30. Vitaly
30
VITALY
T he ballroom is full.
I keep my eyes down, intent on looking weak, but I feel the stares of all the people—most Russian, but plenty Italian and even some Irish. None are armed, that I know of. There’s a metal detector by the door, and I can’t imagine the other families would be willing to lay down their weapons knowing Nikita’s guards are armed.
Maksim and Roman are on either side of me, both bound and gagged, their angry glares pointed at the floor. They were here before me, but the bags were ripped off their heads after mine. A man—I’m pretty sure one of the Gruco brothers—looked appalled. He even went so far as to storm to Maksim, like he was going to help or something, but a guard held him back, and then when that didn’t work, Settimo Gruco pulled him away. He’s been stewing ever since.
Nikita isn't here. I only know because the Italians have been grumbling their disapproval of it. They have no idea what this is about, apparently.
Part of me wonders if Nikita would be psychotic enough to execute the Grucos as punishment for conspiring with me, if they’ve even done so, but I think he’s just sending a message. He just wants them to watch me die.
Although I don’t look up, there’s something directly in front of me, in the middle of the room. It creates a hole in the crowd, but all that’s visible in my periphery is the hole. No one says anything about what’s there. Or I don’t hear it.
I look at Roman but don’t bother saying anything with the gag in his mouth. There are two guards on either side of me who I can’t imagine would let me speak anyway.
The ballroom doors open, pulling my attention, but still, I don’t look up. Not until I hear the Gruco brother, the one pissed off about Maksim, speak.
“What the fuck is going on, Petrov?”
I lift my head, expecting to see Nikita, but instead, I lock eyes with Mila.
My jaw loosens, and the nails pull on my hands as I let the tension slip from my arms. The pain reminds me to rise straighter and keep my arms lifted, but I never take my eyes off the brave woman with the strong gait walking into the room. Her head is held high, even as fear shines in her eyes.
It isn’t good to see her. I can’t say that. Seeing her here means if I fail, there’s torture to come.
But it’s good to see her alive.
Our lips don’t move as we stare at each other, and I’m flooded with relief for already saying all the words I needed to say. It takes strength not to rip the nails from the board and run to her. Strength to lower my head, slouch my shoulders, look weak .
But I manage.
Nikita leads Mila to the middle of the room by the back of her neck, to the spot where the crowd forms the hole. They move back to make room as Nikita walks, opening up a gap that gives me a glimpse of what’s inside his mind. What cruelty awaits.
It is just a hole. A ring really, made up piles of rocks fifteen feet or so from the center in every direction.
Of course. I don’t know how I didn’t assume it would be this.
When Nikita gets Mila to the center of the circle and forces her onto her knees, he waves for people to move out of the way. Out of my way. He gives me a view of her in her white dress on her knees with her jaw clenched and face pissed.
“Guests,” he says with a smile, raising his arms in a greeting as he roams his gaze. “ Welcome . I have a special?—”
“Why the fuck did you invite us to this?” Settimo Gruco asks, whipping his hand up.
Nikita’s smile falls slightly, and he clears his throat before straightening his tie. “I invited you to dinner, Settimo. This is my post-dinner entertainment. You Italians are familiar with the custom, yes?”
Settimo just glares.
Nikita smirks. “As I was?—”
“Why is Maksim bound?” the younger Gruco brother, the one who tried to come to Maksim’s aid, growls.
Nikita blinks like he has to think about that. I’m getting the impression that he likes fucking with them as much as he likes fucking with his own people.
“Maksim is a traitor, Anthony,” Nikita says, matter-of-factly. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to make a new friend.”
Anthony’s face reddens, but before he can speak, the brother with the scar over his eye whispers something into his ear.
“Actually, they’re all traitors,” Nikita continues, louder now. “Apparently, some feel that my nephew is better suited to be Pakhan.” He looks directly at Settimo while gesturing to me. “Currently, I don’t find that to be true.”
Several people laugh. I wonder how many do it because they think they’re supposed to.
My eyes find Luka, Mila’s brother, in the crowd. I try to relay an unspoken message with him, but his blank stare never flickers with interest. If he’s bothered by his sister’s upcoming stoning, he doesn’t show it.
“And while I would never punish my dearest nephew due to other’s beliefs, unfortunately, he’s chosen to betray me. Last night, he was caught sneaking around with my fiancée… Tonight is about fun , but let it also serve as a reminder of what happens to those who betray me.”
He steps out of the circle and gestures to Alik who picks up a rock. Alik looks at me, a silent signal that it’s time.
“Please, everyone.” Nikita gestures to the stones. “It’s biblical.” Others laugh along as he chuckles.
I grip the nails tight, looking at the guard on my left and then my right. The right is closer. Both are staring at Mila.
All eyes are on Mila.
All guns are put away. The only potential weapons here are the rocks.
The Italians will either run or they’ll fight. Nikita’s men won’t dare run. Who knows who else that leaves.
Alik rears back the stone while I pull the nails loose, a growl dragging up my throat as my whole body tenses. The guard on my right peeks but assumes nothing. I’m a man about to watch my love be stoned to death. Why wouldn’t I be in pain?
As soon as the stone lobs into the air, the nails come free. My eyes widen as I fall forward, barely catching myself as I stumble off the platform before I make two fists and backhand the guard at my right, sending a nail through his cheek.
I rip it out and fling my left fist into the other guard’s jaw, ignoring the searing pain that follows. My body floods with adrenaline, and the whole room goes silent while every person in it processes what is happening.
Then the fighting starts.
I’m four strides toward Mila when the first punch is thrown.
Roars echo off the walls of the ballroom as punches are landed, rocks are picked up and bashed against skulls, jaws are broken. When a hand lands on my shoulder, I twist and take a quarter of a second to decide the man is an enemy before I plunge a nail into his neck. His eyes widen as his hands go to the hole in his windpipe, but I don’t stay to see more than that.
I push through the crowd, searching for Mila and find her on the tiled floor with her hands now in front of her. She frantically rubs the rope over a sharp piece of rock.
“Mila!”
Her head whips my way as she stands. “Vitaly!” She lunges for me, bumping my chest as her eyes dart to the door. “Nikita has the key,” she says, her voice panicked. “ Hurry !”
My mouth opens and closes, but when she looks at me, her eyes hold so much desperation that I turn and sprint the direction she was looking. I don’t know what key she’s talking about. I don’t know what it means.
But I know it must be important.
I see him exiting the ballroom and hurry that way, jumping over fallen bodies and weaving around men in battle. The nail in my left hand loosens, and I pull it out as I get to the door. I throw it to the ground as I burst through.
In an instant, I know what Mila was panicked about. What key Nikita had.
He’s crouched beside a large, locked box, a key inserted, and I can only guess this is where they’re keeping everyone’s guns.
By the time he looks up at me, I’ve tackled him, forcing him flat on the ground while the key slides across tile. I rear back my hand with the nail and go to shove it into his neck, but he catches my wrist with both his hands. Tension builds as we fight against each other, the nail an inch or two from his neck. I manage another inch when he lets go with one of his hands but only to wiggle the nail inside my palm.
I groan in pain and pull away, which gives him the opportunity to strike. He jabs me in the eye with his thumb until I yell out and fall off of him, then he quickly climbs on top of me.
“You were right,” he says, holding down my arm with the nail in it while he lands blow after blow to my face. He pants when he takes a break. “I should’ve just killed you.”
When he goes to punch me again, I grab his wrist with my free hand. It’s weaker than normal from the injury, but still, I’m stronger than him. He’s just much scrappier than I could’ve predicted.
I overpower his hold on my hand with the nail then shift to fling it into him, but he uses it against me. He uses my momentum to swing my hand around and land the nail into my chest.
My eyes go wide as I suck in a wheezy breath.
He bends to my ear. “ This is how my brother felt when you killed him.” His words, vicious and vindictive, are full of pain and grief. We’ve grieved the same man in monstrously different ways. Or not. Maybe Nikita hates himself as much as I do.
I doubt it.
It’s my own hand with the nail in my chest, but I leave it there. There’s a good chance when I take it out, that’ll be it for me.
Nikita doesn’t care.
He jerks my hand, ripping the nail from my chest before trying to impale me with it again. I use all my strength to stop him. My eyes squeeze shut as I cringe, a growl bubbling from my punctured chest, but when he takes the nail and tries to drag it down my hand, it triples the pain.
I yell out before shoving with all my might, and it’s just enough to get him off me. I scramble to sit up before he can right himself then quickly pry the nail from my hand. I try not to look at the hole pouring blood, but it’s there. It’s stealing the feeling from my hands, robbing me of my fists.
We both clamber to our feet, and when he shifts to attack, I try to use my legs, the one asset I have left which also happens to be his biggest weakness. I miss his kneecap like he saw it coming a mile away, and it makes him smile as he stands back.
“Cheap shot, Nephew.”
“Like the eye gouge wasn’t?”
“You’re the one who showed up with weapons.” He gestures to the nail, clearly amused with himself.
The ballroom door swings open, revealing two bloodied men who appear to be looking to leave, but when they see us, they freeze.
Nikita raises a brow at them.
Slowly, they slink back inside. The whole thing is so comical that I almost laugh amongst all this chaos. If I knew who was alive and dead in that room, maybe I would.
“All right, tell you what. Why don’t we call it a draw, huh?” He uses his forearm to wipe sweat from his brow, inching closer. “I’ll give you the West Wing, I'll keep the East Wing. What do ya say?”
I don’t reply while he continues to creep closer, that sinister smile of his widening. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
He throws a punch with his left fist, which I immediately register as strange. He isn’t lefthanded, and in the half-second I have to process the peculiar choice, he follows it up with a slash of his right hand.
The blade poking from his sleeve misses my throat by no more than a centimeter as I respond with a jerk backward. The momentum throws him off balance and gives me an opening to shove my foot into his bad knee like I originally planned.
He yells out and stumbles, grabbing onto his knee with one hand while stabbing at me with the knife clutched in the other. The door opens again, pulling my eyes, and the distraction is what Nikita needed to send the knife into my side.
It sticks out of me as I jump back, my eyes lowering to it before taking it with a shaking hand and pulling it out. Blood drips from the tip.
The three men who come from the door aren’t deserters this time. One goes for the box, shaking it furiously while another tackles me to the ground.
“ Kill him ,” Nikita growls. “Just fucking kill him.”
More bodies flood into the hall, bringing the fight out here. A feminine growl sounds just before a rock slams on the head of the man on top of me. He falls flat on me before Mila rolls him off, her fiery brown eyes searching me for injury. Which can only mean the blood smearing her dress isn’t hers.
Someone takes her hair and shoves her to the ground which makes my hand instinctively fly that way. I glare, grabbing the knife Nikita stuck in me, but before I can push onto my feet, a gun fires.
Make that two guns.
Not hand guns. Machine guns. They spray bullets this direction, digging into every person standing.
This war, uneven as it may have started, was just won by whoever is holding those guns.
I squint toward the end of the hall where two men walk toward us, guns raised. Whether they’ll execute the three of us still breathing—Nikita, Mila, and me—time will tell.
When I make them out, a burst of oxygen rushes past my lips.
I was wrong. They aren’t men.
“Where’s Maksim?” Elira, Maksim’s wife, asks as she approaches, her eyes narrowed even though they’re filled with fear. Olive stands beside her, the timid woman looking not at all timid. Or afraid. She holds the machine gun steady like she was born to be a killer.
My mouth opens and closes, but I just look toward the ballroom door. When Elira points her gun at Nikita, I brace for the sound of gunshots, but Olive puts a hand on her arm. “I’ve got this. You go.”
Elira nods then goes inside.
The man who shoved Mila fell between us, so I crawl over him to get to her. She takes my hand while we exchange a look of shock.
“Are you … the other one?” Nikita asks Olive. He doesn’t sound worried.
“What do you think, handsome?”
What ?
I turn my head that way then peer at Mila. She must see my confusion because she swallows and shakes her head as she mouths, We need to go .
The gun goes off in the other room as executions start. The fighting will be over any minute now.
Mila stands first then helps me to my feet.
“Nice to see ya, boss,” Olive says to me as we slowly shuffle to the door. I just nod and follow behind Mila.
When we get into the ballroom, Roman is the one with the gun. Elira stands next to him and Maksim with her arms crossed over her chest as men—I’m assuming our men—force the unlucky choosers over to stand before the judge. The Grucos look unharmed, aside from Anthony who looks like he has taken a rock to the head. Blood slides down his face. They could leave, and they probably should, but I imagine they want to see what happens next.
Mila taps Roman on his shoulder then arches to speak in his ear. I’m close enough to hear, but I doubt anyone else can.
“That isn’t Olive.”
Roman raises his head and turns to Maksim and another soldier. “Get Nikita in here.”
Maksim nods, but before they can leave, Nikita hobbles inside with his hands raised, the gun’s barrel pressing against his head.
Olive—Or apparently not—gives Roman a pointed stare before handing the gun over to Maksim.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she barks at him with a roll of her eyes. “You’re welcome for saving the day.” She roams her gaze over the accused. “Now where’s Alik?”
Good question.
I look around as well, starting with the men standing then moving on to the bodies on the floor. When I find him, my stomach drops. I see him forced to his knees in the center of the ring the same time his wife does.
“Alik?” she says, her voice still strong. Still certain. When she speaks next, she’s hysterical. “Alik!” She tries to dive toward the ring, but Maksim takes her around the waist while she thrashes. “No! You promised!” she screams, whipping her head to Roman. “You promised!”
“Get her out of here,” Roman says, never looking at Olive. She wails and tries to claw her way to her husband, but Maksim lifts her over his shoulder at Roman’s command.
Her agony slowly fades as Maksim carries her away, but it sticks with me as I stare at my brother, bound with the rock piles surrounding him. I know exactly the fate Roman and the others have planned for him.
“Guess she’s back,” Nikita quips, sounding amused. I have no idea what he means, but it earns a glare from Roman.
When Roman gestures forward, Nikita is dragged to the middle by a giant of a man named Hugh where he’s forced onto his knees. Hugh goes to work binding him just as he must’ve Alik.
I don’t know what to say.
I’m frozen in place as men start to circle the Pakhan and underboss. The Bratva leaders who’ve just been overthrown.
This is a fitting death. It is. To turn Nikita’s cruelty back on him. To allow each man to take a part in these deaths… It makes sense. And Alik… He threw that first stone. He didn’t fight with us. If he had, he wouldn’t be in the middle of that ring.
He chose poorly. Just like so many of the men on the ground.
I look at the men left. Plenty of guards. A few lieutenants. Roman will want to kill them all, won’t he?
When Roman urges me to the circle, I trudge over to it with Mila walking tall beside me, already playing the part of Pakhan’s partner well. I hold my bleeding side as people part for me until I’m standing directly in front of my brother and my uncle, then I let my hand fall.
Roman faces the crowd. “For years, we’ve put up with Nikita’s sadistic reign.” His words earn angry nods from the crowd. “He’s tortured us. Threatened our families. Pissed on our dignity and destroyed what it meant to be a part of this brotherhood.” Several agreeable murmurs float up. “Now,” Roman booms, “we have been given a second chance to rebuild a better brotherhood. To follow the true Petrov heir. And that starts today.” Cheers erupt in a roar that takes over the room.
I don’t share an ounce of the excitement. I look around at all the faces, all the pain. I wonder how many of them wished for my death nine years ago.
Roman picks up a rock and hands it to me while people cheer. Angry people. Hurt people. Grieving people.
People convinced this rock will solve something.
But it won’t. I wish it would. I wish it would fix the pain Mila feels, the pain that I feel. I wish it would fix everything.
But it won’t.
I think of the man I nearly beat to death for the crime of loving a little, broken bird. I did it because I was hungry. I did it because I was weak.
Don’t I deserve death for that? Don’t I deserve to find my birds mangled beneath my pillow?
How can I be so bold as to suggest I’m somehow greater than either of these men? Somehow more moral? The only thing that separates us is the people I’ve hurt aren’t in this room. They’re in a Russian prison.
I look at Mila who appears as fired up as everyone else, but her flame dies upon seeing my face. She looks at Alik then at me as she shifts her feet.
She knows. She knows the kind of man I am. The kind of things I’ve done. She knows I’ll never think this is the way.
But I’m not the one who Nikita hurt most. He killed her father. If she needs her revenge… She can have it.
“My mother believed in second chances,” I say to her, toying with the rock in my bloodied palm. “Do you?”
She looks at me intently as she considers this, her lips parted and her eyes soft. After what feels like a very long time, she looks at the tattoo on my chest, closes her eyes, and nods. “Yes.” She looks back at me. “For you, I do.”
I address the men surrounding me as I toss the rock into the circle. It tumbles and stops a foot in front of Alik.
“Nine years ago, I committed a crime worthy of death,” I say, the pain from the hole in my chest intensifying as I spread my shoulders. “Since then, I’ve committed many more… My father used to tell me that leadership is earned, and those who aren’t worthy will always fall. If I stand here and pretend I am somehow a better man than any we execute, I’m afraid I will not be a leader worth having.”
I take a deep breath and ignore Roman’s angry glare. “Unlike all of you, I was not here to experience Nikita’s cruelty. If you feel you can’t live while he is alive, you do what you have to do… But if I am to be Pakhan, every man in this room still breathing will have the opportunity to have a second chance if they desire one.”
I meet Alik’s gaze, the cold melted from his eyes. I lock my arm with Mila’s, sweeping my eyes over the curious faces once more before we leave the room.
Once we’re outside the mansion, Mila holds onto me as I sway with blood loss.
“I’ve got you,” she says, clutching the wound at my side. “I’ve got you.”
I look at her and get the feeling she isn’t just talking about right now. She has my back as I have hers, always. Pakhan and partner. Husband and wife. Whore and deserter. It doesn’t really matter the label; it always ends the same.
I’ve got her.
She’s got me.
Always.