19

XANDER

Gray smoke coils toward the ceiling, mixing with the scent of nervous sweat that clings to everyone gathered around the table in the old warehouse conference room.

Four lieutenants sit across from me, faces illuminated by the harsh fluorescent lights that cast deep shadows beneath their eyes, causing them to appear as grim ghosts.

Igor spreads photographs in front of us—surveillance shots taken through telephoto lenses, grainy images captured from rooftops and alleyways.

Each picture shows the same man, Soran Shubin, Sokolov enforcer, forty-eight years old with graying temples and pale blue eyes as hollow as a skeleton.

"He hit the Kostas operation yesterday," Igor reports, tapping one of the photographs.

"Burned the entire warehouse, killed six of our Greek allies. The fire department found three bodies in the rubble, but the other three…"

He shakes his head.

"Pieces scattered across two city blocks after this butcher dismantled them like he was stripping a car."

I study Shubin's face, memorizing the cruel set of hismouth and the scar that runs from his left ear to his jawline.

Twenty years in the game has taught me to read violence in a man's features, and this one carries death behind his eyes.

As dark as the Devil, and as black as sin.

"Where is he now?" I ask.

"Moving between safe houses in the Zamoskvorechye district," Ivan answers, sliding another set of images across the table.

"Our sources put him at three different locations over the past week. He's being careful, never staying anywhere longer than forty-eight hours."

The photographs show apartment buildings with facades stained by decades of Moscow pollution.

Anonymous structures where men disappear into the urban maze, emerging only to kill and vanish again.

The underground network is rife with men like Shubin and he could vanish like an apparition if I'm not careful.

"He's protected?"

"Two bodyguards, maybe three. All Sokolov soldiers, all armed and paranoid now. After the shitstorm we've been raining down, it'll be hard to nab him, boss."

Igor lights another cigarette, the flame briefly illuminating his weathered features.

"But he has habits. Visits his mother every Tuesday evening, always alone, and he checks to see if he's being followed. But if we put someone on the house…"

I lean back in my chair, the weathered wood creaking under my weight.

Shubin's weakness is familial obligation, a sentiment that makes men predictable and ultimately dead.

It's the exact sort of weakness I have to avoid being ensnared by when it comes to Nadya.

If men like Shubin were to find out how truly she affects me, she would be my downfall.

"When did he last see the mother?"

"Six days ago," Ivan reports.

"Our surveillance confirms he'll be there tonight, between eight and ten o'clock. Thebuilding has one entrance, no security cameras, elderly residents who mind their own business."