Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
IGOR
PRESENT DAY
Shouts and cries bleed into the atmosphere. A thick cloud of dust obstructs our view of the inside of the house, but we move nonetheless, masks and goggles over our faces protecting us from inhaling the thin particles of concrete floating in the air.
It was futile to try to break the wall on the South side.
My brother’s office is there but it’s the only room on the compound that’s reinforced with steel walls.
It’s a vault, completely safe from exterior attacks, and impenetrable.
It also doesn’t have any exits but that one door to the main house.
Even if Misha is cooped up there while his men die for him, he’ll have to get out at some point. And we’ll be waiting.
It’s not his style though. Misha believes he’s untouchable.
And that I would never be the one to betray him.
Just thinking about it has me retreating into my mind.
I can’t think of what could have been when it comes to my brother and I.
We’ve had enough time to repair what was broken.
What he broke. There is no alternative but our deaths.
Teams spread through the ground floor, others going up the stairs. Wails of men, women and children alike mix with billowing orders in Russian.
A man twice my size tackles me to the ground. I fall with an oomph, his weight heavy on my chest. When he raises his fist to pound into my face, he hesitates. “Grobovschik?”
His hesitation is his downfall. A shot echoes in my ear and he falls onto me. Giulia appears just behind and pushes the corpse to the side, helping me up again, her gun fuming in her hand.
I wanted to spare the men I thought could be of use.
The ones I know never abused the people Misha kept here.
Maybe it was naive of me. I take a second to watch the blood dribble out of the head wound on the man Giulia just killed.
His open eyes are unseeing, his mouth slightly agape like he can’t believe he died here.
He serves as a warning.
Hesitation will get us all killed.
A sinister calm spreads over me as I let myself become grobovschik. Worry doesn’t exist for the coffin-maker.
More men come at us. Some register who I am and their eyes widen.
Some don’t. They all meet the same fate.
Giulia’s body moves with grace as she kills with no remorse on her freckled face, her husband at her back.
Julian, ahead of us, grunts and my blood turns cold.
The wet squelch of a knife meeting flesh follows, then he turns, panting.
“Let’s keep going,” he says.
Relief is short-lived. Five squads of eight Moretti soldiers fight all around us.
The close quarters give us an advantage.
Guns are more difficult to use as each side surrounds the other.
No one wants a stray bullet to kill one of theirs.
Time is of the essence and taking aim is already too many precious seconds lost.
It doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, though. A bullet zings past my ear and embeds itself into the wall behind me. I seize the shooter by the throat. He pounds his fist into my jaw. Pain reverberates into my skull, making my teeth chatter. I taste blood in my mouth and spit it into his eyes.
It gives me one second to throw my weight into his ribs and punch him in the nose, but he sees me coming and avoids it. In a swift move I know I taught this motherfucker, he takes hold of a nasty looking knife and stabs me with it.
I cry out as the tip of the blade punctures my side.
“Igor!”
His body flies away from me, and the knife he was holding with it. The wound stings but I breathe a sigh of relief that he didn’t get a chance to push the entire thing into me.
“No one hurts who belongs to me.”
Julian’s voice is a savage threat before I watch him wrestle the knife from the man and stab it into his eye. All the way through his skull.
When he turns to me, his face is splattered with crimson.
“Come on, baby, we have to find Misha.”
A shot echoes in the loud space. We whirl around.
In slow-motion, Giulia’s body shakes. Once. Her mouth opens in a silent cry as bullets hit her before she stumbles and falls to her knees.
Andrea’s cry reaches our ears, mournful and piercing. “Giulia!”
“Fucking Morettis. I will take everything you love,” my brother yells.
I’m not sure if it’s to me or to Lana. From where I stand, shocked and locking down any grief to deal with later, I gather that he must be somewhere at the top of the stairs leading to the first floor.
I have to assume he didn’t meet Lana on the first floor. She’d be dead already. I’m not dying with the bodies of my loved ones littering the floor. Only Russian blood will paint the walls of this house. Mine included.
Her squad and two others are there now, or maybe the second and third floors, trying to get as many people out as we can. This was never meant to be a rescue mission. But when it comes to my friend, her bleeding heart reigns king.
“What the fuck happened? Talk to me,” Lana demands in our earpieces, voice laced with angst.
I slam a hand to Julian’s mouth before he can answer. The less Misha and his men know about our positions, the better. I remove my hand and place a finger in front of my mouth in a silent command. Andrea fills Lana in as he pushes up his legs and gathers his wife in his arms.
“Extract her! Now!”
Lana’s anger and fear permeates the very air, thicker than the copper scent of blood. She’s outside, helping Misha’s victims escape. She’ll rush straight back in.
I can’t see what’s happening, anxiety riding me high, my heart pumping blood too fast. My head feels light, yet my steps keep their purpose.
The chaos of the explosion is dying down, the dust that covered our advance falling to the ground.
More of Misha’s men filter through from all directions. It’s like he has a bottomless reserve of men. He was fucking ready. And now he’s nowhere to be found.
Our soldiers fall like leaves. A quick glance around us shows at least nine of them littering the floor like grotesque puppets. There are more of Misha’s men along with them.
I plaster myself to a wall, and take Julian with me.
His eyes are rimmed red. Horror mars his angelic features.
Angry tears roll on his cheek, creating a clean path on his dust-covered skin.
We won’t be able to offer the fallen soldiers the funeral they deserved.
We simply don’t have enough people to gather our men, and rescue the living, all while taking down Misha and his closest advisors.
I lace my fingers with his, giving him this last piece of me. A small comfort in chaos and death. The cries of the dying cover our path as we move behind the wall and towards the back of the house.
Shooting. Fighting. For Julian’s life. For Lana’s. For the people who were my true family before I realised what it meant to have one.
More bullets sing, but this time, they sound further away. I perk up.
“Fuck. He’s killing the prisoners, Lana,” I tell her in the earpiece. Fuck staying silent, what I predicted is happening and there’s nothing we can do against it.
Another sound starts to buzz.
“What the fuck is that?” Julian asks, his eyes searching mine like I know how my brother thinks.
I do know.
“The helipad. We need to get to the third floor. Now.”
The swooshing sound of a helicopter landing gets louder.
Julian and I, followed by the rest of our squads, climbs the stairs to the first floor, then the second where we meet elite brigades. They’re ready for us, firing. We escape the bullets by a hair breadth, taking cover on the stairs between the first and second floor.
“We need to scale the walls. You, stay here and keep them busy,” I tell the squad. “Come on.” I pull Julian into one of the open cells. The door is off its hinges and the bars at the window have been sawed off. It’s perfect.
I stick my head out, taking stock of where Lana’s team has taken cover, closer to the shed I used to live in.
They shouldn’t retreat more, otherwise they’ll be ripe for the picking for any reserve Misha has called on.
We arrived from the main road, but another entry at the back of the property can be used in case of emergencies.
This would be a fucking emergency for Misha.
I’ve laid it all out during our briefing.
There’s only one entry point and only one exit for us now.
Stepping out of the window, my hands find the hard edges of the walls. We’re far up. Any misstep and we’ll plunge to our death. Mine wouldn’t be so bad, but I can’t let anything happen to Julian.
“Follow my lead.”
If he puts his hands and feet exactly where I go, he’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. He has to be. Nothing else matters but ending the Petrov line, and protecting Lana and Julian.
“Petrov. You’re surrounded,” Lana yells from somewhere down. “Give us the people and I’ll give you a clean death.”
Misha’s laugh is unhinged and bright. Delight spreads into the sound, sending a shiver of disgust through me. It stops abruptly and bullets fly instead.
I hear Lana yelp and want to cry for help, but slam my lips shut and pray Julian does the same. We can’t leak our location. My brother’s grunt tells me he’s injured, too.
“You can’t kill me,” Misha laughs, his voice raspy and unhinged. “But I will enjoy ripping you all apart.”
In our earpieces, the word ‘retreat’ is on repeat. We’re getting close to the ninety minute window we gave ourselves. If we’re not out in ten minutes, the team will leave. And we’ll all fucking die. It will be for nothing.
I bite the inside of my cheek, tasting copper, then pull harder, my muscles screaming at me to just give up.
The roof is near. So close I can feel the wind wiping at us.
Finally, my hands reach the top. I pull myself up before grabbing Julian’s forearm and pulling him with me. He’s breathing hard, exhaustion fighting the adrenaline rushing through him.
“Stay here.”
“No, Igor—”
“Listen to me.” I shake him with my hands gripping his biceps on both sides of him.
I cast a glance at my brother who’s watching over his property, his back to us.
“I can’t kill him.” I taste regret and shame on my tongue.
“But you will. I will distract him. Kill the pilot, and then my brother. End this, Julian.”
“Baby, I can’t…”
“You can. Please. Do this for me. I need you to do this for me.”
We drop our foreheads together, and before he can say anything else, I stand and run to another angle, making sure my brother’s gaze stays fixed on me, while Julian takes on the other men protecting their Pakhan.
Slashing their throat in silence, a man bound by revenge, who’s got nothing more to lose.
“It’s over, brat,” I say.
My voice carries. When my brother faces me, his face crumbles for a second before a grimace of hate takes over his surprise.
“I should have known you were nothing but a whore selling yourself to our enemy. Did they lobotomise you so deeply that you forgot your true family?”
“If you were my true family, you’d have found a way to get me before my tenure ended. You never came.”
“Because Moretti refused my offers and I couldn’t go against the Pakhan! How sad and dumb must you be to think I’d have given up on you?”
“You did! You made me hurt people, Misha.”
“This is what it takes to be king,” he yells, spittle flying out of his mouth. He heaves.
Misha’s years of hate and crime have turned him into a terrifying husk. In the grey morning light, he almost looks like a ghost. His clean shaven jaw and short-shaven head could pass for an army commander but the way he moves reminds me of leeches. Feeding on the weak.
I should have done something sooner.
I was the weak he fed on.
I raise my gun.
“So you’re going to kill me?”
His sinister laugh makes my hand tremble. I’ve been terrified of what my brother had become, unable to see past despair, finding no way out. Now I know better.
My brother raises his own weapon.
I smile. This ends exactly like is needed.