Page 9 of The Mad Don
He drives, and the dock falls away behind us. The gunfire fades. The dark of the road comes up, the city is in the distance, and we are alive.
I press my forehead against the cold of the passenger window. I look out into the dark beside the dock.
He is there, standing between two of the far containers, the balaclava still pulled up, the cap still low, hands at his sides. He is standing perfectly still, watching the car go.
His eyes find mine through the window, but I cannot place him. I have never met him. I would remember a body like that, that grip, that voice. I would remember the snake.
And yet. The eyes and way he held himself when he stood still. Something about the line of his shoulders, the angle of his head when he turned to watch the car. Something familiar that I cannot reach.
The car carries me past him. I close my eyes against the window, and I try to grab the thought.
It slips.
Chapter Three
Yana
Annika ties off the bandage at Kirill’s shoulder and pats it once, gently, with the flat of her palm.
“There,” she says. “Try not to lift anything for two days.”
“I will try not to.”
She rolls her eyes and turns to me.
“Let me look at the arm.”
“It’s fine, Annika.”
“Yana.”
“It’s fine. The doctor stitched it last night. It’s already healing. You don’t need to do anything.”
She studies me for a moment. Then she sighs and sets the bandage roll down on the table.
“Fine. Both of you, fine.” She pauses at the door. “But if it gets red, Yana, you tell me. Not the doctor. Me.”
“Yes, Annika.”
She leaves. The door clicks shut behind her.
The study goes quiet.
Kirill rolls his shirt sleeve back down over the bandage and reaches for the cup of coffee at his elbow. His face has not been still since I came in. There is a tightness at the corner of his mouth that he has been carrying since the car ride home.
“Half of them,” he says.
I look at him.
“Half of the people here are compromised. I confirmed this morning. They are Mondi’s payroll, plus drivers, cooks, gardeners.”
I exhale.
“How long?”
“Over the last year. Mikhail is handling them.”
Kirill looks perplexed.
