GILBERT

The next few days are all about change.

Berwald and I settle things up with the Russians who worked for Ivan. Without a boss to lead and abuse them, they have no reason to stick around. Soldiers might have loyalty for dead guys, but mercenaries like these do not. The debts most of them owed to Braginski are wiped away. Secrets and grudges are tossed out. Berwald and I pour gasoline on Ivan's mansion and everything in it.

"Gilbert."

I turn. A blond man—my life sure is full of those, ain't it?—stands off to the side. His wrists are bruised in perfect purple bracelets. I can only imagine what Braginski did to cause that.

"Eduard," I say, nodding to him, a respectful bro kinda nod, even though we've only spoken a handful of times. He's had a fuck worse time with Ivan than I have; they've been together a lot longer than I've worked for Ivan. In other words, Eduard has a lot more hate for him than I ever could. "You wanna do the honors?"

Eduard nods, his face unchanged from its permanent dead-inside thing. Silently, he takes the lighters from me—I brought three along—flicks them all into flame mode, and hurls them through the mansion's open door and front windows. The place is engulfed almost immediately from within. The fire roars, and damn if it doesn't look cool as all hell—especially with the knowledge that Ivan Braginski's body is lying in it.

Eduard's glasses glint from the orange of the flames. There's a glint in his eyes, too, but it's not from the light reflecting. For the first time, I see a tiny smile tug on the Estonian's lips. He's not happy, but he's a step closer than he has been for a long while.

Berwald heads home without much fanfare. "We will stay in touch," he tells me, like we've already agreed on it, which I suppose we have. Just to be sure our little valuables stay safe. To let each other know if Braginski's old enemies come back to haunt us.

Well, I say if. But there's a good chance it'll be when.

"I'll probably get a house call from Zwingli," I tell Berwald as I walk him to his car. "But I'm sure I can strike up a deal with him. He loves his guns. Braginski sure as hell ain't using his anymore."

They're in the backseat of my car, actually, wrapped up in tartan blankets. Millions' worth of customized, fancy-as-fuck weaponry. Gorgeous guns, and I don't even care about guns, so you know they're nice. That Swiss fuck won't say no to these babies.

"Watch your back over there," I warn Berwald. "Bondevik is in your backyard. He'll have the Dane sniffing around for you."

Berwald nods. "I know. I have handled him before. I will again."

We shake hands, another bro type gesture that doesn't have as much behind it as I'd like. I almost wanna ask him to stay, be a comrade in arms with me, but it'd be silly and selfish and stupid. And anyway, this ain't his home. That little blond in his photograph is his home.

Just like Arthur is my home.

As Berwald drives away, I look to Eduard again. "What are you gonna do now?"

Eduard regards me. After a moment, he replies, "Find Raivis, hopefully. Have you looked?"

"In a few places, but I haven't wanted to find him, with Braginski breathing down my neck. Now, I could find him in . . . well, depends. If I look like I mean it, I could find him in a day, probably less."

Eduard nods. "Well, then. Do that."

"What are you gonna do?" I ask, again. Gotta repeat yourself with these people.

"Use some of Ivan's money to buy a house for me and Raivis. Maybe find out how to get a home schooling program set up for him. He'd never fit in at a public school, and he's way behind." Eduard shakes his head. The smile from earlier is long gone. "His family is all dead. You and me, Gilbert, are all he has left."

Funny how we're all tied together, ain't it? Like life with Braginski was some disaster we lived through. Then again, that's a pretty good damn way to describe it. We're survivors.

"You're a good man, Estonian," I tell him, and mean it. "Let me give you a ride out of here."

Eduard gets into the passenger seat of my car. "Thanks," he replies, with just a microscopic bit of life in his voice. "Prussian."

And Arthur, of course, has her own changes to go through. Dominik gives her the go-ahead for surgery; they're working from the bottom up. Testicle removal and penile inversion, that's what Dominik said. I gotta tell ya, the thought of someone chopping my nuts off and flipping my dick inside-out makes me cringe, but Arthur seems relieved to be finally rid of hers. It's strange to me that I'll never see Arthur naked as a man, but I don't think Arthur would have it any other way. After all, this way, I'll only know what the true Arthur looks like.

But I still worry.

"Don't fret about it, Gilbert," Dominik tells me while he's stitching my stomach. "I've done almost a dozen sex reassignment surgeries, and the vast majority were male to female. This is quickly becoming my specialty. It'll be a walk in the park."

I'd like to be convinced. "Fuck me, that hurts. What about for Arthur? Jesus cockblock, Dominik, watch your damn needle. What's the recovery like?"

"Oh, don't be such a baby." Dominik finishes the stitches neatly. "It varies. Some people only need four weeks before they can be up and moving, some take three months. Like I told her, she probably won't feel one hundred percent until six months have passed and we have her on a structured hormone therapy. But—and I told her this, too—it's essentially a wound that I'll be making inside her, and her body will naturally treat it like one. It'll try to close the hole, even after it stops being at risk for infection. So she'll have to do vaginal dilation."

I stop my hissed breaths through the pain in my stomach—I don't care about pain when I'm doing something, but it's a bitch to just sit through—and take a second to ponder that. "Vaginal dilation. Like, as in, stretching? Her vagina? With what?"

"Well, they make equipment for it, but a dildo works just as well." Dominik snips the extra thread from the stitches. "There you go. No jet-skiing until that heals."

"Dildo," I repeat, arching an eyebrow.

"Is that all you heard? I'm sure you can help her with it. You know how to use dildos, if I recall."

"More than I'd like." Picture a crazy Hungarian girl shoving a plastic penis up my ass after somehow convincing me to try prostate milking. Actually, don't picture that, you'll go blind. "You still have that purple one with the nubs? That was my favorite."

"Get out of here and go find that poor Latvian boy, Gilbert."

So I go, knowing Arthur will be safe at the clinic—mostly because we don't have anyone after us anymore, but Dominik would protect Arthur if it came to it. I check every place on that list Ivan gave me. I even go back and check the places I already checked. No Raivis, place after place. He could be miles away. He could be out of the state. He could be dead, half-eaten by coyotes and homeless people. But I have to look.

I'm at the last place on the list, an abandoned nursery home, when my cellphone rings. Just a normal ring, no Beatles. That song was getting old. "This is your captain speaking."

A soft giggle. "Gilbert."

"Hey, sweetheart. Are you still at the clinic?"

"Yes. I'm about to go in for my surgery." Her voice only trembles a tiny bit. "I'm . . . maybe a little scared."

"What? You, scared? No way. You survived a trip to Ivan Braginski's house, without a scratch! You ran away from your madhouse transphobic husband. And you have sleepovers with a weird albino hit man. I'd say you're the bravest, luckiest girl in the world. You're gonna be just fine, and I'll be right there with you when you wake up."

I can hear her smiling. "Thank you, Gilbert. For everything. I love you. You make me laugh, and you make me feel so safe, and . . ." She takes a soft breath. "I just love you so much."

My heart swells in my chest. It feels like the fire in Braginski's mansion, warming me ferociously from the inside out. "I love you, too, Arthur. I—"

"Oh," she says, in surprise. "I'm sorry, I have to go now, Gilbert. It—it's time. I think I'm not scared, actually. I think I'm . . . I'm excited. I'm ready."

"Hell yeah you're ready, Arthur."

"Not Arthur, Gilbert. I've decided on a name. The doctor thinks it's pretty. I think Arthur is gone now. I think I'd like to be . . . Alice."

I'm smiling now, grinning too big for my face. Jesus, why did I ever think I was happy before I met this girl? What a damn fool I was.

"That is a beautiful name," I tell her. "I'll be there when you open your eyes, Alice. You'll do great, liebling. Goodbye for now, okay?"

"Goodbye, Gilbert." I hear a bit of Dominik's voice, muffled in the background, and then the call ends.

I tuck her love and bravery into my pocket for safekeeping, and then I venture into my last hope of finding Raivis Galante.