Page 33 of Prior Claim
Anton dropped down onto the edge of one of the beds, sighing heavily.
Sevastyan laid out the medical supplies. “Come on, let’s get you showered. You need new clothes.”
“I should check my bag.” Anton looked around the room, lost and confused.
“You don’t have one.” Sevastyan patted Anton gently. “Come on. I’ll get some things delivered. You won’t need anything right away.”
“I—okay.” Whatever meager adrenaline his father had been running on had run out. He was childlike in his confused stupor. Not only had he been snatched from his life, fake as it was, but he’d been dragged back into a country where nothing was quite as it had been and yet everything was supposed to be familiar. Sevastyan had moved between regions often enough to recognize the struggle. Nothing was quite wrong but also nothing was quite right. Distances were off. Light switches looked different and were in different places. The air and the water tasted different. The sun was in the wrong place in the sky. And on top of all that, Anton was bruised, battered, and likely coming off the drugs used to subdue and transport him.
Sevastyan got Anton out of his clothes. He’d been in them too long. There was blood and dirt ground into the fibers. Sevastyan bagged the ruins in a dustbin and tied the bag shut, then put it out in the hall. All he had of his own belongings was his messenger bag. But he had ways. He got Anton into the shower and sitting on the floor, and went back down to the front desk, using the hotel phone there to call a store he knew. He rattled off sizes and colors and offered a hefty incentive to get items couriered over. Then it was back upstairs again. He checked his own belongings and the clothes he was wearing for tracking and listening devices. Nothing. They were in the clear: hotel of his own choosing that he’d never used before, all belongings stripped, removed, or searched. He stopped in the middle of the room, looking around and racking his brain for anything else he should investigate. No. He’d checked everything.
He went back into the bathroom. Anton was where he had left him, still under the falling water. He washed Anton’s back and checked some of the worst abrasions, cleaning deeper than Anton had managed himself. Wrapping the older man in a towel, he got him back to a bed. Both Anton’s wrists were scraped and bruised and there was a cut on his head that had reopened and started bleeding under the water. Sores had developed here and there, probably from being transported while bound and unable to move away from abrasive contact with surrounding surfaces.
Wordlessly, Sevastyan treated each spot, using towels to give his father as much privacy as possible. They were father and son, but he couldn’t help but see the differences between the two of them. Anton had nondescript brown hair and a forgettable face that spoke of no distinct heritage. His eyes were on the brown side of hazel.
“You can talk,” Sevastyan said. “Room’s clean.”
Anton didn’t respond for a long moment. “Was this what you were trying to warn me of?”
“This?” Sevastyan scoffed. “Not exactly. I knew MC7 was on its way out. I knew Mikhail was angry with you. I thought he would be the one to make a move. Raska was more interested in her secret project, which evidently was the Merchari.”
“So you didn’t know about the Merchari?”
“Not last time we met. I spent the summer in the Mediterranean being a poster boy and slipping rich playboys and girls drugs. Roll over. I need to check your front.”
Anton moved gingerly, bringing the towel round with him to cover his bits. “You’re a dealer?”
Sevastyan started to butterfly bandage a cut on Anton’s shoulder. “You’re only a dealer if you get paid. Evidently it was of national importance that this beautiful painting move from one residence to another. I made it happen. They haven’t even noticed the fake yet.”
Anton groaned. “The Merchari are the mob. Raska joined the mob.”
“As of now, so have you.”
“And you?”
Sevastyan put more distance between the two of them. “It’s all the same. MC7. Merchari.”
Anton’s face flushed. “One is in service of our country. The other is crime.”
“You signed up to serve Russia. I was born.” Sevastyan sighed. He sat down on the other bed and opened a bottle of water. “Drink. Take these.”
Anton sat up, rearranged the towel, then took the pills and the water. “What are they?”
“Antibiotics and vitamins. Just the over the counter ones. If you get a fever, you’ll need something more.”
“Forgot you could get them like that here.” Anton tossed the pills in his mouth and drank.
“Yeah. I tried to buy some in New York a few weeks ago. They told me I needed a script.” Sevastyan leaned back on his hands. “So, I guess you’re here now.”
Anton grimaced. “Think your mother will cough up my back pay?”
Sevastyan reached into his pocket and pulled out a bank card. He slapped it down on the side table between the two beds. “Until you get it.” He quoted a number equivalent to half a year’s salary at a decent job.
Anton looked between Sevastyan and the card. “You have that much?”
“I have my ways.”
“Do I want to know?”
