Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Academy. All rights go to Richelle Mead.

"Belikov," the voice answered before the dial had even finished ringing.

"Zmey," I responded, referring to him by his public nickname. Ibrahim Mazur was a private man and quite reluctant to freely hand his name out. Without a name to the head of one of Russia's lead fitness companies, the competition and public had taken to referring to Abe as 'Zmey' – the Russian term for snake. I wouldn't argue with that; Abe was the most sly, cunning person I'd met in my twenty-eight years of life.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" his voice rumbled through. I could practically image him stroking his goatee as he spoke.

"I wanted to run something past you. Tanner's just forwarded me a résumé that was dropped in earlier. He spoke briefly with the girl applying as a trainer."

He clucked his tongue impatiently. "You know that you don't need to check in with me for recruitment, Belikov. I trust your judgement and if you trust the judgement of your staff, then I trust it too."

"Will you just listen to me?" I asked, hearing my voice tighten.

"Go on," he told me after a moment of silence. I had a feeling he'd been nodding.

"Tanner likes her so I checked out her resumé. Abe, she's an ex-FBI agent."

Silence again.

"Zmey?"

"Does she still work for them?" he asked slowly.

"No. She left them a few months ago."

"Is she qualified?"

"Not fully. She's enrolled in a course and she's done the bulk of the work. She's just needs to attend a few on-campus training days but the institution's not holding them for another couple of months."

"So she'll need constant supervision."

"Only when training."

"You're considering hiring her," he stated. His voice held no accusation.

"We're getting busier each day, Abe. We need more staff and like I said, she's ex-FBI. She'd be at a completely different training level than most applicants. Tanner said she's energetic, outgoing, and enthusiastic. He thinks she's perfect for the job and I trust his judgment."

"But there's that one little catch," he sighed. "Casting Tanner aside for the moment, what do you think? Do you want her on your team?"

I thought of the beautiful dark haired girl grinning at me from the top right-hand corner of her resumé. I didn't fully know just yet if I wanted her working for me but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't considering it.

"I think she could be an asset, yes. Look, I just need to get your angle on her employment with the FBI." I told him as I ran my hand through my hair. That was the thing with Abe – you could never get a straight answer with him. He always tended to talk in roundabout circles.

"She could be trouble," Abe said at last. "We have yet to have a good experience with that blasted lot."

I agreed. No one in the 'Peak Fitness' family seemed to have much luck with the FBI.

"He résumé's spotless, Abe. Will you have an answer if she questions why we didn't want to employ her?

"You could tell her that we're not hiring."

I rolled my eyes. "Not possible. We've got several advertisements currently running."

"Tell her she's not suitably qualified."

"Tanner's already told her that her level of qualification is fine," I told him as I rubbed my brow.

"I don't want another Janine incident, Belikov."

The Janine incident wasn't something Abe was proud of, nor was it something widely known. I'd only learned the story a few years earlier when I'd found him in his bedroom, drunk and sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by stuffed animals and small tea-drinking toys. That was the one and only time I'd ever witnessed Ibrahim Mazur throwing a tea-party. Hopefully it was also the last.

I'd taken away the little cup he'd been 'drinking' from and cleared away some of his stuffed animals so that I could kneel in front of him. I'd gone to help him up when I noticed that his face was red, tears tracks running down his face. I had a little bit more than shocking to see Ibrahim Mazur cry and so I completely sat down, unsure of what to do.

I didn't need to do anything, as it turned out. I'd barely crossed my own legs when Abe launched into his tale.

His tale started out before he had anything to do with 'Peak Fitness'. He'd been young at the time, living in Russia and working for a man named Boris. Boris owned a music shop where Abe had worked casually working stock and operating registers. That music shop was also a front for drug trafficking, with Boris being one of the biggest dealers in Omsk. However, Abe hadn't known about the drugs. How could he? He'd worked daylight hours in between university study and rarely had the chance to leave the shop floor.

Enter Mary, a fiery, red-headed woman with a Scottish accent. She and Abe had fallen head-over-heels in love in the short time they'd spent together. They moved in together and Mary also got a job working for Boris. They were happy together, or so Abe had thought. During their seventh month together, he'd gone to work only to find the building swarming with FBI agents. Apparently, Boris was an American drug lord who'd been hiding out in Russia. There, amongst all the other agents stood Mary clad in FBI uniform – who was being patted and praised at by the other agents. Only they weren't calling her Mary. No, they were calling her Agent Hathaway, calling her Janine but not calling her Mary. He'd realised then that she'd played him – that she'd been investigating him all along. Abe was never put in prison because they couldn't find any hard evidence of involvement despite Janine's ongoing efforts.

Completely despaired, he'd gone home to wait for her. To wait for her explanation. It never came for when he got there all her belongings were gone, as was she. A few days later he'd been cleaning when he found a pregnancy test in their bathroom bin. A pink and white stick with a little plus in the little circular window.

He was a dad and till this day, he still hadn't met his child. That night I'd found him crying was the anniversary of the day he'd found the test. The tea-party was his way of mourning the daughter he'd never get to meet.

Abe wasn't fond of the FBI and I didn't blame him one bit. My own best friend had been shot to death at their hands for reasons I still didn't understand. However, Abe's issues and my issues were not of this girls doing and not hiring her for past employment was incredibly unfair.

"Abe," I spoke, finally deciding where I stood. "This girl has left them and I'm not running a dodgy business. I have nothing to hide from her. I'm okay with giving her a chance. Will you be?"

He cleared his throat. "I'm surprised. I'm not the only one with issues with them."

"No," I agreed. "But this girl's openly admitting that she worked for them. She's not hiding anything, Abe."

"What about Iv-"

"-She wasn't there when they murdered him. I've seen her photo. If she was with them when they killed Ivan I would have remembered her face."

"What about my business? You and I both know that not all of my dealings are entirely legal. You'd be willing to have an ex-FBI agent get involved in that? There are things that have been drilled into her, Belikov. Leaving their employment does not mean that she's forgotten everything she stood for."

"Who you let into your business is your business. I'm proposing hiring the girl to work for me at the gym. There is no need for you or your dealings to get involved with her. She will work for me - not you. You'll never have to meet her and she';; never need to know what you do."

He was silent again for a few minutes before speaking slowly. "If I were to say I approve, what would you do?"

"I'd ask Tanner to call her in for an interview."

"I need you here for the meeting."

"And I'm on my way. I'm at the airport but my flights been delayed. I trust Tanner – he can conduct the interview and give me a recap. Then I'll decide whether or not we hire her."

"Well then, I'm sold. Get Mikhail to call her."