Mikhail
The man on the floor stops moving. He’s not dead, just broken in spirit, having learned that nothing ends a beating that people are truly enjoying giving you, but he will be soon.
Usually I would leave first. Pakhans do not usually do the killing, nor do they watch men die.
They don’t get their hands dirty this way.
But this man photographed my mother. He watched her walk through the city, recorded where she went and when she went there, and turned the photographs over to my enemy.
Worse, he frightened me with them. He made me look at my mother through another man’s eyes and understand that someone had been close enough to hurt her.
I nod at my men, the cases close, and the photographer is dragged to his feet.
I walk up close to him so I can look into his swollen eyes, his crushed nose against my strong nose, and I tell him, “I know you want to take it back. I know you are sorry for threatening my mother. You did not know you were taking a side by photographing her, right?”
He would nod, but he knows it doesn’t matter. He looks at me with dull disinterest, something that has been abused, something that knows there is nothing good left in this world.
“And you have learned the lesson far too late that there are some actions you cannot take back, some people you cannot cross. I wish I could tell you that I brought you here to remind you that you work for me. I did not. I brought you here as a sign to others to leave my mother alone, and you are going to die because you are a stupid man who did a stupid thing.” I can smell the blood on him, the sweat from his adrenaline and his tears. He keeps swallowing over and over.
I pull the knife from inside my coat. He understands then.
His body jerks with a sudden, useless burst of strength, his chest twisting uselessly against my men’s grip.
I watch him for a moment before driving the blade into his stomach.
Once. Deep enough that his breath leaves him in a wet gasp.
His eyes widen, fixing on mine as if there’s still something left to ask for.
There is not.
I hold him upright while the blood spreads hot across my hand and darkens the front of his clothes and mine. He weakens slowly, his knees folding beneath him, and I take him from the men holding him until I’m carrying nearly all of his weight.
“Sir.” Vladimir’s voice is wrong, nervous, behind me. I turn around, still holding the man upright against me, his weight inhuman now, a thing instead of a person, a body. I look at Vladimir, and his eyes shift downward. I look and see her.
A woman. Small. Dark coat. Hair caught across her face.
For one absurd second, I don’t recognize her.
Vladimir has one arm locked around her waist from behind, holding her tightly against him, his other hand clamped over her mouth.
Her feet are planted beneath her, but barely.
She looks like she would fall if he let her go.
Then she lifts her eyes to mine, and my heart drops into my stomach.
Taylor. My Taylor.
The sensation is so violent that the room seems to tilt around me.
She is terrified. I have seen terror thousands of times.
In witnesses. In enemies. In men who realize too late that the person they betrayed has survived.
I have never seen it on her. I thought I had seen it on her in my office that day that I told her not to tell anyone what she knew. I was wrong. This is terror.
She is quiet and motionless in his grip. She doesn’t kick or struggle. She doesn’t scream against his hand. She doesn’t try to pull away. Her eyes are not here, and her mind is even further.
Every thought inside me goes silent. Behind me, Arkady says nothing. I slide the dead man to the ground, and Taylor’s eyes slide with him, fixed on him, fixed through him. The only clue I have that she feels anything about it is a flare of her nostrils and a quiver of her bottom lip.
“I found her outside snooping,” Vladimir says. His voice carries a hint of satisfaction. He believes he has done well. Under normal circumstances, this would be good.
“For how long?” I ask.
Vladimir shrugs. “Long enough.”
Taylor’s eyes find mine. There is no confusion in them. No question. She knows. The drugs. The blood. The dead body. Me. I feel something cold spread through my chest.
Taylor makes a muffled sound behind Vladimir’s hand. Her gaze never leaves my face.
“Let her go,” I say. Vladimir hesitates. It is only half a second. Too long. “I said let her go.”
He removes his hand from her mouth but keeps his other arm locked around her waist, holding her against him. Taylor drags in a breath. Then another. Her lips are pale.
I want to cross the room. I want to take her from Vladimir, examine her wrists, ask whether he hurt her. I do none of these things. Every man in the warehouse is watching. They already know she matters because I have not had her shot. I cannot allow them to know how much.
Vladimir looks down at her, then back at me. “Do you want me to take care of her?”
The cold inside me becomes absolute. Vladimir does not realize what he has said. Arkady does. He shifts his weight almost imperceptibly, preparing for the possibility that I kill Vladimir where he stands. Taylor goes still in his grip. Her eyes move between us.
“Take care of her,” I repeat. Vladimir nods once. “I will take care of her myself. Give her to me.”
“Ah. Understood,” he says with a slow smile. I know what he thinks I mean, what he has in mind for the young girl.
So I will kill Vladimir later then.
Taylor’s gaze snaps to mine. I cannot explain.
Not here. Not in front of men who will interpret every word, every hesitation, every weakness.
I look at the arm Vladimir still has wrapped around Taylor’s waist, his hand spread against the front of her coat as though she belongs there.
“Yes. Remove your arm and give me the girl.”
Vladimir releases her. Taylor immediately pulls away from him, but her legs seem to have forgotten how to support her and she stumbles forward.
I catch her by the elbow. The movement is small, but she recoils from my touch and wraps both arms around herself.
There is dirt on one knee of her coat. Snow melting in her hair. Her breathing is too fast.
I tighten my grip and walk her toward the exit instead. “Walk,” I growl into her ear.
She does. “Mikhail—” she whispers, her voice hoarse.
“Tikho.” Quiet.
The word cuts harder than I intend. She flinches.
The night air hits us when I push open the door.
Snow is falling harder now, coating the parked cars and softening the industrial landscape beyond the warehouse.
My sedan waits near the wall. Taylor looks toward the road.
I see the calculation happen. The distance. The snow. Her shoes.
She runs anyway.
She takes two steps before I catch her around the waist. She screams. I clamp one hand over her mouth and pull her back against me. Her elbow drives into my ribs. Pain flashes through my side. She tries again.
“Stop.”
She bites my glove. I almost admire her for it.
“Taylor.”
She kicks backward, catching my shin. The car door opens, and Pavel gets out.
For one second, Taylor’s eyes shine. I feel her body loosen against mine, some part of her apparently believing that Pavel has come to help her.
Pavel looks at me, then at her. Without a word, he reaches to his collar, loosens his tie and pulls it free.
He walks toward us and places it in my hand.
I watch all of that shine dull from Taylor’s eyes. It is not fear. It is betrayal. She believed he was coming to help her. She thought there was something left of the world. She is seeing that the world is made for people like me.
Pavel gets back into the car, and Taylor’s face drains of color when I attempt to turn her around. She twists in my arms. I catch her wrist, and she strikes me with the other hand. Her palm connects with my cheek. The sound is dull in the snowy night.
We both go still. Her breathing stops. Mine does not change. I could pretend it does not affect me. Instead, I look at her and say, “Eshchyo raz.” Again. “If it helps.”
Her eyes fill. That’s worse than the slap.
I take both wrists carefully and bind them in front of her with Pavel’s tie. She fights until she realizes I’m not hurting her. Then she becomes completely still. I check the knot twice. Loose enough not to cut circulation. Tight enough that she cannot free herself.
Taylor looks down at her hands. “You’re a criminal,” she says. There is no accusation in her voice now. Only understanding.
“Yes.”
The word sits between us. She lifts her eyes to mine. “Did you order them to beat that man?” I say nothing. “Did you kill him?”
I pull her to her feet and drag her to the rear door and open it.
She braces her bound hands against the roof, but her heart is not in it.
I push the small of her back, and she folds into the back seat.
She scrambles across the leather and reaches for the opposite door.
It’s locked. Of course it’s locked. She strikes the window with her palms. “Let me out.”
I climb in after her and close the door. The interior light fades. For one second, we sit facing each other in the dark. She looks at me as though I am a stranger. Perhaps I am. Perhaps the man she imagined was only ever a role I performed badly.
Her mouth trembles once. She turns toward the window.
I want to tell her the man photographed my mother. I want to tell her he gave those photographs to Orlov. I want to tell her the drugs are leverage, not merchandise. I want to offer distinctions that would matter only to me.
None of it changes what she saw.
“Where to?” Pavel asks.
I look at Taylor. Her bound hands rest in her lap. She’s trying not to cry.
“My house,” I say.
The car pulls away from the warehouse. Taylor doesn’t look at me again.