The truth About cypher ✓

First Snow

The winter break of 2010 was still a faint memory in Laila's head. She was in Boston with her father. Idris had booked a resort around the Tuxbury Pond when she experienced her first snow. The journey was tiresome. Laila fell asleep in her stepmother's lap as she caressed her cheeks gently. The fuzzy socks were the only thing keeping you from getting frostbite. She was tucked in during her first night in the resort when wind noises startled her. Rubbing her eyes open she found Idris strolling around the patio.

"Couldn't sleep, princess?" He asked her as she latched herself against his torso.

"Why are you not asleep papa?" Laila asked sluggishly. She still wobbled.

"I am waiting, princess. For the first snow." Laila crossed her eyesight, noticing the change in the breeze around her. It was going to snow soon. She could feel it.

Unlike the previous morning, Laila wasn't woken up by her itching and aching abdomen, that horrible sensation that demanded attention, rather she was woken up by the sound of a door clicking shut. It was loud in the silence of the room, almost as loud as a gunshot and she opened her eyes to stare up at the ceiling. She felt a momentary sense of disorientation seeing her reflection in the mirror hanging across the wall.

The mirror revealed her lying on her back; the white bed covered up to her waist and heavily wrinkled from use. Beside her bed was Brutus, in a rather tight ball, who was also mostly hidden away under the covers. Laila turned her head to look at him for a second and then she turned to look the other way to see what was going on.

"Wakey wakey kids. We've got people to meet, drugs to sell. At it now." Igor spoke in a croaky voice from behind the door.

Brutus twisted to his side, fixing his hair barely with his fingers before smiling at Igor. Igor gave them a time limit of fifteen minutes to brush, take a bath, wear clean clothes, and have breakfast before they left for Kargatsky.

Like Kazan, Novosibirsk consisted of districts. The pair, along with Dimitri and Igor lodged around the outskirts of Ubinsky District while Mogilevich had their den near the plantations of Kargatsky. The two districts shared a common lake, Ubinskoye.

The drive wasn't longer than forty-five minutes and for a doped up Laila, it felt like a short walk. Brutus was smoking his cinnamon Winston on the backseat, his window rolled down just enough to let the smoke escape. Igor drove in silence while Dimitri was still working on some files for Haidar.

Wicked to say, there was certain poetry in that scenario.

"Please behave yourselves around her and her men. You may have gotten lucky the last time you tried to mess with a distributor but Mogilevich takes their jobs very seriously. They won't even flinch while triggering your brains out."

"What a warm sentence to start the day," Laila grunted still half asleep.

She sighed as she moved a little, accidentally jamming her elbow into Brutus's rib. Brutus shoved back, scoring a smile from Igor who was observing them from the rearview.

They made their way to the den. The exterior was discreet, a simple sign hidden amongst many others. Kargatsky was an administrative district, a place where people who ran illegal businesses paid millions for a fake license. A perfect place for a dead family to continue its biddings.

Dimitri pushed the black doors open, the rest following through. The corridor to the main hall was long and dimly lit by small wall lamps. Once they reached the main hall, a stench of paint and amber surrounded them. Breathing felt like a tough job for Laila, especially when her abdomen quivered every time she tried to. The floor was cold; you could feel its shyness through the layers.