Chapter Thirty-Four
In which the aftermath is just what you’d expect. Terrible.
Roman…
When I first hear the gunshots, my heart tries to tear loose from my chest.
I break into a sprint, ripping through the bushes and dodging tree branches until there she is, my Violet, holding the Glock in her shaking hand. Goddamn, she is beautiful. A goddess of war in a torn and bloody wedding dress.
"Give me the gun, baby," I say, holding my hand out to her. She may have just shot two men, but Violet is with it enough to expel the ammo clip from the Glock before she hands it to me. "Good girl," I say, wrapping my arms around her. "Good girl." I whisper it into the crook of her neck.
She smells like adrenaline, and crushed grass, her citrus scent flooding my senses. Ivan and Melina are checking on the twins, so I allow myself to stand there, holding Violet's shaking body to me. I tell her how brave she is. How much I love her. How proud I am of her for protecting her sisters.
The moment is finally broken when a medical helicopter lands in the parking lot of the restaurant.
"If there's any luck to claim here tonight, it would be my parents buying out the restaurant,” I say, picking Violet up in my arms. Her poor feet are torn and scratched.
"That's good," she agrees. "At least there weren't any other diners there. The poor restaurant staff, though."
Paramedics rush into the restaurant with stretchers, and my father comes out first. His hand is up, holding onto Mother's and from the distance, it looks like they're arguing.
Most likely because she insists he get strapped down on the stretcher.
The paramedics lift Father gently through the open doors.
Fuck. The next gurney out holds a body with a sheet covering it. I recognize the sobbing woman and the man holding her up. Canton's wife and son. We invited them to meet and he was killed. On our turf.
Another stretcher emerges from the restaurant. Ava's talking to the person on it, a big stream of red spreading over the white sheet. Her head is low, speaking urgently to the paramedics. As the stretcher is loaded onto the helicopter, I catch a quick glance of the wounded man's face.
"Alexsey!" I roar, breaking into a run, Violet bouncing in my arms until we hit the roadway. She grabs my face, making me look at her.
"Put me down. Go over there, I'm fine, sweetheart."
I set her on her feet, but the helicopter is already taking off before I can race to the parking lot, lights flashing and the wind from the rotors buffeting us. Dmitri is out the door next and I sprint over to him, grabbing him by the shirt.
"What the fuck happened to Alexsey?"
Dmitri looks like shit, his face smeared with blood and there's a wound on his arm that's been wrapped up with a cloth napkin.
"Luan. He's Driton Krasniqi's son. He knew their ambush failed, he lost his shit and started spraying the back of the restaurant with bullets.
Alexsey managed to get the jump on him, but –" Dmitri's face twists in anguish.
"Luan's bullets ripped his left hand to shreds while they were fighting for the gun, his arm, too. " He chokes. "It's bad."
A soft hand touches my shoulder, it's Violet's. She's holding me this time. The ground is unstable underneath me and I'm swaying slightly.
"You got Medivac here," she says to Dmitri.
"That's good, your father, Alexsey, they're getting everything they need right now.
This is good," she repeats, watching for some sign of comprehension from my brother.
Her dirty, anxious face looks up at mine.
"Let's get a car now, Roman." Her sweet voice is calm.
"Come on, you need to get to the hospital. "
Dmitri is still silent, his pale blue eyes, identical to my father's, are blank as he looks out over the carnage of the parking lot.
"We do seem to leave the trail of dead bodies, don't we?" he says.
"Dmitri, sit the fuck down, your knees are gonna give out." I lead him over to a bench and push on his shoulder until he sits down. "Violet, can you stay with him?"
"Of course," she nods, checking quickly on her sisters' location before sinking down next to Dmitri, who has his head in his hands.
I fold the terror for my family into a tidy bundle, and shove it to the back of my mind.
There's still work to do here.
More people to finish off.
Then, I'm taking that svoloch' Luan back to one of our warehouses and I'm going to teach him just how long a human can suffer in agony before they're finally, gratefully, released to death.
Violet, her sisters, and Dmitri are bundled into one of the SUVs that doesn't have bullet holes. She didn't want to leave, but she let me push her gently into the car. Her hand on the window, she's looking back at me as they speed down the road. I nod in a way that I hope is reassuring.
It took me a long time to figure out that it was important to use socially appropriate gestures and mannerisms once I found out that not everyone thought descriptions of torture were entertaining as dinner talk. I can hear the sirens in the distance and Ivan joins me.
"I already called Detective Conner's precinct," he says in a low tone. "The local Township police will get here first, but Conner promised they're close behind."
"We should get most of our weapons out of here," I agree, watching my people load the guns and another SUV takes off. I sit down on the stone bench that Dmitri abandoned, hands on my knees as the sirens grow closer. My phone rings, it's a nurse from our Bratva's private clinic.
"Mr. Morozov, it's Eileen," she says cautiously. "Your mother asked me to tell you that your father and brother are in surgery, but that they are in stable condition."
"They're alive," I say blankly.
"Yes, sir," she says with a tone of relief that she can give me good news. "Dr. Morozova anticipates a good outcome for both surgeries."
"Alexsey's hand."
Her tone changes, an empathetic note that makes me want to shoot something. "It is impossible to say at this time." I make some sort of affirmative noise and end the call.
Ivan sits next to me. "I can handle this if you want," he offers. "Take one of the cars, circle around the police before you head to the trauma clinic."
My finger is tapping slowly on my knee. Luan Krasniqi is dumped at my feet, tied up and the motherfucker has the audacity to be uninjured, aside from a bloody spot on his head where Alexsey must have bludgeoned him.
He's intact, and my brother, the artist who creates magnificent paintings… his hand is gone.
"I want you to put the Albanian in the trunk of my father's car. Take him to Gordi's. Don't let him die."
Krasniqi begins to struggle, eyes wide as he screams, "My father will burn your family to the ground if you touch me! This is just the beginning!"
My first grin of the evening stretches across my face to feral proportions as I put my boot on his head. "You're going to die. But not for a long, long time." I keep my tone soothing, and it makes him flinch.
***
Svoloch' - Russian for bastard.