60

My hand clutches my ring. No … not entirely.

“Here we are,” Yannick says as we approach a solid white door at the bottom of a set of stairs. The house has two levels visible on the outside; you’d never know there was a basement at a glance. Yannick stares over our heads at Osip and Fyodor. “Fyodor, you stay here. Osip, go check on how the clean-up is going.”

“Ah, pakhan, I don’t want to go back there,” Osip grumbles. “It’s disgusting. All that blood.”

“What blood? What clean-up?” I ask anxiously.

Yannick flicks his eyes at me, then back to the men. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Osip scuffles out of view, leaving Fyodor looking flustered. He takes a stance against the wall, checking his gun with intense interest.

What is Yannick cleaning up? Nothing involving enough blood to upset a man like Osip can be good.

Gripping the curved handle on the door, Yannick twists it downward. The hinges squeak when he opens the door. “Go inside,” he tells us.

I’m barely through when a new voice—high-p