VALERIAN
“Who’s that?” mouths Nikolai.
I stay on the call, clutching the device in my hand. I could turn this office upside down, flipping everything.
The pain from the past comes flooding back, and it’s happening all over again. I’m that helpless boy. I’m watching Siguard smile at me from the other side of the street, wearing the crown.
I lean my elbow on the desk. “I want my money back.”
“Hm,” chuckles Siguard on the receiving end of the phone. “You know I don’t like to make things easy for you, boy.”
“I’m not a boy anymore.”
“No. Of course. How old will you be now?” ponders Siguard. “Only a few years away from turning fifty?”
“And what about you, old man?” I sniff a laugh. “You can’t be far away from reaching your grave. Perhaps we can speed things up a little for you and put you in it today,” I grit. “What the fuck do you want?”
“You,” says Siguard. “I thought that was obvious, with the call. But you like everything to be spelled out for you, don’t you, Valerian? Like before when I had to explain how I would win over the lawyer.”
“Money only gets you so far. You can’t hide behind it forever,” I say.
“It’s interesting you say that,” cackles Siguard, “considering you’ve been doing just that for so many years.” He pauses. “What do you have to show for yourself now, without all your money protecting you?”
Of course, it’s him working with Igor. He stole the money. The question is why.
“Unlike you, bratan, I earned every cent I made. Not all of us can be nepo babies, born into wealth. We learn to protect ourselves in other ways.”
“Like how you protected your father when I sent him away to prison?” cackles Siguard.
I grind my jaw, flashing Niko a look.
I curl my hand into a fist, my knuckles popping. Today is a good day to strangle an old, worn-down politician.
“You can drop the American accent. We both know why you’re calling.”
“Do we?” teases Siguard.
“You’re back for round two, here to frame me like you framed my father.
” I sit back, the leather chair creaking.
“You want to make me pay, like it’s my fault who my father chooses to fuck.
You and your wife were divorced at the time.
He didn’t steal your wife. Perhaps you should take your nose out of other people’s business and question yourself for once.
” I bring the phone closer. “Your wife divorced you because you were, and always will be, a boring piece of shit with a receding hairline. You can have all the money in the world and still lose.”
Siguard scoffs. “I’m a boring piece of shit that has your girlfriend.”
Niko shoots me a glare. I shoot him one right back.
He could be lying. He lied about my father murdering that boy all those years ago. He can lie about this.
I keep my voice levelled. “I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t you?” The line goes crackly for a second.
I keep pinning Niko a glare, feeling my stomach starting to flip.
“Why don’t you say hello to Joy yourself.”
Fuck.
Silence stretches on the other side of the phone. My heart is thumping in my chest. I can barely hear anything else.
“H-hello?” says a female voice on the other side of the phone.
Shit. It’s her.
I bring the phone to my ear even though it’s on speakerphone. “Joy?”
“Oh my god,” she gasps. Her voice is raspy. Probably from all of the screaming. “Valerian? Is that you?”
“Do you believe me now?” Siguard takes the phone back.
A cold shiver passes through me. I sit upright in the chair, my pulse spiking. This is bad. The last time Siguard interfered with my life, I never saw my father again.
It feels like a knife through the chest.
“Leave Joy out of your business. She’s innocent.”
“Innocent,” repeats Siguard. He mulls that over.
“What a peculiar thing to say, coming from a Bratva leader like yourself. I’ve been studying you for quite some time, Valerian, observing how you move.
You don’t spare innocent lives. You take them without remorse, just like you initially took Joy.
But recently, you’ve been tiptoeing around the girl. Her life is very precious to you.”
I stick my knuckle in my mouth, biting down. I need an anchor. Something to stop me from throwing this phone across the room. I’m not done with Siguard just yet.
“Where is she?”
“We’re on the top of your office block. On the roof. If you’re coming, be careful. It’s windy up here. It would be a real pity if Joy blew away.”
Bylat. I end the call, drop the phone and stare right into Niko’s eyes.
Igor is working with the man who framed his very own grandfather. And he doesn’t even fucking know it.
Unfortunately, my worst nightmares have come to light. We’re out of money. Joy is being held captive on top of my high-rise office block.
Igor and Siguard want me to hand over the Bratva to them.
And just as I suspected, they’re going to succeed by using Joy as bait.
I shoot up behind my desk, raking my hands through my hair. The world is spinning. Anger courses through my veins, turning my vision red. I can’t see straight. Everything is distorted. I look at Nikolai and see two of him.
I grab my phone, a second spawning next to the original. I can’t tell the real from the fake, no matter how much I squint my eyes and try to focus.
I slide the keyboard across the desk. It smashes into the wall, the keys raining to the ground, rolling across the laminate flooring. Still not feeling any better, I throw my burner phone into the wall. The plastic back pops off. Pieces shatter to the ground.
Nothing is fucking scratching the itch. Only one thing can contain my anger. I need to murder Siguard in the most inhumane way. Only then, will I be able to lower my pulse and get back to normalcy.
Niko stands perfectly still, watching me break stuff.
I curl my hands back into fists. My vision is blurred. I look at my desk, focusing my eyes. I’m wasting energy here. I need to channel every last drop of anger into strength so I can do my worst. I want my face to be the last one he sees before the lights go out.
I’ll watch his spirit leave his body. I’ll drive up to the San Bernardino mountains, scattering his limbs, leaving them for all of the vultures. An arm here. A leg there. One ball. Half of his cock. Every single fucking part of his body will be cut up for what he’s done.
I leave my desk, heading over to a chest of drawers over in the far corner. “Let’s get out of here,” I say to Niko, opening drawers, grabbing weapons.
I toss him a gun and some cartridges, and then we’re leaving the office.
“You knew this man?” he says as we march across the courtyard.
“Yes. It was a long time ago.”
I look across the grass, seeing the guards stationed at each side gate. I have another dozen on shift today. I could send them to Siguard. But it won’t satisfy me. I need to do this. He hides behind money and guards, gets others running around doing his dirty work. Maybe I’ve been doing the same.
But in the end, it boils down to survival of the fittest. And Siguard is nothing without his power, which I’ll be stripping away from him this evening.
“You never told me about this story.”
“It was in the past. It didn’t need to be told.”
“He’s the reason you came to the states in the first place, isn’t he?” says Niko as he follows me inside.
I head into the kitchen. This is where I keep my sharpest knives.
“I was powerless in my hometown because of him. Everyone took his side. Nobody believed me. They all thought my father was a killer, but he’d never hurt a soul.
It was Siguard. He was a famous politician who bought his way through everything. ”
“A politician," repeats Niko as I’m rummaging through my knife collections. “Like your wife, Rachel. Her father?”
“She’s not my wife.”
“Dead wife, then,” corrects Nikolai. He stands to the side as I sort through the knives. “Her father was a politician.”
“It’s different.”
Niko grunts. “It just goes to show that they’re all the same.”
“You can say that again.” I hold one of the knives up into the light, inspecting the blade. “They’re sick and twisted. But above all else, cowards.” I sheathe the knife under my belt. “Get over here and choose a knife.”
I didn’t even realize Galina was in the kitchen preparing dinner. She turns over her shoulder and looks at me disapprovingly.
“They have Joy.”
She stops what she’s doing, her mouth gaping wide open.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let them hurt her.”
Galina’s face softens a little.
I see the butcher knife in her hand and swoop over there, taking it from her grasp. I rinse the animal blood under the faucet and hand it to Niko. If the blade can cut through fatty steak, Niko should have no problems cutting Siguard’s skinny old politicians in half.
“Later, Galina,” I say, rushing out of the kitchen.
“Be careful, Mr. Valerian,” she shouts. “Save Miss Joy.”
Niko and I jump in the first car we can find. I start the engine and slam my foot on the gas.
My pulse is beating so fast it hums. This must be how victims feel when their life flashes before their eyes as I take it.
Life for me has always been so certain and straightforward. I go to sleep at night with nothing to worry about, because I left my troubles in Russia. America was where I started over on a clean slate. This country was soft, the people easy to manipulate. I knew I’d never need to live in fear again.
But there’s a painful ache in my chest as I drive through the gates, heading toward the city. Joy has given me a lot to lose.
And now, I’m losing sight of myself in order to rescue her. My number one priority should be getting the money back. But it’s not. It’s keeping her alive.