[text]: Just fine :3 would love to meet up but I am currently enjoying the days of scenery of the Russian countryside <3

[text]: please kill me

“Hi, sweetie,” Yury said when Katia answered her phone. “I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

“Y-Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Katia asked.

“Just that I ran into some stranger who’d been following me for a while looking for, quote, ‘anything suspicious’. He tried to imitate someone with a raspy voice that I presume was his client.”

A raspy voice could’ve meant anyone, but someone with a raspy voice who targeted Yury specifically for unknown reasons? That certainly narrowed it down. “Let me guess, this individual didn’t tell you anything.”

“Not at all.”

She huffed a little. “Of course,” she said. “Did you get anything out of him?”

“Not really.”

“Alright. It’s probably late for you, babe. You should rest.”

“OK. I’m glad you’re OK.”

She smiled. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Katia hung up and sighed, glancing around the apartment before pulling on her boots, shrugging on a coat, and departing.

Ilya hummed, looking up from the news as someone knocked on the door of his hotel room. How anyone found it he wasn’t quite sure, but it didn’t much matter. Birdie had been described as “armed and dangerous” and he had no idea why, and for some reason it was incredibly unsettling.

He opened the door and his eyes went wide. Birdie was a disaster: bloody and dirty. Ilya’s eyes went wide. “What happened?” he asked.

Ilya Luhanksiy certainly didn’t look like a gangster. He looked like a preppy rich Russian kid, fashionable suit and neatly combed hair. Though, the suit was for a special occasion, as he was told this would be. A somewhat familiar woman greeted him in the terminal, grinning and shaking his hand. “Dobriy vyecher,” she said. Good afternoon.

“Dobriy vyecher,” he replied.

“Flight wasn’t too bad I hope?”

“I didn’t die,” he remarked with a snicker. “You ah...want me to meet...”

“Da. His name’s Birdie.”

“Birdie. Got it.” He followed her out to a waiting motorcycle and then paused.

“I’ve got it,” she said, taking his bag and stowing it on the bike. He took the helmet she offered him and climbed on the back, and she eased out of the lot.

“Why is name Birdie?” Ilya asked over the roar of the engine and the rush of the wind.

“You’ll see!” Katia replied with a smirk. She turned a corner and slowed down, weaving through the streets and smells of Chinatown and even crawling at points just to ease through the crowd. She turned another corner and onto a quiet street that smelled of cat urine and cheap whiskey. There was Birdie’s bus, but blessedly no Fei in sight. She slowed the bike to a stop, and Ilya dismounted, handing her the helmet again. She hung hers and his off the handlebars and walked up to the bus, knocking on the door.