Page 18 of Blood & Snow

"I should get some sleep before my shift tomorrow. The emergency department has been busier than usual lately."

She kisses my forehead before heading toward her bedroom, the same gesture our mother used to make when she tucked us in as children.

The affection feels undeserved now, directed at someone who no longer exists.

The Nadya who left for a job interview tonight was still innocent.

The one who returned has blood under her fingernails and a burner phone connecting her to Moscow's criminal underground.

I sit alone in the kitchen after Irina goes to bed, staring at the money I've placed on the table.

Enough rubles to solve immediate problems and provide security for weeks to come.

All I had to do was describe to a man how he executed someone, then clean up the evidence while he held a gun on me.

The rational part of my mind understands that I had no choice.

Refuse Xander's demands, and I would've joined the body on the floor.

Accept them, and I live to see my family again.

What I did was simple even though the moral equation is impossible to solve.

But sitting here in my sister's kitchen, surrounded by a normal family life, I understand that somethingfundamental has changed.

I can't return to who I was before tonight, can't pretend that answering a classified advertisement didn't lead me into a dark abyss I'm not sure I can extricate myself from.

The burner is hidden quietly in my coat pocket, but I know it will ring eventually.

When it does, I'll answer immediately and follow whatever instructions he gives me, because the alternative is watching everyone I love suffer the same fate as the man whose blood I scrubbed from an apartment floor tonight.

I gather the money from the table and hide it in my bedroom.

Tomorrow, I'll deposit some of it in my bank account and use the rest to buy groceries and pay bills.

But I'm not sure I'm going to sleep at all tonight.

I've crossed a line that can't be uncrossed, made choices that can't be unmade.

If that phone rings, I'll be forced to answer and respond.

It's the only way to keep my sister and her children safe.

5

XANDER

The warehouse sits on the outer ring of Moscow where industrial buildings decay between railroad tracks and empty lots.

I've been watching the Brotherhood's operations here for three days, learning their patterns and timing.

I have to admit it's a perfect location for the shady shit they do, but it’s also very isolated.

Excellent for what I'm about to perpetrate.

Two vehicles arrive at midnight carrying four soldiers each and enough heroin to fund their operations for months.

I'm no fool. I know it was stolen from our shipments, refined in their laboratories, ready for distribution through networks they built by muscling in on our territory.