TWENTY-ONE
Ronan
?????
????? ?????????? 4-? ?????, ??? 27???????, ???-???? 11235
I stareat the business card in my hand, glaring at the lettering written in Russian, blood roaring in my ears harder than a drumbeat.
What thefuckwould Simone be doing with something like this?
Oona wasn’t sure what it was when she found it in a pocket of Simone’s coat. But she used her phone to translate it. A translation I’ve double checked myself. Sure enough, it translates to exactly what I suspected:
Koschei.
Vodka Room, Brighton 4th Street, Building 27. Brooklyn, NY 11235.
I know a hitman card when I see one. This is the contact information for a Russian hitman nicknamed Koschei after some figure from Slavic folklore known as “The Deathless.”
Whoever this asshole is, my wife has his business card for one reason and one reason only.
She wants somebody dead.
I have a pretty good fucking guess who that somebody is.
The questions start piling up in my head, each one worse than the last. How did she get this? Why would she have it if she’s not up to something nefarious? Is she working with Malcolm to assassinate me and my family from the inside? Did Rurik Raguzin lie to my fucking face at Gossier’s when he said the Bratva has nothing to do with what’s going on?
…has this whole goddamn marriage been a setup from the start?
“Ronan...”
Oona pulls me out of my spiraling thoughts. I look up to find her standing near the door, fussing with her apron. She looks uneasy.Nervous.
Two things Oona never is.
“It could be a mistake,” she offers. “Simone could have that card by accident. Maybe someone gave it to her and she didn’t know what it was. Maybe she?—”
“How would that happen, Oona?” I snap irritably. “How does one accidentally come into possession of aRussian hitman’s business card?”
She opens her mouth then closes it a few more times before coming up with a stammering excuse. “I... well, I… I suppose... it does look bad, I’ll grant you that. But you should hear her explanation first, Ronan. Things’ve been so good between the two of you! Surely there’s a reasonable?—”
“Aren’t you supposed to be leaving for your vacation?”
She blinks, caught off guard by the sharp pivot.
“Then you know what to do. Go finish packing. Get out of my sight.”
It’s the first time in the twenty plus years I’ve known her that Oona doesn’t fire back. Usually her hands would notch at her girthy hips and she’d lay into me for mouthing off to her. She’d have no fucks to give that I’m a warlord in the Irish Mob and she’s just some caretaker of our home.
Instead she simply sighs, shoulders sagging, and turns toward the door. Before she leaves, she pauses long enough with her hand on the knob.
“You’re not in your right mind since Lochlan’s passing. Don’t do somethin’ you’ll regret.”
Then she’s gone, the door clicking shut behind her.
I stand in silence, my chest heaving, the business card crumpled in my fist. Seconds tick by following her absence where I don’t budge an inch, fuming on the spot as nothing but the grandfather clock fills the room with noise.
It’s out of the stillness that suddenly I lose it.