5. Sasha
5
SASHA
The knock comes at three in the morning.
Sleep and I parted ways months ago, so I’m already awake, shirtless and drenched in sweat, doing push-ups on the warped cabin floorboards. My left shoulder screams like a gutted animal with every dip, but I keep count through gritted teeth. Forty-seven. Forty-eight. Forty ? —
Knock-knock-knock.
I pause and look at the door.
“We have a situation.” Kosti’s tone makes my spine stiffen. In six months, I’ve never heard him sound this grim.
I go back to work. Fifty-three. Fifty-four. The scar around my neck pulls taut. “Speak.”
“One of my contacts in Marseille just reached out. Dragan’s men have been asking questions about a violin teacher.”
The air leaves my lungs. For fifteen years, I’ve maintained a careful network of watchers around Jasmine. Not close enough to compromise her new life, but near enough to warn me if trouble ever came knocking.
Now, it has.
“How did they find her?”
“Does it matter?” Kosti’s voice carries an edge of impatience. “What matters is that they have.”
I’m already reaching for clothes. “How long ago?”
“My contact spotted three of Dragan’s men at a café yesterday. They were showing her picture around. Old picture, but still recognizable.”
“Fuck.” My hands shake as I pull on my boots. Not from fear—from rage. Pure, molten rage that burns away six months of careful healing and planning. “I need transport. Now.”
“Sasha, is that wise?”
“Is that—” I stop and do a double-take. “‘Wise’? Fuck ‘wise,’ Kosti. For six months, I’ve stuck around this godforsaken fucking pit in the woods, waiting for a chance to do something. I won’t sit around anymore.”
“But to go in guns blazing?—”
“Do you see a choice? I don’t.” I slam drawers and start filling a duffel with everything I’ll need: knives, pistols, magazines. Static crackles across my vision.
He stays mired in the doorway. “You could choose to wait until you don’t have to crawl down the stairs, for starters.”
“I don’t need my legs to put a bullet in a Serbian’s skull, Kosti.” I zip the duffel closed. “I just need a trigger finger.”
Kosti sighs. “Is this really about Jasmine? Or is this about?—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Because if it is about?—”
“Don’t fucking say it, man.”
“—then do you really think Ariel would want you to risk?—”
Three strides take me to him. I fist his collar and lift him off his feet, slamming him hard enough against the wall for the hung mirror to wobble.
“I warned you not to say her name.”
He doesn’t struggle. Just watches me with that infuriating Mona Lisa smirk. “You think I can’t see the wheels turning in your head, son? Save Jasmine; earn sainthood in Ariel’s eyes. Return triumphant. Disney fucking ending.”
“Fuck. You.” My spittle dots his glasses. “This is about stopping Dragan and nothing else.”
“Then why,” he wheezes, “are your first words always about Ariel ?”
The gun is in my left hand before I realize it’s moving. Barrel pressed to the sagging flesh beneath his jaw. Kosti’s pulse drums against cold steel.
“Say her name one more time,” I snarl. “I fucking dare you.”
His Adam’s apple bobs. “This rage isn’t Serbian blood on your boots, Sasha. It’s her blood in your veins. You miss her. You?—”
I roar and drop him. He crumples to the ground and I loom over him, breath sawing, finger white on the trigger as I aim it down.
“Make the calls. Get a jet ready.”
Kosti laughs. “Or what? You’ll shoot me? Go ahead. Faster than waiting for Dragan to end your farce.” He spits on the floor, then wipes his mouth on a sleeve. “She won’t take you back, you know. Even if you save her sister.”
I turn away in disgust. “Jasmine’s mine to protect. My debt.”
“Since when?”
“Since I made her a corpse in her sister’s eyes.”
Kosti staggers up and gestures to the duffel I just filled with weapons. “If you go like this, you’ll get them all killed. Dragan’s expecting?—”
I silence him with a stare. “Dragan isn’t expecting shit. As far as he knows, I’ve been dead for six months. Let me stay that way a little longer.”
The cabin door slams behind me. The moon bleeds white through pines. In the northern fields, deer freeze at the stink of murder on the wind.
I climb into Kosti’s truck and twist the keys, bringing the engine roaring to life. But a moment later, the passenger door opens and Kosti gets in, groaning softly with the effort.
I eye him. “Are you sure?”
“I’m old, not dead,” he snaps. “And besides, Jasmine is my niece, not yours. Drive the fucking car.”