“I understand. It is who he is,” she admitted, meeting his gaze unflinchingly, hearing his warning and shrugging it off. “But he will not catch me.”
Bullet sighed. “We will delay him as long as possible, but if he goes after the other head of the Bratva, he will learn what you have hidden from him and just how deep his family’s betrayal has gone, Bone. Can you do this?”
“Sister, our plans come before everything else. That our paths have diverged to include others is irrelevant. Joseph is ours. I can do all things that lead us to his demise.”
She stepped to the door and channeled her pain and rage. She was death. It was all she knew.
As she left the house, she did not look back. She welcomed the shadows, let them hold her close and she became what she’d always been meant to be.
Bone.
Chapter Fourteen
Red Square was lit by a million lights it seemed, people milling to and fro and a million more snowflakes falling from the gray sky above. She did not like Russia simply because she hated the cold. Bone much preferred the plains of Jericho with its heated sands and endless sunshine.
The man she’d come to watch hadn’t shown yet so she hunkered into her heavy, down-filled coat, keeping her hat low and her eyes trained on the ice rink in the middle of the square.
He would be bringing his daughter to the rink. He would most definitely not be expecting Bone.
Her reconnaissance had given her all the information she needed within hours of landing in Moscow. The female head of the Bratva was here, meeting with the Russian President in the hopes of securing land on the outskirts of the city. President Putin kept his enemies very close indeed, because The Collective’s aims did not line up with Mother Russia’s. In fact, were he to look too deeply into the eyes of that monster he would see The Collective’s intent was to own Russia, not just some property on the edge of its capital.
Putin’s arrogance would get him ousted were it not for First Team. And while Bone hated dealing with any devil, The Collective was a much worse entity than an arrogant president trying to hold onto his power.
She’d been here for two days, settling in to a small apartment she’d purchased three years ago under an assumed identity. No one suspected that the tiny old woman living in apartment 2D was actually a killer. Bone moved in this city as if it were her home.
She glanced to her right as a man sat down and began looking through a paper. He rifled through it without even trying to appear as if he was reading.
Guard, she thought, elation curving her lips as she realized her objective was close.
Bone stood casually and walked away from the rink, keeping her gaze trained on nothing in particular as she sought Dostoyev in her periphery. There, to her left, a short, round man with a small girl at his side, holding his hand and smiling.
He’d brought his child into harm’s way thinking no one would dare attack him in public. That he relied on a child for safety disgusted her. He thought her tiny form would save him.
It would not.
Bone didn’t kill children but she had no compunction about killing their parents. Especially if their parents were as evil as Vladimir Dostoyev. She crossed the street and wandered aimlessly for almost an hour, giving the man plenty of time to play for the last time with his child. He would be busy over the next couple of days and then his eternity would start. It was the least she could do.
She walked into a store, took off the coat she wore and the heavy, baggy clothing under it to reveal more clothing, this tighter, more conducive to her motive. She left the coat and clothing in the bathroom of the store and called out a cheery goodnight to the women at the checkout desk. They did not call back, not that any of it mattered anyway.
She walked back to the Square and straight to the rink. He remained there on the edge of the ice, watching his child go round and round and round. Her face glowed with joy and Bone rubbed her chest. Had she ever know that kind of joy?
Yes, her heart whispered. With Dmitry she had.
She pushed thoughts of him away, glancing around the rink and finding each of Dostoyev’s guards. It was humorous to Bone that the head of the Bratva’s guard needed guards himself. If he couldn’t keep himself, or his family, safe, how was he going to protect his leader?
Each of his guards, including the one who’d sat beside her earlier, were now stationed around the rink, watching, waiting. Occasionally they would talk into their wrist communicators, trying to act covert though anyone with any training would know who and what they were.
The little girl skated to the edge of the ice, ready to come off, and Bone moved toward them. She lowered her hand and shook it slightly, feeling the weight of a blade fall into her palm. It was cool, though it had been against her body.