*Tallon*
Vinny was waiting for me at a nearby restaurant. I was annoyed that I had to walk away from Natalia so suddenly, but it couldn’t be avoided. I did need to find out how the talks with our Russian contacts had gone. Everything else that I did this week was going to hinge on how they reacted to the situation.
I didn’t get the feeling from Vinny’s tone that I needed to worry, but it was difficult not to dwell on the worst possible scenario.
Vinny was already seated and had ordered me a coffee. I sat across from him and took a swig of it immediately. It burned my throat, but I didn’t mind. I was exhausted from the flight, and it helped to wake me up a bit.
“Sorry to call you out so suddenly,” Vinny said. “Alessandro has been on my case to fill you in on this Russian thing because the family won’t stop questioning him about it. Everyone is still pretty wound up and there’s a lot of concern about what the Russians might do in response to this mess.”
