Chapter 3 #2
"No," I whispered, trying to somehow project the thought at the puppy. "Stay there. Please stay there."
But puppies don't understand the danger of approaching men with dead eyes and bloody knuckles. He kept coming, stopping right at the man's feet. He sniffed the shoe, the one I'd spit on, with serious concentration. Then he circled once, twice, and lifted his leg.
The stream of puppy piss hit the leather with remarkable accuracy for something that could barely walk straight. It went on for what felt like forever, the sound echoing off the storage unit's walls like the world's most inappropriate fountain.
I tensed every muscle, waiting for the kick. The gunshot. The casual violence that always came when animals inconvenienced humans who saw them as things rather than lives. My throat closed up, preparing for the puppy's pain to be my fault, another failure to protect something helpless.
Instead, the man chuckled.
Not a fake sound or a cruel one. An actual, genuine chuckle that rumbled through his chest and into my back like distant thunder that promised rain instead of lightning.
"Blyad," he muttered, but there was warmth in the profanity. "I see this dog taught you your manners."
I couldn't process it. Couldn't reconcile the gun, the dead eyes, the bloody knuckles with someone who found a puppy pissing on his probably-thousand-dollar shoes funny instead of infuriating.
"He's just a baby," I said, hating how my voice cracked. "He doesn't know any better."
"Neither do you, apparently," the man said, but that thread of amusement was still there, warming his voice from permafrost to merely freezing. "Spitting on people's shoes, breaking into their property, accusations of Mafia affiliation. Someone should teach you some manners."
The puppy, oblivious to the weird tension in the room, finished his business and wobbled back toward his newspaper nest. But halfway there, his legs gave out and he tumbled onto his side with a tiny whimper that broke my heart all over again.
"He's sick," I said unnecessarily. "I found him yesterday. Someone just left him in a dumpster with his eye all fucked up."
"And you couldn't leave him." It wasn't a question.
The man's grip on my wrists loosened slightly—still firm enough that I couldn't break free, but no longer treating me like an immediate threat. "Even though you were running from something. Someone. Listen. I’m going to let go of you. Do not run. I promise it will not be worth your while. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
He let go. Then, he did something that made no sense—he crouched down to the puppy's level. He was instantly vulnerable—I could push him and run, kick him in the head. But I didn’t. Instead, I watched him.
"Privet, malen'kiy," he murmured in Russian, his voice gentling in a way that didn't match his dead eyes or bloody knuckles.
The puppy, traitor that he was, wobbled forward at the sound. His tail stub wiggled harder, and he made that tiny whimpering sound that meant he wanted attention, wanted to be held, wanted someone to make the hurt stop.
The man extended his free hand slowly, letting the puppy sniff his fingers first. The same fingers that had held a gun to my head three minutes ago now stayed perfectly still, letting a sick puppy investigate them with his good eye.
"Swollen eye. I see it," he said, but he was talking to himself more than me. His fingers ghosted over the puppy's face, not quite touching the swollen tissue. "Trauma from whatever bastard dumped him. He’ll be ok. No infection."
What the fuck? Since when did mob enforcers know veterinary medicine?
The puppy licked his fingers, leaving a trail of drool. The man didn't flinch, didn't pull away. Instead, he gently lifted the puppy's lip, examining his gums.
"Pale. Anemic, probably from parasites. Fleas for certain, likely worms too." His hand moved to the puppy's ribs, feeling each one with careful precision. "Malnutrition obviously, but not starvation. Maybe four or five days without consistent food. The muscle tone is still decent."
"How do you—" I started, then bit my tongue. Don't engage. Don't ask questions. Don't make yourself more interesting to this psycho.
"Breathing pattern suggests possible respiratory infection," he continued, ignoring my half-question. "That wheeze isn't normal, even for a brachycephalic breed mix. He needs antibiotics. Immediately."
The puppy tried to climb into his lap, paws scrabbling against his black jeans. The man caught him gently with his free hand, supporting his weight.
"Maybe ten weeks old," he said, examining the puppy's teeth with the same gentle precision. "Pit bull mix, definitely. Maybe some American Bulldog in there. The head shape is distinctive. Someone probably got him as a cute puppy, then realized their building had breed restrictions."
"I thought he was dying," I said quietly. "He was in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant. Just . . . thrown away like garbage. His eye was already fucked up, and he was crying, and I couldn't—I couldn't just walk past."
"Even though you're running from Chenkov. Even though stopping for a sick puppy could get you killed."
"Everything could get me killed. At least this way something good happens first."
"Interesting," he said again, and I was about to tell him to find a new word when the sound cut through everything else.
Vehicles outside. Multiple engines. Doors slamming hard enough to echo through the storage facility's thin walls.
Russian voices, loud and aggressive. Not trying to be subtle. Not trying to hide.
The man's entire demeanor shifted in an instant. The gentleness vanished like it had never existed. His body went from controlled to coiled, a weapon waiting to fire. He rose from his crouch in one fluid motion, pulling me up with him, and suddenly the gun was back in his hand like a magic trick.
"Fucking Morozovs," he muttered, and there was something in his voice that suggested this was a complication he hadn't expected. Or wanted.
His eyes swept the storage unit with new urgency, cataloging exits that didn't exist, weapons that might be hidden in his boxes, angles of attack and defense. I could practically see him running calculations, probabilities, murder math.
"How many men saw you come in here?" His voice had gone sharp, urgent.
I kept my mouth shut, jaw clenched in defiance. Fuck him and his questions. Let the Morozovs come. At least then this would be over.
He gave me a little shake—not painful, but attention-getting. Like shaking a snow globe to make the fake snow swirl.
"Answer me, little one." The pet name made my skin prickle in ways I didn't want to examine. "How many?"
"Why do you care?" I shot back. "You're probably going to kill me anyway."
"Blyat, If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead. How many men saw you?"
The voices were getting closer. Someone laughed—harsh, mean laughter that promised violence. A door slammed somewhere nearby, metal on metal, the sound of systematic searching.
"Three," I admitted, hating myself for answering. "Maybe four. I wasn't exactly counting while I ran."
"Did they see which unit?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. I thought I’d lost them. Came in from above—the roof.”
"Then through the gate?"
"Uh-uh. Padlock’s damaged. And I can pick them."
He looked at the lock, then at me, then back at the lock. Something that might have been approval flashed across his dead eyes.
"Resourceful," he said.
The voices were getting closer, someone rattling the door of the unit next to ours with enough force to make the metal scream.
Russian cursing, crude and violent, promises of what they'd do when they found me.
My body wanted to curl into a ball, to hide, to disappear into the corner with the puppy and pretend none of this was happening.
But the man was already moving. He pulled me toward the back corner where I'd made my pathetic nest, but pushed past the blankets and newspapers to a section of wall that looked exactly like every other section of wall.
His hand found something invisible in the darkness, pressed something that didn't seem to exist, and a section swung inward on silent hinges.
A hidden compartment I'd never noticed, never even suspected.
How many times had I leaned against that exact spot, thinking I was safe, never knowing there was another space behind it?
"Get in. Now." His voice brooked no argument, but I hesitated anyway because small dark spaces and men with guns had never been a good combination in my experience.
He didn't wait for compliance. Just picked me up like I was a bag of groceries, one arm under my knees, the other around my shoulders, and deposited me inside the compartment with the same efficiency he'd used for everything else.
The space was tiny—maybe four feet by three feet, ventilated but dark, smelling like metal and old wood and something chemical I couldn't identify.
I started to scramble back out, survival instincts screaming about being trapped, but he was already bending down, scooping up the puppy with surprising gentleness. The puppy whimpered once, confused and probably scared, before being pressed into my arms.
"Not a sound," Volkov said, and there was something in his voice that made me believe he'd kill me if I disobeyed. Not malice, just fact. Like stating water was wet or gravity pulled things down. "Not a whimper from you or the dog. Understood?"
I wanted to tell him to fuck off. Wanted to scream.
Wanted to do anything except obey this man who'd gone from pointing a gun at me to hiding me in the span of five minutes.
But the puppy was warm and trembling in my arms, and those Russian voices were getting closer, and sometimes the devil you didn't know was better than the one you did.
"I need verbal confirmation," he said, patient as a bomb timer counting down.
"I understand," I whispered.