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“Something to look forward to.” I don’t miss the edge of amusement in his voice.

“Dimitry,” Luke says, once he has the phone again. “Paddy and I are heading back across the ditch. He’s got a friend who needs a hand in Ireland, and after this, I owe him. I might be out of touch for a bit. Just wanted to let you know.”

I shake my head wryly. “You’re a sucker for punishment, Luke, you know that? Are you sure you don’t want to come on board with us full-time? I know Roman would love to have you.”

“I told you once before.” I can tell he’s smiling. “I left the army a long time ago, and I’m not about to swear allegiance to another one. But I’m always a phone call away, brother.”

I nod, still kicking my foot against the railing. “Check your Mercura account in the morning. There’ll be a damn good set of figures in it. Paddy’s, too.”

Luke’s answer comes immediately. “I didn’t do it for the money, brother.”

I swipe a hand over my face, finding it suddenly hard to speak. “I know that,” I manage eventually. “Thank you.”

“Yup.” Luke’s dismissive acceptance makes me smile. “By the way, Paddy says to thank you for the craic. ”

I roll my eyes skyward. “That fucker is mad, you know that?”

“Oh,” he says cheerfully, “I know. Believe me—I know.”

There’s a clatter of laughter in the background, and I hear Turbo’s voice. I frown. “I take it that Banderos mate of yours was less than truthful when he said he had no contacts in Thailand.” I’m still pissed off about that. “So much for telling us all he knew.”

“That wasn’t quite how it went down.” Luke sounds like he’s trying not to laugh. “Juan sent a team out to shake up the Banderos, get Jacey’s people out of his supply train. That led him to Turbo. From what I gather, Pete then became quite... insistent on being involved.”

I grin at that; the thought of Pete knocking the hell out of Turbo is one I find immensely satisfying.

“Anyway, it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement,” Luke goes on. “The Cardenas cartel will be supplying the Banderos directly from now on. Under Turbo’s leadership.”

“Christ.” I rub a hand over my face. “Remind me not to vacation in Australia anytime soon.”

“Well, from what I hear,” he says, clearly amused, “you’ll be having a wedding over that way very soon—at least you will be if Daddy Chalmers’s shotgun has anything to say about it.”

A wedding.

Right now, talk of anything like weddings seems like another world. One I don’t want to think about while I’m still covered in blood, with Yakov’s face floating behind my eyes.

I end the call, too wired to go downstairs and too tired to even begin to process the night’s events. I lean over the railing of the yacht, staring out across the dark water, my thoughts a tangled jumble of past and present.

I have a father.

It doesn’t feel real, any more than my mother’s death does.

I want to go downstairs and lose myself in Abby’s body .

I want to open a bottle of vodka with Roman and drink the lot.

And I want to sit across the table from Leon and fill in the missing pieces of my past.

But right now, I can’t manage any of those things. I can’t seem to do anything but stare out at the night and see my mother’s face in the water.

She didn’t abandon me in that orphanage.

Maybe a part of me always knew that. But another part of me has always been stuck, held hostage by my six-year-old self on the pavement outside the orphanage door, the smell of drugged milk in my nose and my mother’s voice coming from far away.

Ekaterina.

I forced myself to forget her name long ago, just as I did the peacock hanging on our wall, the one thing she took with her, no matter where she went.

Which means that now it’s in the water, with her body.

Grief twists inside me with a sudden, unexpected ferocity.

I let it come.

After so many years of tortured imagining, it’s almost a relief to know what happened to her.

And I take an odd comfort in knowing that she would have had the peacock with her. Knowing that although her body was lost to the sea, she still had a piece of our home to take to her final rest.

I think of the peacock hanging in Leon’s house, wondering how it is that he had one exactly the same. Somehow, I’m certain it isn’t a coincidence.

I shake my head, trying to clear it. There’ll be time for all those questions. And I can’t hide up here forever.

I turn to go, bracing myself for the barrage of people, the conversations I’m not ready to have. Just as I’m about to walk down the stairs, I see Leon, standing on the deck below mine. He’s facing out to sea, but in the light cast from a nearby window, his face is clearly visible.

At first, I mistake the glistening on his cheeks for sea spray.

Then I see the grief etched into every line, as deep and unfathomable as the ocean in front of him, and realize it’s tears.

He glances up, meeting my eyes. We look at each other for a timeless moment, two relative strangers united by loss, not only of someone we both loved, but for the family we could never have together—and that we never will.

Leon pulls a balled-up piece of cloth from his pocket and stares down at it, rolling it in his hands. He raises it to his face, closing his eyes, and inhales deeply.

Then he throws it over the railing.

It’s only when the light catches it that I realize what it is: the silk peacock hanging.

Somehow I know he brought it here in the hope it would be reunited with Ekaterina’s. Instead, he’s sending it to comfort her, in the watery grave Yakov consigned her to.

The silk rides the air slowly down to the water and ripples on the surface for a time, the golden peacock glittering in the ship’s lights.

My father and I remain on our separate decks, standing silent vigil until the last glimmer finally sinks in the yacht’s wake, taken by the night sea.