Page 58 of Silent Heart

“We were expecting you for supper,” Dimitri said cautiously.

It was time for the truth to unfold. “I told Chiara my plans changed.”

“You’re not hunting tonight, are you?” Dimitri sounded annoyed.

I looked at the camouflaged fiend staring back from my reflection. I wasn’t in the habit of lying to my cousin. “Adler is back in Phoenix.”

Where I should be.

“So what’s your plan, Kolya? Hmm?” Dimi wasn’t letting this go easily.

And I wasn’t ready to offer a full confession.

“It’s too dangerous for me to return to Chicago. Adler will have allies listening for any word of my arrival. If I come home, he can track me to you, and I’m not putting you all in danger.” I closed the tubes of paint, grabbed my phone, and began to arm myself. I didn’t anticipate needing much firepower, and therefore planned to leave the big boys home.

“What happens when—and youwillend this trafficker.” Dimitri chuckled riotously. “But they’ll have another sonofabitch in his place. Granted, your meddling will put a kink in their operations, but you’re just lobbing off one snake for another to take its place.”

It was as though my cousin was the mouthpiece for the torment raging in my own mind.

I clutched the phone hard and squeezed my eyes tight. “I can’t abandon this, Dimi. The victims…fuck, man!”

Images that I could never unsee rattled through my head. The worst thing, I knew there were souls I was letting down. For every human I saved from those trafficking rings, there were too many I couldn’t. I was only one man against an army of evil.

“When will you retire?” Dimitri hedged.

I snorted. “There’s no retiring for our kind, Dimi. You know that.”

“I need you here. Your family needs you here, so maybe—” he spoke over my protests. “You take an apprentice. Hand off what you know. You can always stay in touch and go back to kill some monsters if life in the mob is too boring.”

A way out of my mission.

I paused at the top of the stairs. The guilt over hiding here dulled.

Could I do that?

“I think you could, you’re not getting any younger,” Dimitri chuckled. “And yes, in case you’re wondering, you asked that out loud.”

“No one else is fighting this, Dimi.” I turned off the hall light and made my way into the darkened lower level of the lake house.

“You don’t know that.”

The email flickered through my mind. Either Dimi’s timing with this conversation was a fucking huge coincidence or he knew something about the Cyber Ops.

“What if someone did contact me?” I began.

“That would be great! Join forces.”

Join forces. If only it was that simple.

I resisted the urge to lean against the doorframe. The load suddenly felt heavier than I could bear now that there was a sympathetic ear to listen. I never talked about my problems, but this conversation feltright. The timing couldn’t be more perfect if I tried. Dimitri was inviting me to open up and voice my troubles for the first time in ages.

“If someone else was fighting this cancer, how is it that my presence on the scene is the only thing defeating them? If there were other vigilantes, more of these fuckers would be dead. That’s not what’s happening, Dimi. It’s just me against the enemy.”

My cousin let out a long breath. “It seems impossible, but I don’t believe you are the only one.”

“But—”

“The most badass,” he smirked, and I wished I could see the smile on his usually unsmiling face. “You are a ruthless monster, Kolya. You’re brave and willing to go further than any sane man can. That is why you’ve taken out so many key players in their organizations.”

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