Of course there was a shooting range.
How had I not known there was a shooting range?
“You have a private weapons facility,” I said slowly, looking around, “and no one thought to mention this to me?”
“You never asked.”
“I didn’t think Ihadto ask!”
Sasha’s mouth twitched slightly; he seemed to be enjoying this more than he should have.
And then I spotted Kyrill.
A cigarette burned lazily between his fingers, its faint glow cutting through the dimming light as the sun set, painting everything in deep gold and shadow, and catching on his silver earrings.
He didn’t move when we approached; he just watched us with the same unreadable, slightly bored expression.
“This feels like a setup,” I muttered under my breath.
“It is,” Kyrill drawled.
“Great.”
The heat had eased just enough to be able to breathe without feeling as though you were under personal attack from humidity. The air buzzed faintly with insects — the kind of background noise making everything feel more isolated.
Sasha didn’t let go of my hand until we had stepped fully into the range.
“This is where you learn.”
I looked at the targets.
Wow.Okay. So we were definitely doing this.
The first thing I learned about guns was they were significantly louder than they looked in movies. Thesecond thing I learned was how bad I was at using one — allegedly.
“Again,” Sasha said behind me as I missed the target by several yards.
I turned my head just enough to glare at him. “I just went again.”
“Yes,” Kyrill muttered from my left. “And somehow it got worse.”
Rude. Those two were totally ganging up on me.
“Okay, hold on.” I lowered the gun and turned toward them. “In my defense, I don’t think I should have been handed a weapon this powerful within the first week of trying.”
“This one is not powerful,” Kyrill said flatly.
I stared at him, blinking slowly. “It made my bonesvibrate.”
“That is normal.”
“It shouldnotbe normal.”
He just looked at me, his icy blue eyes completely unimpressed.
Kyrill was — there was no delicate way to put it — massive. Like, aggressively so. Everything about him looked like it had been built for intimidation. He had broad shoulders and thick arms, and his solid muscle was layered in a way suggesting he was simply built this way, not because he went to the gym.
He looked like someone who had been carved out of violence and then been given a sense of humor as an afterthought.