“Nope,” I reply. “Nothing at all.”
“They’re all hacks and con artists,” he says dismissively.
“Yeah,” I agree, pulling the words around myself and blanketing myself with the comfort of them.
Aracelia was nothing but a hack.
65
Artem A Few Days Later
With my gun slung over my right shoulder, I maneuver over a rocky outcrop that juts over a deep ravine.
I’ve ventured a little further today than I usually do on my hunting expeditions, but I enjoy exploring new parts of the mountain that’s come to feel like home.
In the depths of the ravine, a snow-fed river flows quickly. The same river sweeps not too far from the cabin, so following it is an easy way to get back home.
The shriek of an eagle draws my attention overhead. The bird idles around on the thermal drafts, flapping lazily.
I wish I had a camera. Esme would have loved to see him.
That thought is so normal, so mundane, that it actually shocks me into stillness for a second.
Because it is normal. All this is normal.
Hunting in the mountains.
Coming home to a wife to tell her about an eagle in the sky, a deer in the bushes, a goat on a distant cliff.
The problem is—that isn’t my life.
It can’t be.
I’m living someone else’s reality. Like I’m borrowing it or stealing it for a little while.
But it doesn’t fit me. It never will.
This world is not where Artem Kovalyov belongs.
I hear movement a few feet away. I go still, trying to catch a glimpse of the deer that I’ve been chasing for about a mile now.
I’d seen it flash through the underbrush about twenty minutes ago. Nothing since, but the animal’s scent still clings to the air.
I leave the steep path I’m on and move a little higher, to more stable ground.
The path I find is broader, but it winds towards the cliff’s edge. The river in the ravine thunders from below.
Up here, the scent of dried bark and crunchy leaves weaves into that pungent deer smell.
But there’s something else, too. An unfamiliar scent on the edge of my perception.
Something that doesn’t belong here.
More precisely—someone.
I stand up a little straighter, on full alert as my eyes comb the surrounding area. The trees are thick in these parts, but whoever it is that’s tailing me is clumsy and obviously inexperienced in the art of stealth stalking.
Definitely not an animal—the mountain creatures are far smarter and more subtle. I creep further along the rocky trail. I take care to step only on hardened stone so I don’t leave any tracks.
The mysterious strangers weren’t as careful. I see their boot prints in the soil. Only one set of tracks so far.
I have a bad feeling I will soon find more.
Two steps later, my worst fears are confirmed.
A muddle of tracks in the dirt. Half a dozen men, maybe more. They clustered here and then spread out.
I curse silently.
Have Budimir’s men found us?
And if so, how the fuck did they manage to do it?
I think of Esme, sitting at alone in the cabin. I’d left her sitting contentedly by the fireplace, a tell-tale sign she was composing music in her head. She’s unprotected in there. No way can she fend off a group of attackers, armed or otherwise.
She needs me. I have to go back. I hope to fucking God I’m not too late already.
I turn around, ready to make my way back to the cabin as fast as I can.
Just as a group of men emerge from the forest.
They step out from behind the trees. Within seconds, I’m surrounded. Guns swivel up to aim at my chest.
I keep my expression mildly surprised as I take them in. There’s only four of them—not as many as I’d been expecting.
Their faces are unfamiliar to me, and their clothes suggest that they’re locals.
Definitely not Budimir’s men.
The realization makes me more confident.
Despite that, however, I’m aware that these aren’t just run-of-the-mill villagers. My best guess pegs them as muscle for one of the local cartels. I can see the hardness in their wolf-like expressions.
But small-time cartel men, I can handle. So the fact that there’s four of them doesn’t worry me in the slightest.
Still, I play it cool just to be safe, looking around at them with a slightly puzzled expression on my face.
I don’t even attempt to act afraid.
Fear was never something I could fake.
“Oye, I don’t want trouble,” I say, even as I keep my hand firmly on my rifle. “I’m just out here deer hunting. I don’t want to get in the middle of something here.”
One of the men takes a step forward, marking him as the leader of this group. He’s the skinniest man present, so I assume the other guys, all bigger and beefier, are his muscle.
He has narrow eyes that are too close together and a sharp, hooked nose that make him look like a cartoon villain.
The man to my left is the tallest of them all, probably an inch or two shorter than I am, and he’s got a jagged scar on his face that cuts across his nose.
The guy on my right has long, white blonde hair that he’s tied back in a feminine ponytail.
The fourth and final one, I note with a glance behind me, has yellowed, rotting teeth set in tobacco-stained gums. He keeps his mouth open the whole time, as though he’s proud of it.
“Deer hunting, eh?” the leader says, clicking his tongue derisively.
“That’s right. But no luck today. I was just heading back into town now.”
“Now, there’s no reason to run off,” he coos. “We just want to have a little chat with you.”
“About what?” I say, unable to keep the boredom from my voice.
This little shit thinks he has me scared. I can see it in the arrogant posture, the way his gun hand dangles at his side.
He’s nothing to me. Out here in this rural parts, the men think they’re tough. They don’t know the meaning of the word.
They don’t know what I’ve. What I’m capable of doing if
