"Did you get the information?" Al asked as he walked back to the residence with Angelo.
For some reason, Angelo was acting out of character after returning with Yu Zimo and the child in Yu Zimo's arms.
Al didn't want to pry, but the child seemed relatively valuable.
Zimo didn't even allow anyone to see the boy's face, nor did he let the child walk as he carried him to his house.
"That was the information." Angelo sighed.
"That's Ilya's child?!" Al asked, shocked that they had taken an innocent child. "We don't touch children, Angelo!"
"No, don't misunderstand." Angelo said as he vigorously shook his head.
Angelo paced across the room as Al watched him and waited for his explanation.
"I can't wait forever." Al hissed as he sat down on the couch, crossed his arms, and glared at his friend.
"Okay, okay." Angelo said as he stopped pacing and sat on a chair opposite Al. "Yu Zimo is connected to that child and Ilya."
"Nikolai, that child's mother was my best friend and the woman I loved." Yu Zimo said as he suddenly appeared in the house.
He walked over to a hidden cabinet and took out a bottle of whisky and a glass for each of them.
"Wait, earlier you told me that she was your best friend, now she's the woman you loved?" Angelo asked as he looked at Yu Zimo in shock.
Al on the other hand was the most confused person in the room.
"Growing up we were taught that no mission is routine, that circumstances could change at any moment and that we should be prepared for it." Yu Zimo sighed. "We were young, cocky, we had never failed a mission."
It was silent again as the man gathered his thoughts before emptying his glass and filling it up again.
"We thought it would be a routine mission. We'd get the information and get out, just like we always did." Yu Zimo explained. "It was all going well until it wasn't."
Al frowned at Yu Zimo's words.
He knew a lot of people who failed their missions due to overconfidence, it was a mistake he consciously made an effort not to make.
"She was supposed to simply listen in on a conversation, but she was made." Yu Zimo told them. "Her drink was drugged and I lost contact with her. She only surfaced the next day in the bed of the target."
"Ilya." Al hissed as it all made sense.
Yu Zimo nodded and drank again. Al and Angelo gave each other a worried look, it would be bad if Yu Zimo got drunk tonight. They had a difficult and important meeting the next day and this man couldn't be compromised.
"No woman in her right mind would reject Ilya Pavlov, back then he was handsome, rich, and popular." Yu Zimo explained to them. "He asked Ren to marry him and if she rejected her cover would have been blown."
"So she married him for the sake of the mission?" Angelo asked.
"She did, a few weeks later she discovered that she was pregnant, she introduced me as her gay best friend to Ilya so we could still be around each other." Yu Zimo told the two men.
"What happened to her? Did she–" Al asked before he was cut midsentence by Yu Zimo.
"Die?" Yu ZImo asked as he laughed hysterically. "On paper, yes, Ren Pavlov is dead, but in reality my uncle sent her far away, to a place she can't distract me."
"Where?" Al asked.
"Capital city." Yu Zimo said with a grin, catching Al off guard.