“He’s even more unpredictable than you,” says Niko, watching the road with me. “But can you blame him after what Siguard told him? You’re lucky he didn’t stick his knife in you. We were all surprised."
“Myself included.”
“Igor has a lot of things to process.”
“Yes,” I say, “and I’m nervous to see which way he’ll turn.”
I slam my foot all the way to the floor, hitting the gas as we reach the peak of the mountain. I keep one eye on the road and another on the GPS, which says we’re four minutes away from reaching our destination.
The green pulsating dot gives me hope that Igor is still alive. You can never go into situations like these with expectations. For all we know, another person could be wearing his watch, stolen from his dead body.
“This is where I fucking come to dump dead bodies, Niko,” I gravel as we climb the last stretch.
A vulture sweeps overhead, circling a spot close to us.
Joy has a point. If I can’t protect my son, a twenty-seven-year-old grown adult, how the fuck am I meant to keep a newborn safe?
“Like father, like son,” says Niko, signaling to our left.
I turn, both hands on the steering wheel, and see a man on his knees, at mercy to the gun pointing directly his way.
I follow the gun up to the person holding it and kill the engine.Bylat.
I hop out of the car, Niko following.
More kneeling men materialize. I didn’t even see the others.
A dozen of them all kneel in a straight line, hands tied behind their backs by bloody pieces of rope.
I hear a bird caw in the distance, echoing through the valley.
Igor’s high enough up into the air to get away with murder. Several.
So far, he’s already gotten away with two. He walks down the line, building tension for the participants, threatening to kill them at any given second.
Niko nudges me in the side, pointing at something.
A dozen masks are all piled on top of each other.Fuck. These must be the leftover assassins Siguard and Igor hied.
And my son is rounding them all up and shooting them?
Nerves collate in my stomach. I don’t know how Igor has done this. Somehow, he’s successfully managed to drag a dozen trained assassins up here without any help.
He couldn't even successfully steal money from me.
The answer to how he did all of this is very clear—he’s angry. And when you hold all of that close to your chest, resenting the world for everything it took away from you, anything is possible.
This is the start of his revenge.
I step up onto the flat surface, Niko waiting behind.
“What is the meaning of this, Igor?” I say, close enough for only him to hear.
My son pins me a look, a cold wind shooting past us. “Don’t distract me.”
The only person who deserves to waste away up here is me. I’m the one Igor should be taking his resentment out on.
It’s worth the risk. If Igor shoots me, he’ll come to realize in time that it was a mistake, and maybe pull back on the vengeance.