29
To war
Aleksa, 15 minutes earlier
W e parked at the spot where the toast was supposed to happen, the guys were parking all the motorcycles together, and when I didn't see the one Nikita was driving, I got scared.
Irene came up beside me.
"Aleksa, I'm heading home. I've paid my respects to Dante and, considering the situation with Romeo's wife, I'd rather not run into her too much."
"Do you want me to drop you off or should I ask one of the guys to do it?" I asked, still scanning the area with concern.
"No, thanks. I'm heading straight to the taxi stand." She gave my arm a squeeze and walked away, trying to hide that one of her heels was missing.
I took another visual sweep. No sign of R and his wife. I cursed under my breath.
I really didn't feel like exchanging even a single word with Andrey, but I had no choice. The guys were already opening their seats to take out the drinks that were waiting there.
The Russian was standing with his arms crossed, seemingly looking for the leaders just like me. I went straight towards him.
"Have you seen your boss's bike?" I muttered, standing beside him.
He looked at me as if I were a damn mosquito squashed against the glass.
"What's wrong?"
"Well, it's not here."
"I've noticed that, but I thought you knew where they were, that you were following them."
"R asked me to give them some privacy, said they wouldn't stray from the group, just one vehicle ahead of her."
"Enough for you not to notice them disappearing. What the hell were you thinking? About going home with your boyfriend?" he asked sarcastically.
"Would you mind helping me look for them instead of busting my balls!"
"That's what the other one takes care of."
I grabbed the Russian's arm forcefully.
"Look, I'm sick of your shitty reproaches. If you wanted something with me, you should have had the balls to admit it. I can do whatever I want with whoever I want and I don't owe you any explanations because you don't deserve any. You chose to leave through the back door, what did you want, for me to wait for you forever? Well, sorry, some of us want to live instead of walking through life like the living dead."
Andrey looked at me very seriously but remained silent.
"Does the bike have a tracker? Have you called R?"
"No and no."
"Okay, let's start there, call him."
"Do the same with your boss." Both of us started making calls and got no response.
"I'm going to backtrack to look for them," he said when neither of us got an answer.
"I'll come with you," I muttered.
"I'd rather go with someone else."
"Well, tough luck. The others are giving their farewell to Dante, and I'm not going to bother them. Be thankful I'm letting you come with me." The Russian clenched his fists. "You need to understand once and for all that you're not in charge, and if my boss disappears..."
"Don't tell me your life story, just start the bike. Let's just do our job, that's what we get paid for."
I was so angry with him that all I wanted to do was rebuke him and continue arguing, but he was right, we had to work and make sure the bosses were okay.
I started the engine and headed back onto the road.
Andrey was like a damn shadow, there wasn't a single part of his body touching mine. I felt like speeding up so much he'd have no choice but to press against my back.
I was fucked. Really fucked. As soon as the Russian left the room, I had to give álvaro some explanations that I really didn't want to. And although the man from Don Giuliano said he didn't need them, it pissed me off to talk about something so private.
When I asked him about what happened between us the previous night, he simply replied that I didn't need to worry, that he knew his place in the equation. Then, he got up with a crooked smile and headed straight for the shower.
The motorcycle started acting up. I checked the gauges.
"Shit!" I exclaimed, looking at the fuel gauge. It was empty.
I hadn't realized that, upon arriving at the meeting point, I thought the first thing I would have to do before heading home was to stop at the gas station because I had arrived on empty. The damn Russian was distracting me. It was all his fault.
I stopped the engine and pulled over.
"What's happening?" he asked without getting off.
"I'm out of gas," I grumbled.
Andrey let out a curse about the effectiveness of some and finally got off the vehicle to pull out his phone.
"What are you doing?" I asked as I saw him typing swiftly.
"If it were you, I'd be ordering a pizza, but since it's me, I'm looking for a damn gas station," he growled.
"You don't need to do that, there's one right in..." I didn't get to finish the sentence because a loud explosion silenced everything.
Andrey and I looked at each other, then focused on the point where the sky was stained with orange and smoke.
Whatever had happened, I swore it came from the very place we had just left.
"What the hell?" I murmured.
Andrey started running down the street. Without discussing with me what we should do.
"Where are you going?!" I yelled.
"Get gas and go find R, I'm going to see what happened," he shouted without stopping.
"Like hell!"
I wasn't going to leave him alone. I had no idea what we might find. I also started running after him. For as muscular as he was, he ran as fast as a greyhound; aren't muscle guys supposed to be less agile? Well, not Andrey, and I wasn't fully recovered from my rib injuries.
When we arrived, I looked on in horror at the disaster. My heart was racing, and sweat was accumulating on my forehead. Some of my men had become lifeless bodies. Arms and legs lay on the ground in impossible postures next to expressionless faces.
Chunks of mutilated flesh piled up on the asphalt while their owners mourned their loss under pools of blood.
Every other motorcycle was blown to pieces, and those that remained weren't in much better shape. Judging by the looks of it, this reeked of explosives. They had been detonated knowing they would cause the maximum possible damage.
Romeo and Nikita were standing in the middle of that hellish scene, removing their helmets with horror swinging in their pupils.
The impudent orange flames rose, lighting up a scene no one would want to remember.
At least they were okay, and I could stop worrying about their safety.
I looked around, disoriented, rubbing my hands thinking about who to help.
The men who were still alive were supporting each other.
The Russian had gone to meet his boss. I heard a moan to my right that drew my attention to one of the guys who was screaming in horror. His forearm was hanging from the elbow, only held by a couple of tendons.
My stomach churned, and that was saying something given I was used to seeing worse. I took off my jacket and shirt to make an improvised bandage.
"Hey, hey, calm down, everything will be fine. We're going to take you to the hospital," I tried to reassure him.
Sirens sounded in the distance. Chaos had broken loose, and death was coming back for ours. It didn't care that we were at a funeral; it was thirsty for more.
The guy I was helping couldn't have been more than twenty-four years old, one of the youngest in the group, and he was shaking like a leaf.
"My arm, my arm!" he kept repeating.
"They're going to fix you up, you hear me? They do some damn good surgeries nowadays, they'll put it right back in place, just stay calm." I wasn't sure if it was true, I just wanted to soothe him. "Stay here and don't move, the medics will be here soon and they'll take care of you."
I picked up the jacket and put it over my bare torso. Romeo was crouched down, talking to one of the men who only had multiple cuts.
"What happened? Did you see anything?" I asked the dazed boy.
"We were messing with the drinks when the bikes started exploding all at once," he replied, stumbling over his words.
"Did you see anyone?" R insisted. He shook his head.
"Did you see anything?" I turned to my boss.
"Not a thing. Nikita and I had to make a stop. I took a shortcut, and when we arrived, the bikes were blowing up." That's why we hadn't crossed paths.
"It must have been those damn Chinese!" I exclaimed.
Koroleva approached us with Andrey right behind her.
"The ambulances are on their way," she informed us.
Romeo motioned for us to step aside a bit for privacy.
"We have a mole among us; there's no other explanation. How did they know where we would be? How did they place the explosives without us noticing?"
"They might have done it while we were on the bridge. We parked a few meters away and lost sight of the vehicles. If there's a mole, it was a good moment to plant the explosives," my boss's wife speculated. "Did you notice if anyone strayed from the group?"
"No," I responded. My attention was mostly on the Russian. Andrey said he hadn't noticed either.
"This is a full-scale affront! And it won't stay like this, I don't care about my uncle's or my father's plans. I'm going to end this right now." R went for his bike as Nikita followed closely.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"To pay a visit to the Chinese! I might not know where Cheng is, but I know where to strike."
"You're not recovered and you can't go alone!" his wife yelled.
Romeo looked at her, agitated.
"They're exterminating us like cockroaches! I'm not going to sit by and let them wipe us out. What would you do if it were the other way around and it involved your men? Would you really not go after them?"
She snorted, put her hands on her hips, and extended her right hand to point at R.
"You're not going alone. We're going with you."
"No way."
"If you don't let us go, you're not going either," she threatened. "The ambulances are on their way, and your damn nurse can take care of the injured. By the way, where is she? I haven't seen her among the dead."
"She left twenty-five minutes ago, didn't want to run into you."
"How convenient! The one damn time we need her!"
"What if the person who caused the explosion is still here?" Andrey noted.
The four of us looked around, but we saw nothing to indicate that might be the case. We started asking the men; no one seemed to have seen anything unusual. Everyone had some sort of injury, more or less severe.
"We can't waste time playing Cluedo," Romeo remarked. "Look, reinforcements are arriving."
The ambulances had just parked, and the paramedics began tending to the injured.
Romeo walked over to the bike, and Nikita climbed on in front of him. I went for one of the bikes that were still intact, making sure it started and had fuel. Fortunately, it had the keys in.
"Where are we going?" Andrey asked, climbing on behind me.
"To war."