Dahlia Wellburg hates her misery as much as she loves it. She sees herself as a stone: ordinary and unwanted. Yet, they know her to be a rose: soft, but with thorns.
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Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I'll kiss you for it. To go wrong in your own way is better than to go right in someone else's.
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
. . .
Hedeon Kozlov
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"You all will be on your best behavior," I ordered, sitting on the edge of my desk. My eyes were on the water outside. The storm was raging, and while I usually didn't mind the storm, I wondered who was driving Dahlia and Lucian. Better not be a dumb bastard. "She is..." I looked at them. There were about fifteen men in the room, the only ones who'd need to interact with her or be nearby. "Ours," I finished. "Her safety is a priority. Above all else. Even...us." I was surprised that I said that.
They agreed, and before long my office was void of any noise except the wall clock ticking. It had been ten minutes since Lucain called, and each one of them felt like an hour. He hadn't explained what happened but I had sent a few men to make sure their journey here would be as smooth as possible.
Whoever was after Dahlia wasn't scared of us. That was a rare thing. I admired people who isn't tremble before me. But he was proving to be a someone who couldn't be allowed to exist for long. I had things in the work to lure him out.
But if he was who I thought he was, this was about to become messeier than desired.
I could feel the ship's motion. It was barely there, as our ship was as stable as it could be. But I could always feel it. I preferred it to the stillness of the ground. I had always been a fan of chaos. Stability meant boring things.
Andros strolled inside and, for a change, he looked troubled. "She is not going to be happy."
"Yes, but she is going to be alive," I replied in russian. Andros didn't like speaking Russian, it reminded him of people he'd rather forget. I didn't put that much meaning in a language. I spoke Russian with him just so I wouldn't forget. We had many Russian associates. "That's better, no?"
"No," he mocked. "She is going to hate me." He sat down on the couch, throwing an arm over his eyes. "Wake me when she is here."
And then he was asleep.
I stared. I could never get used to how quickly he could fall asleep. I had been jealous of that, till his sleepwalking started. He didn't trust himself to sleep around anyone but me and the Monet twins.
We could fight him off.
I spent the next few minutes watching the surveillance cameras and was relieved as I saw Lucian's car driving into the ship. Our ship was a former naval ship, completely transformed except for some rooms. We had spent millions on it and made billions off it.
Right now, there were about a hundred and fifty people aboard. Half of them were here for protection, and the rest worked for us and left from time to time. I was in charge of assigning missions or jobs, Lucain was in charge to make sure people did their job, Andros worked on the ship, adding new machinery and weapons to our arsenal and Alexandre indulged in the...darker part of our business. We all indulged in it, but Alexandre was most involved.
