“I think Vasily coded her that way in his own contacts,” Maxim explains. “That way, if any of the Vory saw it, they wouldn’t think anything of it either. He didn’t want to take the chance of their connection getting back to Gleb.”
“That makes sense,” Kat murmurs. “I just... I still can’t believe that he might be my father.”
“Yeah.” Maxim eyeballs me as he leans back into his recliner. “That could complicate things.”
Kat looks at me. “How?”
“If Vasily makes this connection himself, then there’s a chance he could try to use that against us. He could get to Gleb first. Spin this in another direction. I don’t know.”
“So we need to go to Gleb?” She twists her hands together in her lap.
“I need to go to Gleb,” I clarify. “Test the waters. Then we can go from there. I’m not taking you anywhere near him until I have an idea how he’s going to react to this news.”
Maxim stands up and pads to the kitchen. “I think I have something that might help. At the very least, it couldn’t hurt.”
When he returns, he has a file in his hands. It looks like it’s about a hundred years old. And I’m curious what it could be.
“Your mother’s notes.” He sets the file on the coffee table in front of us. “If you see Gleb, you can give these to him as proof that she didn’t give Vasily everything. They are the original copies. The only copies.”
“How did you get those?” Kat narrows her eyes at the yellow folder.
“Honestly?” Maxim sighs. “Vasily sent me after your mother. It wasn’t something I was keen on doing, but you have to understand that in this line of work, you don’t get much of a choice.”
Horror washes over Kat’s face as her gaze meets his. “Did you—?”
“No,” he cuts her off. “The minute I saw she had a kid, I backed out. My loyalties to Vasily were already on thin ice at that point in my life, so I didn’t want that on my conscience. I told your mother the truth. What I was sent there to do, and that I wouldn’t be the only one. She understood that. But I suppose it was only a matter of time before it happened.”
“Do you know who?” Kat presses. “Who killed her?”
Maxim looks at me, as if to say this is just another reason for me to go after the bastard. “It was Vasily. He did it himself.”
Kat takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, shuddering. “I understand now. I get why he has to die. He’s poison. Everything he touches, he destroys...”
Her words drift off right as Josh opens his eyes and stirs back to life, blinking sleepily as he glances around the unfamiliar surroundings.
“Hotel?” he murmurs.
“No, sweetheart.” Kat leans over and kisses his forehead, stroking his hair back. “We are at a... friend’s house.”
Maxim gives Josh his best attempt at a non-threatening smile, but Josh just clings to my shirt, digging his fingers into the fabric so nobody can peel him away. It’s second nature when I dip my head forward and kiss him on the top of his hair too. Kat watches the whole interaction, teary-eyed but happy. Despite all the shit happening around us, we still have each other. And I know now that she will fight for that.
The words are on the verge of spilling from my lips. Words I’ve never confessed to a woman other than my own mother. But I realize we still have an audience, and right now, I need to get us back on the road.
“We need to get going,” I tell Maxim. “But there’s something you should know.”
“What is it?” he asks.
“There were a couple of men in the city already. They found us somehow. I took care of them, but—”
“The others won’t be far behind,” he finishes for me with a sigh. “I suspected as much.”
“I didn’t mean to bring trouble to your door.” I meet his gaze. “But now that I have, I think it’s best you leave too.”
“Son of a bitch,” Maxim grumbles under his breath. “I’m an old man now, kid. Life on the run is too hard for the likes of me.”
“So maybe it’s time to quit running,” I say. “Come to New York. Help me with Gleb, and let’s finish this once and for all. Together.”
He leans back, glances around the shoddy house he calls home, and shrugs. “Ah, fuck it. What else have I got to do?”
“Where are we?” Kat stirs from her thoughts as we pull into the garage.
“It’s a friend of Maxim’s,” I tell her. “We’re going to trade vehicles again. I’ll grab Josh.”
She gets out of the car without a protest, resigned to the fact that this is our life for now. But I meant what I said. It won’t always be that way. And I hope she can come to believe that at some point.
Maxim does the talking, and within twenty minutes, we have two different rigs to get back on the road. But before we leave Providence, there’s just one more thing I need to do. We load up, and Maxim follows us to another service station just off the interstate.
“Stay here,” I tell Kat. “I’ll be right outside, okay?”
She nods, and I meet Maxim behind the SUV, pulling out the burner phone I took off Vasily’s guys. Maxim’s eyes collide with mine in quiet contemplation.
“I haven’t trusted anyone in a long time, Lev.”
“I know.”
“Truth be told, I’m so goddamned paranoid, I’m still not even sure I can trust you. But you have a family in there, and I don’t want to see the same thing happen to that girl that happened to her mother.”
“I get it.” I nod. “I don’t want to see that either.”
“I’m going to drip-feed you information,” he says. “We’ll take it one day at a time. For now, I think the thing you should start with is that neighbor who lived in your mother’s building, Roger Benson.”
“What about him?” I ask.
“He wasn’t just the friendly neighborhood handyman. He was also a retired federal agent.”
“Shit,” I murmur. “That’s who my mother was talking to?”
Maxim nods. “She probably thought he could help her. He probably thought he could too. Who knows? But the feds were hot on that case for a while, trying to figure out who did him in. Vasily was a paranoid fuck for months. He even went out of state for a while.”
“I remember.”
“You might want to lead with that. I’m going to go take a piss before we hit the road.”
He walks off toward the service station, and I stare at the phone in my hand. There’s no more putting it off. Vasily showed his hand today when he sent men after my family, again. And now, it’s my turn to show mine.
I punch in the numbers, glancing at the SUV where Kat and Josh are securely tucked inside. The phone rings three times before Vasily picks up, half-breathless.
“Ivan,” he grunts. “What the fuck—”
“I’m afraid Ivan can’t come to the phone right now,” I cut him off. “Or ever again, assuming that was the man you sent after my family today.”
There is a moment of silence and then a low growl. “Levka.”