Bratva Warriors #4

Chapter 2

From Book Two

Catching Anton...

The Nomads silently grabbed their bags and moved like shadows, all stepping almost silently as they got closer.

Viktor raised his hand.

Everyone stopped, unloading their packs. Then silent again and one by one, they all disappeared into the brush. They knew their jobs and where they needed to go to see it done. Before they left, they all put earpieces into their ears to be able to speak to the next man.

Before he left the area, Viktor had one last look around, then he froze and narrowed his eyes as he spotted another building off to the side. It was set deep in the woods and he totally missed it while skimming the camp.

He decided to check it out first. He slipped around the camp and made his way over to the building set off into the woods.

It looked like a personal house and he warily peeked into the windows.

He knew immediately someone lived in the house but he couldn’t see who that someone was.

He tried the door and it wasn’t locked, so he slipped inside.

Moving silently, he checked all the rooms. There were three bedrooms upstairs but only one in use. He stood in the doorway and watched as a man and a woman slept in the king size bed a few feet from where he stood.

Viktor didn’t hesitate, he reached for a sleeping gas pellet and triggered it to go off.

Tossing it inside the room he quickly closed the door.

He left in a hurry and could see the smoke room up from underneath the door and he knew the sleepers wouldn’t wake up anytime soon.

Then he walked back and broke a matchstick inside the lock.

That way he knew whoever these two were, wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.

He made his way to the back door. When he let himself out, he surveyed the woods before moving around to the warehouse. He met up with the others and then he asked, “Did the ghosts do their job?” Viktor asked.

“Did you doubt them?” Grisha smirked.

“Net, I never doubt them,” Viktor admitted. Then he looked at his own men. “Then we are ready for phase two?”

“Da, Viktor, we are ready.” Ivan nodded. “In fact, we’ve already begun.” He motioned at the line of men and women. They were being ziptied and gagged then laid out on the ground.

“Make sure you retrieve the couple in the house in the woods as well,” Viktor called out softly. “I have a feeling they are important to this mission.”

Grisha and Ivan took off for the house they had missed. Soon, they hauled the two unconscious people out and laid them down on the ground with the others.

They were all still unconscious.

Grisha totaled their buildings, not loudly but not exactly silent either. He set the charges and each building imploded in succession. Debris of bricks and wood settled everywhere.

Now, the people on the ground began waking up.

The man from the house sat up and looked around, his eyes wide with disbelief at the scene in front of him.

He had worked his gag down and he began yelling, “What the hell do you think you are doing? You’ve ruined everything.

Do you have any idea who I am and what this place is? How the hell did you even find us?”

Viktor smirked and said, “Did you really think you could hide from us, Anton? We found you here and we will find your kind back home as well.”

Anton glared at him and didn’t say a word.

He had thought he was hidden well enough that the Bratva would never find him yet it seemed they had found him easily enough.

He looked around the camp and all he could see was the destruction of everything he and the others had built.

His warehouse, his dining hall, his sleeping quarters, then he snapped his head around and he stared at his house.

It lay in ruins now. All he had was nothing but broken bits of dust now and he could only shake his head.

He looked back at Viktor again and asked, “How? Why? Why did you hunt us down and ruin what we had going here?”

Viktor crossed his arms over his chest and replied, “You have to ask that? After everything you’ve done, you really have the guts to ask us why we took it all away from you?

” He snarled. “You and yours have been nothing but a group of bombers, killers and a virtual pain in the fucking ass of the Bratva for twenty years or more. You broke Artemy out of a prison where he should have died and you have to ask us why we tracked you down? Are you stupid or simply delusional?”

“We were on a mission.” Anton shouted. “We were going to take back what the Bratva took from us first.”

“And just what did the Bratva take from you?” Viktor asked with a scoff.

“They took our choice, our right to speak our truth!” Anton screamed as he struggled to get himself free. “They took away our right to assemble and speak our truth.”

“Oh, do shut the hell up.” Viktor scoffed.

“In Russia, you would have been jailed for assembling against the Russian government. Or is that why you came over here? Did you leave your own homeland to get the rights you thought you should have there? Well, that makes no sense. The Secret police would have busted up your camps over here as well. Even here, we destroyed this place because you trade in humans, drugs and God only knows what else. But because you are a Russian citizen, you will go back and be judged by the very government you want to overthrow.”

Anton looked gobsmacked. “You cannot do that.” He growled out. “They will put us in front of a firing squad and shoot us for treason if you take us back.”

Ivan shook his head and chuckled. “Well, what a surprise. Did you not know the hazards before you did all of this?”

Book Three....

Sergi studied the man on the screen and frowned. He knew that face but it couldn’t be him. “This cannot be possible,” he muttered under his breath.

Nikoli snapped his gaze over to stare at him. “You know this man?”

Sergi nodded numbly. “Da, I know that face. But this man died in my arms many years ago. Such a waste. His death never made any sense to me back then. There had been an ambush.”

“Who was he?” Felix asked quietly.

Sergi sighed hard as he looked around the room.

“His name was Pavel Dmitricoff. He was the second born in a family of seven kids, he had four brothers and two sisters. His father worked at the mill and his mother worked part time as a baker to feed their large family. He and I joined the Bratva about the same time.” Sergi shook his head.

“But I don’t think he could take the training.

And believe me when I say the coaches were brutal back then.

Some of the men just couldn’t take it and I think Pavel was one of them.

He was in shape but I think they had him pushing beyond what he could accomplish. ”

“What happened in this ambush?” Felix asked.

Sergi shook his head. “That’s what is so odd.

I never knew why someone would ambush two people just walking down an alley.

They didn’t rob us either. They just started shooting at us and it seemed at the time like they were targeting Pavel in particular.

He was down on the ground and I was shooting back but after the first volley of bullets there wasn’t a second one.

I dropped down and turned him over and I could see two bullet holes in his shirt and Pavel gasped and tried to talk to me but instead he just closed his eyes and I heard his breathing stop.

He never opened his eyes again and I had to leave his body where it was to get some help but by the time I got back, his body wasn’t where I left it.

It was just gone. We found the bloody drag marks on the cement but we never found his body. ”

Serenity looked curious. “What do you suppose happened to his body?”

Sergi shrugged. “I don’t know. The Bratva never found it.”

“What about that scar on his face?” Nikoli asked. “How did that happen?”

Sergi nodded as he knew the answer to this.

“That happened when he was about fourteen. He said he fell through a pane of glass at his sister’s farm.

But I had been aware that his brother-in-law was mean and when things didn’t go his way, he lost his temper.

Let’s just say he lost his temper a lot back then.

Right up until he didn’t anymore. They found his body three months later after the spring thaw.

He’d gotten drunk and fell into a ditch.

They had said that his head hit a rock when he fell and he died in the weather.

” He shrugged. “At least that’s what I heard.

.. all rumors, you understand. But after his death his wife, Pavel’s sister, ran the farm better than her husband ever did. I can tell you that much.

Everyone glanced at each other but no one said a word for a long moment.

Then Serenity said, “I’ll keep looking for some kind of connection between this guy and the Blue Crusaders. But so far I don’t see one.”

Sergi nodded as he felt quite upset over this long ago past that had suddenly become part of this mystery.

Troubled and distracted, he wandered off to one side as he absorbed the brutal truth.

He twirled around and glared at everyone.

“The whole ambush was a staged attack. Those bullets they shot at us weren’t real.

They were blanks and the blood on Pavel wasn’t real either. They staged it.”

“What the hell are you saying, Sergi?” Nikoli looked confused.

Sergi shook his head. “I never would have known. But I just remembered something.”

“What?” Felix asked.