CHERUB: Guardian Angel Read Online Free Page B

said. ‘You coming?’
    Ethan found his cancer-riddled grandmother depressing, but the only other thing he had to do was go back to his room and sulk, so he tagged along behind Andre.
    The sixth floor had originally been officers’ quarters and was mostly divided up into small rooms with kitchenettes and bathrooms with terrible plumbing.
    The Aramovs had more money than taste and the corridor floor was decked out in leaf-green shag pile carpet, with a mixture of gaudy abstract paintings and photos of Aramov family members shaking hands with politicians, celebs and minor royals. Pride of place went to a picture of Irena Aramov shaking hands with a US general, after she’d landed a lucrative contract for her planes to deliver cargo for the US Army in Iraq.
    The Aramovs also had enemies, so the skylights and windows had huge mortar-proof grilles. There were armour-plated doors that could be closed in the event of an attack, and an emergency escape chute leading to a nuclear bunker in the basement.
    Ethan’s grandma Irena was the boss of the Aramov Clan and had knocked a couple of walls down to give herself a decent living space, with a long balcony that overlooked the airfield. The boys found her propped on a white leather sofa, surrounded by her collection of coloured glass vases and a huge LCD screen showing a Chinese soap opera with the sound turned off.
    Irena’s exact age was a mystery to everyone but herself, but she’d been suffering with lung cancer for more than two years and looked extremely frail. She had a drip in her arm and an oxygen cylinder at her side, but the woman who’d turned the Aramov Clan from a small-time regional smuggling operation into one of the world’s richest criminal empires still had her wits about her. She even refused pain medication because it weakened her grip on reality.
    ‘My boys!’ Irena said, lighting up as soon as she saw her two youngest grandsons. Then she shouted for her long-suffering Chinese nurse. ‘Yang, bring milk and chocolate biscuits. The good ones from Dubai.
    ‘So how are you? How was school?’
    ‘School’s school,’ Andre said, giving a shrug. ‘You look better. It’s good to see you’re out of bed today.’
    Irena smiled as the boys each sunk into a wallowy leather armchair and the nurse set a plate of chocolate biscuits on the table between them.
    ‘I feel like mud,’ Irena said. ‘But it’s good of you to flatter me, Andre. If only your father weren’t so quarrelsome.’
    ‘Were you arguing again?’ Andre asked.
    Irena slapped the leather cushion beside her. ‘Leonid may well become boss of our clan when I’m gone, but I’m not dead yet.’
    Andre smiled and shook his head. ‘I bet you won’t be dead for a long time, either.’
    ‘All this flattery!’ Irena said. ‘You must be after something, Andre.’
    Andre had grown up with his grandmother and bantered effortlessly with her, but Ethan had only met her when he’d arrived in Bishkek four months earlier. He found being around the old girl awkward and concentrated on scoffing chocolate biscuits until he felt he’d stayed long enough to leave without seeming rude.
    ‘I’ve got a few bits of homework to crack on with,’ Ethan lied, as he stood up. ‘Thanks for the biscuits, Grandma.’
    ‘Always good to see you, Ethan,’ Irena said fondly. ‘You’re still not really happy here, are you?’
    Ethan couldn’t bring himself to tell his sick grandmother that he thought her domain was the biggest crap-hole on the face of the earth, so he shrugged, then mumbled, ‘It’s very different to what I’m used to.’
    Irena raised one eyebrow. ‘Certainly not California, is it?’ she said, stifling a laugh because it would have reduced her to a coughing fit. ‘Your mother got out of here as soon as she was old enough, and I don’t think the Kremlin is what she’d have wanted for you. I’ve had some papers put in your room. Take a look through and tell me what you think.’

5.