35. Sofia #2
I grab the lamp and throw it. Not at him but at a mirror on the opposite side. Glass explodes across the corridor. Grigori flinches enough that his gun hand turns away for one second, and I run.
I don’t run toward the main stairs because he is still between me and them. I run down the side corridor, past the broken mirror, past the portraits, toward the terrace doors at the end. I hear him swear behind me. Then footsteps.
I reach the terrace door and yank it open, cold air hitting my face as I stumble outside.
The terrace is wide, stone underfoot, with the drop beyond the balustrade and the side steps somewhere to the left.
If I can get to them, I might reach the lower garden.
If I reach the garden, someone might see me.
I don’t make it.
Grigori catches my arm from behind and drags me back so hard pain shoots through my shoulder. I twist, trying to wrench free, but he has one arm around my waist now, the other gripping the gun. I slam my elbow into his ribs. He grunts, loses hold for half a second, then grabs my hair and pulls.
Pain tears across my scalp, and I cry out despite myself.
“Enough,” he says through his teeth.
I claw at his hand. “Let me go.”
“You should have stayed in the room.”
“You should have stayed loyal.”
His grip tightens. He drags me toward the balustrade. The moment I feel the stone behind my legs, panic floods in me.
“No.” The word comes out small and raw.
Grigori hears it, and his face changes. “There,” he says. “Now you understand.”
I shove at his chest, but he’s stronger, and the gun is still in his hand. He presses me back until the stone edge bites into my spine.
“Do you know what they said about Elena?” he asks.
My blood goes cold. “No.”
“They said grief destroyed him. They said Damir never came back whole after she fell.” Grigori leans closer, his voice quiet now. “I will make it look just like Elena’s death.”
I stop breathing.
“Pregnant young wife. He just put too much pressure on her, you know? Tragic.” His eyes move over my face. “Damir will lose his mind. He will never come out of it this time.”
The terrace seems to tilt under me. I grip his wrist with both hands, trying to keep the gun away from my body and my back away from the drop.
“He loves you, you know,” Grigori says.
I look up at him.
“He does,” Grigori continues, almost gently. “That is why this works.”
A sound comes from inside the house.
Grigori hears it too late. I see his eyes shift.
Then Damir is there. He comes through the terrace doors with a gun in his hand and murder on his face.
“Let her go,” he says.
Grigori turns just enough to pull me in front of him. The barrel of his gun presses into my side.
Damir stops.
The entire world becomes the space between them.
“Move back,” Grigori says.
Damir’s eyes don’t leave mine. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head once, even though everything hurts.
“Damir,” Grigori shouts. “Move back.”
Damir looks at him then, and I have never seen that expression on his face before. Not at the church. Not at the club. Not even when he was angry with Sergei.
“You used Maksim,” Damir says.
Grigori’s jaw tightens. “He will live.”
“You held your son down and made him sick to empty my house.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“For what?”
“For my family,” Grigori snaps. “For my son. For the place he was supposed to have before she came here carrying your child. The old Damir would have seen right through my bullshit, but this one made you a fool.”
Damir’s face doesn’t change, but his eyes do.
Grigori laughs once, breathless and ugly. “Look at you. Still looking at her. Still proving me right.”
Damir lowers his gun slightly. Not enough to surrender. Enough to make Grigori look at it.
That’s all Damir needs.
His other hand moves. The knife comes from his sleeve so fast I barely see it before it hits Grigori’s gun hand.
Grigori curses, the shot going wide into the stone above the terrace doors. I jerk away as his grip loosens, and Damir crosses the distance between us like he was already in motion before the sound.
He grabs Grigori and rips him off me.
I stumble sideways, catching myself on the balustrade, my heart pounding so hard I can barely hear.
Damir drives Grigori back with a punch to the face, then another to his ribs.
Grigori fights back, not like a coward, not like the spoiled cousin I had half believed him to be, but like a man who has been waiting years to do this and knows he may not get another chance.
They hit the terrace table hard enough to overturn it. Glass breaks.
Grigori grabs for the fallen gun. I see it before Damir does.
“Damir!”
Damir turns, kicks the gun out of reach, and Grigori uses the opening to drive his shoulder into Damir’s stomach. Both men slam into the balustrade. Stone scrapes. Damir catches himself. Grigori swings again, wild now, blood running from his mouth and hand.
“You took everything,” Grigori says.
Damir blocks the punch and grips him by the collar. “You touched my wife.”
Grigori spits blood. “You should have trusted her then.”
Damir looks pained. “I know I should have. That’s why I’m here correcting my mistakes.” He looks right at Grigori, who snarls.
“Very well,” Grigori says, “Change of plans. You both die today.”
Grigori goes in for a second punch, before shoving Damir sideways. Damir’s back hits the terrace column. Grigori lunges past him, toward me, maybe for the gun, maybe for my throat, maybe just because he knows it will make Damir move without thinking.
Damir moves. He catches Grigori from behind and yanks him back.
Grigori twists, his injured hand slipping against Damir’s sleeve. His heel hits a piece of broken glass. His foot goes out from under him. For one suspended second, both of them are at the balustrade.
Damir reaches for his jacket. Grigori grabs at him.
Then Grigori’s body tips backward over the stone edge.
His eyes go wide.
Damir catches his wrist, and for a second, he holds him. The muscles in Damir’s arm strain. Grigori hangs over the drop, blood on his face, one hand locked around Damir’s wrist like survival has stripped everything else from him.
“Damir,” Grigori gasps.
Damir looks down at him.
I don’t know what passes between them. I only know Damir’s face changes, not with mercy, not exactly, but with the full weight of every year they survived together.
Then Grigori’s injured hand slips.
Damir reaches with his other hand, too late, and Grigori falls.
The sound comes a second later.
I turn away before I understand I am moving. Damir is there at once, his arms closing around me, pulling me into his chest. I grip his shirt with both hands and press my face into him so hard I can barely breathe. He holds me without speaking. His heart is pounding against my cheek. Mine is worse.
Behind us, the terrace is wrecked, and somewhere below, men are shouting, probably having heard the resounding crash.
I keep my face buried in Damir’s shirt.
I don’t look over the edge. But I already know—Grigori is dead.