longer. She’d spent three years in prison. She hadn’t been idle in those three years.
“What did she do when she got out?”
“She applied for a passport and left the country. She was gone about five years and when she came back, she worked in a library about a hundred miles from her hometown,” Code replied while the photograph was passed around and the Torpedo Ink club members studied Scarlet’s eyes.
Absinthe walked around the table again, this time making a circuit of the entire room, needing to remove the pent-up energy that made him feel like a caged tiger. He knew that was coming from Savage, but his own demons had twisted up with Savage’s now that he knew what his woman had gone through.
“Were you able to follow her trail out of the country, Code?” Czar persisted.
“Trail started getting murky,” Code said. “Took some time to work it out. She got better and better at hiding it. She went to a series of instructors. The first couple seemed to be expecting her. I looked back at a couple of women she was in prison with. The really tough ones that might have befriended her, especially if she was a fighter and they believed her story. They would have told her who to go to if she wanted to learn how to take care of herself.”
“True enough,” Czar said. “Absinthe says Scarlet is very intelligent. She would know that if she kept going up that ladder, she would find people who would teach her the things she would need to learn if she wanted to know how to kill and get away with it. She would move from one person to the next, getting a name. Is that what you’re thinking, Absinthe?”
That was exactly what he was thinking because it was what he would have done. He would have read books. He would have gone from place to place, person to person, seeking out the underbelly of society, the people who would know what they were doing. He was positive that was exactly what Scarlet had done. She’d been young, but she’d been driven. She would have been careful to compartmentalize so that only one person might know the next one she studied under. No one would ever guess her ultimate goal.
“Do you have the names of the people she trained under? Can we get an idea of her skills, Code?” Steele asked.
Code hesitated, always a bad sign.
Absinthe paused his pacing and turned back slowly to study the man who always got them any information they needed.
“You aren’t going to like this. None of you are.”
“I haven’t liked a damn thing you’ve said so far,” Absinthe admitted. “Why should I start now?”
“She spent her last year training under Adrik Orlov.” Code dropped the name like a bomb because it was one. Adrik Orlov had gone to one of the schools Sorbacov had created, the one Gavriil had attended, and he’d risen fast, just the way Gavriil had, as one of the top assassins for his country. He was used by Sorbacov to interrogate prisoners because he was very good at disassociating and, like all of them, knew the techniques that caused the most pain, prolonged life and consciousness.
Once free, he made his way to Thailand and lived far away from others. He didn’t seek out company and anyone with any sense didn’t seek him out. He was known to be hard on women. He never kept a woman for very long, making their life too miserable for them to want to stay with him. He did train fighters, but his students didn’t always survive their training. Adrik had a very bad reputation. Torpedo Ink had come across him more than once in their travels when he was working or they were. They respected one another, but kept their distance.
“Gavriil?” Czar turned to his birth brother. “You spent the most time with him.”
“A dangerous man,” Gavriil confirmed. “But you all know that. He just wants to be left alone. I know what that’s like. We all do. He isn’t a bad man. He doesn’t know how to operate within the rules of society, and he isn’t a team player. You cross him and you’re not going to live very long, but that’s pretty much saying the same thing about any one of us here, me included.”
That was Gavriil, short and to the point. Absinthe had the same opinion of Adrik both times he’d run across him. He just wanted to be left