Just as Taverner was passing a platter of sliced fruits along with some strong Sardinian cheese, Micheli turned up with another arrival. She burst into the room like a breath of fresh Kievan air, dropping her bag and hurling herself at me with all the force of a small atom bomb. Minka.
“Billie!” She started chattering in Ukrainian and I hugged her back hard, mostly to shut her up. She felt a little thin, and when she pulled back, I saw that her face had matured. Her jawline was sharper, and I could have sliced the Sardinian cheese on those cheekbones.
“How have you been, kid?”
She peered at me. “Better than you. Nobody tries to kill me. How do you like my hair?”
She preened, showing off the fresh piercing in her philtrum and her new haircut—she’d buzzed it short on the sides and dyed the long Mohawk in a cherry ombre effect.
“It’s cute,” I told her honestly. “Hungry?”
“Starving! The flight didn’t have a vegan option,” she said. That was a new development. Half-Ukrainian and half-Polish, the Minka of old could demolish a pork roast in no time flat. New Minka was a tofu queen.
She made the rounds then, hugging everyone else until we settled back around the table. Taverner fixed her a plate of roasted vegetables and bread as she scooped up the smaller cat.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“Gary,” Mary Alice told her.
“He is very small,” Minka observed. She was the only person I knew who actually pronounced it like the meme. Smol. Gary settled down onto her lap, cuddling up in her sweater. Akiko reached out to pinch the fabric of it between her fingers.
“This is interesting. Cashmere?”
“Seaweed,” Minka said, digging a fork into the plate Taverner passed her. “Knitted on a 3D printer. Very eco-friendly, see?” She turned back the sleeve to show the zero-waste seams. “I am all about the environment now.”
I decided not to mention the fact that flying around the world to follow a band on tour might damage her eco-warrior street cred.
Now that we were all safe, I allowed myself a minute to be good and pissed. I didn’t know if Naomi had lied or just made a mistake in the briefing about Lazarov’s lack of attachments, but it was a whopper of a screwup—the kind that can get you killed. I breathed in deeply, all the way to the bottom of my belly, and blew it out as slowly as I could. The anger was justified, but I knew how dangerous it was to let fury take over. I had learned a bit of pranayama could be helpful in these situations, so I focused on my breathing until the heat passed. The others chatted about a lot of nothing, the good kind of nothing. The nothing that had filled our days since the last mission and kept us all alive. If I’m honest, that kind of nothing had been giving me a little itch, just a small feeling of restlessness between my shoulder blades. Greece is gorgeous,don’t get me wrong. I lived on an island straight out of Homer, all wine-dark sea and herb-scented hills. The sunsets were the kind that made you believe in the chariot of the gods, winging its way in an arc across the sky. And I had someone to share it with—someone who loved me to my bones and liked to cook. I should have been completely happy.
But as I sat in the safe house, looking around that table at the people I cared most for in the world, trying to figure out who wanted to kill us, I realized that there are some jobs you leave, but they never leave you. I was playing at being retired because the truth was, I would be a killer until the day I died.
Chapter Thirteen
I texted Naomi before Icalled since I figured she would just ignore an unknown number. When she answered, I skipped the preliminaries.
“Something you’d like to tell us?” I asked.
“Billie. Good to hear from you. How are things on your end?” She sounded like a woman who was trying hard to be nonchalant. Too hard.
“Fine,” I said politely. “And how areyou?”
“Good, good. Matters here are under control.” In the background I could hear a few quick pops. Gunfire or firecrackers.
“It’s a little early for Fourth of July,” I said. “Where are you?”
“Nowhere special,” she replied. “Hang on a second.” She must have put the phone down because things sounded muffled. Another quick pop, then a second, much closer than thefirst two. When Naomi came back to the line, she was breathing heavy.
“Naomi, is someone shooting at you?”
“A little,” she admitted. “It’s actually not a great time for me. Maybe we could talk later?”
“Sure. Just find out who is trying to kill us before you call me back, okay?”
I heard running footsteps and the bang of a heavy door slamming shut. She was puffing hard now. “What do you mean? Who’s trying to kill you?”
“That’s what I need you to find out. They burned down Benscombe.”
“Were you in it?”