Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
“He couldn’t be that stupid, surely.” Konstantine leans low in his chair before folding his arms over his chest and crinkling his dark brows. “There’s stupid, and then there’s stupid. That’s the latter.” He nudges his head to the still image of Dr. Abdulov standing across from a wheelchair-bound Irina at a nurses’ station desk in the surgical department.
I shrug. It is unexpected. My replies are usually more cut and dry.
After checking Zoya’s feed and noting it is still blank since she charged the dirtbox within minutes of Konstantine advising me it had finally gone flat, I ask, “What can you get me on Irina’s admission?” Konstantine’s fingers stop flying over the keys of his laptop when I say, “Not what the hospital’s information system says.” I wet my dry lips before straying my eyes to the command center he set up in the room next to my office earlier today. “From the system we unearthed today.”
“You clearly believe he is the latter,” Konstantine murmurs when he gets the gist of what I am requesting.
Government staff are the same as politicians. They tell you what they want you to know and only share the truth with those who need to know.
To the federation, that need rarely goes past them.
Konstantine’s fingers barely touch his keyboard over the next fifteen minutes. We can’t have our infiltration announced or we will be booted out in less than a nanosecond. He needs to follow steps already taken more than create his own. It makes it a slow and tedious search, but the result makes up for the delay.
Irina Ivanov’s admission is for the exact reason I accepted an invitation to meet with Dr. Abdulov and Dr. Azores today. Except she isn’t purchasing organs. Hers were sold to someone as desperate as me to save a loved one as I am to avenge the death of another.
After a moment of reflection not long enough to ensure I’m not making a mistake, I say, “Get me contact information for Matvei.”
Konstantine looks at me as if I have grown a second head. I’m beginning to wonder the same. Maksim has more ties to the bratva than his younger brother does, but that’s why I need to go around him. I need to be in favor to someone outside of our realm, and Matvei is the best person to help me establish that.
It takes a lot of fucking gall to potentially hurt the people you’re trying to save from the carnage, but if anyone can do it and come out stronger, it’ll be me.
With guilt that I’m taking steps that may hurt someone too young to defend himself, I log into the security feed of Zakhar’s room a little after midnight instead of slipping into bed with the woman who has my head in such a state that I refuse to wash my hands for the fear of losing her scent.
I’m not surprised to discover Zakhar is actually asleep this time. The pain medication they’ve been pumping into him via an IV over the past two weeks makes him groggy, but he’s been struggling to keep down even water the past two days, so he’s more lethargic than usual.
That’s how the doctor in charge of his care survived telling me he won’t clear him for travel. I pushed to get the answer I wanted how I always do—with violence—but no number of threats rolled the dice in my favor.
Zakhar is too sick to travel. Not even a motorcade of ambulances could guarantee he would survive the three-thousand-mile trip I wanted him to face. He’s in his final stages of life, and I feel like a complete fucking prick that I keep placing my needs before his.
If Mikhail had done the same, I wouldn’t have a future to contemplate, much less one that involved others.
The motion-detected surveillance camera announces my watch has been busted a mere second before a husky, sleep-deprived voice breaks through the speakers of my laptop. “He’s slept more than usual today, but he has also eaten more.” Under the watchful eye of a monitoring system mothers-to-be would pay out the eye to have, my father leaves the corner of Zakhar’s room where Anoushka set up a cot for him. “I think that’s a good sign, but what would I know? I was trained to read a teleprompt from the age of four. That’s as far as my skill set goes.”
This is the first time he’s announced disdain for his life plan.
It isn’t something I thought he would ever display.
I guess Zakhar’s condition is affecting more people than just me.
As he scrubs at his tired eyes, he inches closer to the camera with inbuilt speakers. “How was the meeting today? Did they have a solution?”
I’m so caught off guard by the genuine hope in his tone that I nod before recalling that he can’t see me. “They believe they can find a suitable candidate for Zak.”