Chapter 67: Codename: Aconite Chapter Seventeen

Time marches onward until I hear a knock at the door, and on instinct, I withdraw my dagger from the man’s dead chest and hold it firmly in my palm, ready to use it again on the next person who dares to fuck with me.

“Dasha?” I hear the familiar voice call out, and I immediately relax.

I get up and go and open the door and look into the concerned face of Vsevolod Zubov. If you’re a member of the criminal underworld and you need medical assistance, Vsevolod is your man. He’s known throughout Europe and parts of Asia and makes a hell of a living off this deadly business, but he doesn’t help everyone, only those who make it worth his time or those he has a soft spot for, like myself.

Vsevolod is 67 and looks like a man who has seen things few could ever even imagine. He’s 5’7” with fine lines and creased puffy eyes covering his peach-toned skin. He has dim, cerulean eyes, short, thin greying hair that is pure white around the edges of his face, with a grey beard that just manages to hide a scar going down the length of his jawline. He obtained that scar in 1943 while serving in the Red Army, when they broke through the German siege of Leningrad and liberated much of Ukraine. I don’t question how a man goes from being a soldier involved in ending Nazi Germany’s reign of terror, to helping stitch up assassins, but I’m fucking glad of it.

“Jesus…” he says, reaching out and gently cupping my face in his hands as he looks me over, assessing me carefully.

“It looks worse than it is,” I say hoarsely.

He frowns and brushes my hair aside to examine my neck. “Piano wire?”

I nod. “A garrotte.”

He cringes, “You’re lucky to still have your head,” he muses while stepping inside and shutting the door behind himself. He then escorts me back over to my chair. He sets me down on the chair, places his medical bag down and removes his coat while looking over the dead body lying on my hotel room floor.

“At least you came out victorious,” he praises.

“I usually do,” I smirk, while I place the dagger on top of the dresser.

He carefully pushes my hair back to reveal the cut on my forehead, but he quickly focuses his attention on the fresh blood stain that has soaked through my robe. He gingerly opens my robe exposing my bullet wound and promptly pulls up a chair.

“I don’t see a gun,” he comments.

“He’s not the one who shot me.”

At this, he quirks a bushy eyebrow. “Someone’s had a busy night.”

“Tell me about it,” I sneer.

I down another bottle of liquor as I lean to the side and let him tend to my shoulder. I watch as he opens up his big black bag, snaps on some gloves and proceeds to inject a numbing agent into my shoulder. He puts on his glasses and gets to work on retrieving the bullet from my shoulder, while I lean my head to the side and just focus on taking calming breaths.

“You’re very lucky. There have been a number of deaths around Russia lately, all involving piano wire. Most victims didn’t get to keep their heads. You may have just found the culprit,” he says absentmindedly. I open my eyes and stare down at the corpse. Guess he underestimated this particular prey. “Got it,” announces Vsevolod proudly, dropping the bullet in a small jar of rubbing alcohol.

As he begins work on stitching up my shoulder, I look over at the bullet and watch as the remnants of my blood begin to wash off the bullet as it soaks in the clear liquid. As I continue to watch, a carving slowly begins to appear on the bullet. I abruptly sit up, pull the bullet out of the liquid, and bring it closer to my face to examine it.

“Careful! I nearly stabbed you with this needle,” Vsevolod chastises me.

“You’ve worked under more unsteady conditions than this, I’m sure I was fine,” I say as I stare at the engraving of a scythe on the bullet. What the fuck is going on? “I think I was shot by the assassin they call Scythe…” I say, my voice trailing off.

Vsevolod looks over at the bullet with a surprised expression. “I’m surprised he was such a lousy shot,” he says with a tone of disappointment.

“Well, I had just stabbed him in the gut with an aconite-laced dagger,” I say simply.

He chuckles. “That would certainly explain it.”

I continue to stare at the bullet, confused as to how I ended up being sent to kill another assassin. Did Armand know he’d sent me after an assassin, or is this just an extremely unfortunate coincidence? That’s when his words return to my mind like a flash of lightning.

“He knew who I was,” I whisper.

“Who did?”

“Silas… I mean, Scythe. I don’t know if he knew I was Aconite. I don’t think he did, but he knew my name. My actual name,” I say warily.

Vsevolod looks at me with concerned eyes, “So someone sent an assassin to kill you?”

“Funny enough, I was sent to kill him. But nothing in his background even hinted at him being an assassin, let alone Scythe,” I say in confusion. None of this makes any fucking sense.

“So, you were sent to kill someone who happens to be an assassin, but then it turns out they knew your real name and were sent to kill you. That seems far too unlikely to be a coincidence. Do you think your client knew who he was?”

“At this point, anything is possible,” I scoff, putting the bullet back in the jar.

“And what about this guy?” he inquires, jutting his chin towards the corpse.

“No fucking idea who he is, or why he busted in here…” That lightning bolt suddenly returns once again, and I remember what the guy said while he was trying to cut my head off. “He knew me too. He definitely knew I was Aconite. He said, ‘Not so fucking good without your poisons, are you?’. He knew exactly who he was after… What the fuck is going on? I’m sent to kill someone who turns out to be an assassin. He’s sent to kill me, and I turn out to be an assassin, and this mother fucker is sent to kill me, and he does know I’m an assassin. There’s some giant conspiracy here, and I think the first person I need to get some fucking answers from is the one who sent me on this mission in the first place,” I say bitterly.

“After you’ve healed. You’re in no condition to be confronting anyone. There’s a hole in your shoulder, a laceration to your head, possible concussion, abdominal injuries, and lacerations to your neck. If you’re being set up, you need all your strength and a clear mind. So let’s focus on patching you up and getting you home. You can plan your next move while you get some much-needed rest,” he says sternly like an overprotective father.

“You sound like my father,” I say warmly, planting a soft kiss on his cheek.

He snorts. “And how is my stepbrother?”

“Busy getting laid by my mother, last I checked,” I shrug.

“Don’t shrug while I’ve got a needle in your shoulder!” he scolds me, smacking my thigh and muttering to himself as he focuses back on the task at hand.

“Okay, okay,” I say in resignation, leaning against the arm of the chair as he goes from stitching up my shoulder, to stitching up my head.

“Your parents are not going to be happy about this,” he mutters under his breath.

I sigh knowing my parents will go scorched Earth when they find out about this, but there’s something also comforting about that. Either way, Uncle Vsevolod is right. I need to take some time to recover. So I’ll bide my time and focus on digging deeper into Armand Aguilar than I’ve ever dug into anyone. Whoever wants me dead is about to learn the hard way that they never should have fucked with me.