Right Behind You

Chapter Forty-Five: How Bout Now

"Always felt like my vision been bigger

Than the bigger picture
Crazy how you gotta wait until it's dark out
To see who really with you
Crazy how even when it miss you
Shit'll come back around and get you
Crazy like all my niggas, crazy like all my niggas
Remember I deleted all my other girls' numbers
Out the phone for you?
Remember when you had to take the bar exam
I drove in the snow for you? yeah
You probably don't remember half the shit a nigga did for you, yeah

Yeah, you ain't really fuck with me way back then
But how 'bout now? (Now)
'Cause I'm up right now (I'm up right now)
And you stuck right now (Stuck right now)
Oh, you thought you had it all figured out back then
But how 'bout now? (Now)."

-Drake (How Bout Now)

Andrei:

The room was silent. Very silent. No one spoke but I could tell the new guys were confused as hell as to why their leader hadn't said a word since the masked "hitman" revealed himself.... herself. I personally felt as if my heart had stopped at that moment. I had imagined many times what it would be like to see her again, her beautiful face...her smile.

This was different.

She was different.

"Not a man of shock value anymore, Alexei?" Her voice sounded strong and confident like it held the power of a thousand men within it. It was loud too, it controlled the entire room like a true leader. Kae's voice used to be quite low, almost shy of a whisper; one would almost have to strain in order to hear her, but now that seemed to have changed as well.

I looked over at my brother who seemed to be at a loss for words, he was speechless. He couldn't say a thing, he was having a hard time recovering from the shock of seeing her so much that Kirill spoke on his behalf.

"I don't remember us requesting a woman for these services if you don't mind me mentioning." He stated. I frowned, Kirill was probably as dense as concrete. "He" didn't request anything, I did the requesting, we ordered someone for the job and we received it; there was no particular gender set, but it seemed here in the Bravata a sniper job could only be done by a man.

Kae slowly turned her pointed gaze at Alexei over to Kirill who had spoken, her eyes very observant of him as he slowly cowered under the gaze. There was something in I couldn't quite put my finger on, but it was enough for him to step back a little from where he was standing.

"And I don't remember ever starting a conversation with you, to begin with, Kirill." She replied. I watched as Kirill cleared his throat and looked away from her.

"If you wanted a male for the job, you should've specified with the contact. If there were no specifications then the job is freely chosen. You want the best; the best is here. What is the contract?" She asked formally. Her voice commanded power.... respect, and most definitely quickness. She wasn't here to fool around, as a matter of fact, she didn't seem as if she wanted to be here at all. Maybe she too had been caught by surprise landing herself in the Vasiliev mansion once more.

"The contract!" She demanded again, louder this time causing the men to jolt a bit at her request.

Everyone turned to look at Alexei for an answer, after all, this was at his request.

Alexei shook his head, struggling to speak. "The contract..." He said in a bit of a daze.

Kae stepped closer to his desk, "Are you hard of hearing, Alexei? Yes, the contract...or did you send for someone to personally come and put a bullet through your skull?" Her lips worked their way back into a smirk, one filled with the confidence to do as she just stated.