Painted Scars (Perfectly Imperfect, #1)(53)

“Good. Make sure you rotate the men frequently for the next few days. What’s the assault plan?”

“Two teams. Six foot soldiers each. Dimitri and Anton will be going with the first team. Mikhail and Yuri with the second.”

“Leave Mikhail out.” I shake my head. “I don’t want to risk him getting shot, Lena needs him. Send Sergei instead.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. Sergei’s behavior became even more erratic recently. He won’t follow Yuri’s orders.”

“Of course, he won’t.” I curse and throw the document I’ve been reading. “I’ll come with Sergei.

Yuri can’t shoot worth a damn anyway.”

Maxim stares at me as if I’ve gone mad. Maybe I have. “Over my dead body, Roman.”

“It’s not open for a discussion. I’m the only one who can make sure Sergei behaves.”

He regards me with his jaw set in hard line, takes off his glasses and angrily points them at me.

“You can’t fucking walk.”

“Maybe I can’t walk, but other than Sergei, I’m still Bratva’s best shooter.”

“I won’t allow it, Roman. It’s suicide.”

“Oh? Then let’s just give a mentally unstable person a gun and a bunch of explosives, and send him on the field without supervision? Sergei is capable of annihilating a whole city block in under an hour.”

“Well, we won’t send Sergei then. You pulled him from field duty for a reason.”

“This is a special occasion. With supervision, having Sergei in the field is like having a one-man assault battalion. I need either Mikhail or Sergei on Saturday. And Mikhail is staying out of it.”

Maxim doesn’t comment, only shakes his head and squeezes his temples.

“You never saw Sergei in the field.” I lean back in my chair while a serene smile spreads over my face. “It’s a thing of beauty. Do you know that he once cleared an enemy warehouse all by himself?

Fourteen people. And he only got shot once.”

“It’s no wonder you two are blood-related,” Maxim sighs. “You’re both completely insane.”

“Well, that’s settled then.” I lean forward to close the laptop. “What about her?”

“She’s having an exhibit next month. Ivan saw the poster.”

“Just the showing, or a sales exhibit?”

“I will check.”

“If it’s sales, call the gallery in advance and buy everything.” I look up. “Anonymously. Anything else?”

I notice him tense and look to the side.

“Anything else, Maxim?”

“She changed her hair.”

“Did she cut it?”

“No. Just dyed it.”

“Blonde?”

“No. It . . . it’s purple.”

She dyed her hair purple. I can’t help but smile a little.

“That’s all, Maxim.”





Chapter 20


One month later




Different shades of black and gray, and nothing else. I take some of the yellow paint on my brush and try adding a few strokes over the dark shapes on my canvas, but it only ends up smeared with the previous layer of black. It kind of reflects my state of mind the last few weeks. Shades of black, and every single attempt to add a little bit of color ends up as a fluke.

I leave the canvas to dry and go to the bathroom. The previous layers should dry by tomorrow evening, and I’ll try again. I wonder when I’ll be able to process anything other than shades of gray. It certainly won’t be tomorrow.

Three tubes of hair dye lay scattered next to the sink. I already tried purple, and it lasted for two weeks before it washed out. How fitting. I reach for the second tube. Maybe the blue will last longer.

It takes me two hours to finish with my hair and take a shower, and it’s almost six a.m. when I finally go into my bedroom. The sun already started rising, so I pull the heavy drapes over the window and climb into bed. I still can’t sleep during the night, so I switched and started going to bed early in the morning and working through the night. The moment I would close my eyes I’d see Roman turning the knife again, his hands covered in blood. That scene was much easier to deal with during the day.

That phase passed after a month, and now the only thing I see in my dreams is Roman.

Unfortunately, nothing makes it easier to deal with this new vision, day or night. Sometimes, when I find it especially hard to sleep, I close my eyes and pretend that he’s next to me.

Maybe I should leave, pack a bag and catch the first train to wherever, switch at a random point, until I’m somewhere far away. I could find a job on a farm or something—cleaning horse shit, and paint in my free time. Or I could start using horse shit instead of paint. Start a new artistic wave.

Yeah, I’ll consider that.




Maxim enters my kitchen and stands by the island, his hands clasped behind his back. He watches the doc work on my arm.

“Italians rigged one of our warehouses,” he says.

“The damage?”

“Just the building, nothing that can’t be repaired.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“It was one of the empty warehouses, so there wasn’t any security detail allocated there.”