An hour after taking Ariel back to her apartment, I find myself standing in a warehouse that reeks of gasoline and Serbian arrogance.
The flames have been put out, but the damage remains. Charred shipping containers slump like rotten teeth. Puddles of chemical runoff shimmer rainbow-slick under emergency lights. Half my shipment of pharmaceutical materials—the legal shipment, the one meant to keep DEA auditors off my ass—is ash.
“Third strike this month,” Feliks mutters, kicking a melted pill bottle. “These svolochi aren’t even trying to be sneaky anymore.”
I crouch, dusting soot off a blackened ledger. The numbers swim—losses stacked on losses, alliances stretching thin. My father’s smug face floats behind my eyelids. This is what happens when you play house instead of war, boy. Pathet
