Volkov
Six Weeks Before Everything Went to Hell.
The meeting is supposed to be routine.
That’s what I think when we walk in. Neutral ground, third-floor private room in a building off Atlantic Avenue, four men from the Sadalsky faction already seated, two bottles of vodka on the table. I’ve done a hundred of these. Nothing about tonight looks different from any of them.
Lavro is to my left, as always. Thirty-one years old, same dark hair, same jaw, none of the scars I’ve collected over the years because I made sure of it.
I steered him toward the cleaner operations, the logistics, the things that kept his hands busy without getting them broken.
I never said why and he never asked. That was our arrangement, and it worked.
It worked until tonight.
The Sadalsky men are talking. The one at the head of the table, grey-haired, thick through the chest, is going on about the eastern border like it’s a personal insult.
“Three shipments,” he says. “Three. Your men are cutting into our routes, and I’m told it’s an accident each time.”
“It’s not an accident,” I say. “It’s a miscommunication. We’ll fix it.”
“You said that last month.”
“And I’m saying it again this month,” I say. “Write it down, maybe it’ll stick.”
Lavro leans over. “That’s the good vodka they brought,” he says quietly, nodding at the bottle. “Sadalsky’s trying to impress us. Should we be worried or flattered?”
“Worried,” I say, and I almost smile.
The door opens, and the man standing in it isn’t Sadalsky.
Three seconds. That’s all it takes.
The first shot takes out the man to my right before anyone has time to stand.
The second punches through the wall behind the grey-haired Sadalsky boss, and he drops sideways off his chair.
I’m already moving, already reaching, the table flipping between me and the door as two more men pour through it.
The noise is everywhere, not just gunfire but glass and wood and men shouting in two languages and the chaos of a room that was a negotiation thirty seconds ago and is now something else entirely.
I get my weapon up. I put the first man down. I’m moving toward the door, toward the threat, the way I always move, into it, not away from it, and that’s when the impact hits me from the left.
A body. Hard and fast, slamming into my side, knocking me off my feet.
I go down. Lavro comes down on top of me. I grab him, roll, get my weapon back up, and I’m still firing, two shots through the doorway, one man drops, another scrambles back into the hall.
The noise cuts out fast. Four seconds, maybe five, and the room is quiet except for someone breathing wrong in the corner.
I look down.
Lavro is looking up at me. His hand is pressed to his own chest, high and left, and when he pulls it away, the blood comes with it, and we both see it at the same time.
Everything in me stops.
Not fear. I don’t feel fear. I feel something worse than fear, something that has no name, a cold drop straight through the chest like the floor just gave out under everything I thought was solid.
I’ve seen men shot. I’ve shot men. I’ve watched people die in front of me and felt nothing because they meant nothing.
This is different. This is Lavro and my hands are already moving, already pressing down on the wound, already doing the things you do when you’re trying to keep someone alive, and underneath all of it is one thought, just one, repeating.
Not him. Not him. Not him.
“Brat,” I say. Brother. It comes out wrong. Too quiet. “Don’t.”
The room goes still fast. Three bodies on the floor that aren’t my men, two Sadalsky men gone through the window. Marka is at the door, gun up, already calling it clear.
“I saw it,” Lavro says, his voice as level as if he’s reading from a page, and that levelness cuts through me worse than any sound he could have made. “Saw it coming. Didn’t have time to tell you.”
“Marka.” I don’t look up. “Get a medic. Now.”
“Already called,” Marka says. He doesn’t move from the doorway. Doesn’t come closer. A man who runs toward every problem I’ve ever had, and he’s standing still.
Lavro’s hand finds my forearm. His grip is still strong, which means there’s still time, and I hold onto that.
“You would’ve done it for me,” Lavro says.
“Shut up,” I say. “Save it.”
“You would’ve.”
“I said shut up.” I put pressure on the wound with my free hand and lock my eyes on his and don’t look away. He looks back, and neither of us says anything for a moment.
“Promise me something,” he says.
“Shut up and save your strength.”
“Volkov.” His grip tightens on my arm. Just once. “Find who did this.”
“I will.”
“Promise me. Say it.”
I look at my brother. Thirty-one years old. The only person in my life who has ever said what he meant without wanting anything back for it. The only person who ever made a joke and then waited, actually waited, until I laughed.
“I promise,” I say. “I’ll find them.”
His grip loosens. Not all at once. Slowly, like something leaving that has no intention of coming back.
His eyes stay open, but the focus goes out of them, and I keep the pressure on the wound even after there’s no point in keeping the pressure on the wound because I don’t know what else to do with my hands.
Marka stands in the doorway and says nothing.
I stay on the floor with my brother. The blood soaks through my pants at the knee. I don’t move. I don’t speak. Marka says something behind me, but I don’t hear it.
Then I’m on my feet.
I don’t decide to stand. My body does it without me.
My fist goes through the wall beside the door before I know I’ve thrown it, plaster and drywall giving way, and the pain in my knuckles is the first thing I’ve felt since Lavro went down, and so I hit it again.
And again. The wall cracks open and my hand splits open, and I keep going until Marka’s hands are on my arm, both hands, his full weight pulling me back, and I turn on him.
He lets go, steps back, and says nothing. Marka, who has pulled me out of worse situations than this, who has never once flinched at anything I’ve done, puts one hand up, takes one step back, and looks at me like he’s not sure what I am right now.
I’m not sure either.
I breathe. In. Out. My father’s voice in my head, sixteen years old, the lesson that stuck when nothing else did.
Control is the only weapon that never runs out.
I look at my hand. Split across three knuckles, blood running into my palm, mixing with Lavro’s on my sleeve.
I don’t look at Lavro again. I can’t.
I turn to Marka instead. “Who arranged the venue?”
He’s already on his phone. Four minutes pass. I stand in the room with my brother, the bodies, and the smell of gunfire. I don’t move because moving means leaving and I’m not ready to leave yet.
“Berezin,” Marka says when he comes back. “He sourced the location.”
I look at Lavro on the floor one last time. Then I walk out.
Down the stairs, out onto the street. The Brooklyn night is cold as I stand on the pavement with my brother’s blood on my shirt, my own blood on my knuckles, and I breathe.
Lavro is dead. He threw himself in front of a bullet meant for me, and now he’s dead, and I’m standing on a pavement in Brooklyn, and none of that is something I can fix or undo or shoot my way out of.
That’s the part that hits hardest. There’s nothing to hit back at yet.
There’s just the absence of him, sitting in the place he always stood, and me with nothing to do with my hands.
Someone planned tonight. Someone knew the schedule, knew the room, knew when to send the men through the door. Someone decided I needed to die and came close enough that my brother paid for it instead.
I get in the car, and Marka gets in beside me.
“We start with Berezin,” I say.