Chapter 23
LEV
"Ready?" I ask.
Vivika turns to look at me, and I see Ana Veche staring back from behind her carefully made-up eyes. "I was born ready."
I almost smile at that.
Vivika isn't the same woman she was when I took her from the street, and it isn't just her appearance.
She's morphed into something wicked and rigid, and it's a frighteningly good representation of what a woman hardened by this life really is.
She's gotten the act down and now it’s time to show her off.
We step out of the car and move toward the designated meeting point, a large warehouse at the center of the complex where Yuri's arranged for us to meet Luka Kolar.
My uncle's already there when we arrive, standing in the shadows near the entrance with Dimitri and Fyodor flanking him like faithful hounds. Several other family soldiers have positioned themselves around the perimeter. I don’t see weapons, but I know each of them is armed.
"Lev…" Yuri nods at me and then lets his gaze travel over Vivika, approval flickering in his weathered eyes. "She looks the part."
"She is the part," I say, and I mean it. I've seen this woman transform herself thoroughly over the past several days being locked up in that safehouse. She's ready for this.
I watch Vivika as she moves to stand near the warehouse door, with perfect posture and a cold expression. "I've never been more certain of anything in my life."
"Good, good…" Yuri's eyes pan across the warehouse and then land on me. "If anything goes wrong—"
"It won't." I assure him and nod as I move past, joining Vivika where she stands.
When Kolar agreed to this meeting, he sounded reluctant.
It isn’t often that an enemy reaches out with terms of cooperation and a request to be heard out.
We're banking everything on Kolar's naivety about Ana's real status.
We said we have her. He wants to see her.
It's the only reason he committed to showing up.
Minutes pass like hours, and tension builds until it feels thick enough to choke on. The wind shifts and carries the distant sound of boat horns from the river, and I check my watch three times a minute, it seems.
Because something feels wrong. It prickles at the back of my neck and screams "danger" even though everything appears calm on the surface. It's a simple meeting for a conversation, not a staged coup, but my gut doesn't lie, and Yuri's over-alert stance doesn't help.
When I hear the engines coming from the east, multiple vehicles approaching fast, I know before I see them that something's gone terribly wrong.
Luka Kolar drives a single armored sedan.
He travels with two bodyguards at most, preferring discretion and tact.
Whatever's approaching sounds like an army.
The first car rounds the corner and my blood turns to ice.
It's a convoy of black SUVs, at least six of them, and the lead vehicle bears a symbol I recognize instantly—the crest of the Veche family, emblazoned on the hood like a declaration of war.
My stomach drops as the convoy screeches to a halt in a semicircle around the mouth of the warehouse, doors flying open and men pouring out with weapons already raised.
There must be thirty of them, maybe more, spreading out within wide flanking maneuvers.
And at the center of it all, stepping out of the lead SUV with a smile on his face that makes me want to put a bullet between his eyes, is Yaros Veche.
"Gravitches!" His voice carries mockingly across the space between us. "I hope you weren't expecting anyone important."
"Kolar sold us out," Dimitri snarls, his gun already in his hand. "The bastard told Yaros."
"Or Yaros intercepted the meeting somehow." Yuri's voice is calm as he steps behind a stack of pallets. I fold Vivika in closer as he says, "It doesn't matter now. What matters is that we're outnumbered and outgunned."
My mind is racing as I study what's going on, trying to spy a way out of this where we don't end up dead. Yaros brought at least thirty soldiers. We have maybe a dozen, including family members who shouldn't be anywhere near a firefight.
It's obvious why he's here and I don't have to say it, but the words tumble from my lips anyway. "He set this up to slaughter us. He wants to wipe us out and kill Vivika in the process. Then he can tell everyone he tried to save his sister but she died in the battle against the Gravitches."
"The perfect cover story," Yuri agrees grimly. "Her death blamed on us while his hands stay clean, and no more questions about where Ana's been all these months."
Yaros raises his hand and his men advance, forming a line that tightens around us like a noose. "You have something that belongs to me," he calls out. "My dear sister, returned from the dead. I'd like her back now, if you don't mind."
"Go to hell," Vivika shouts back, and despite the terror I can see in the whites of her eyes, her voice carries with Ana's grit.
Yaros's smile doesn't waver. "Kill them all. Leave no survivors."
The first shot splits the air and then everything dissolves into chaos.
I shove Vivika behind a stack of crates and return fire.
My bullets find targets in the advancing line of Veche soldiers.
Two of them drop before the rest scatter for cover, and then it's a full-scale war, muzzle flashes lighting up like strobe lights at a nightclub from hell.
One of our men goes down on my left, clutching his chest as blood blooms through his fingers.
Another takes a bullet to the leg and crawls behind a rusted forklift, still firing even as he drags himself to safety.
The air fills with the screams of wounded men and the acrid stench of copper as blood is shed.
I move through the chaos with Vivika pressed against my back, keeping her shielded while I pick off anyone who gets too close.
A Veche soldier rounds the corner of a shipping container and I put three rounds in his center mass before he can raise his weapon. Another appears behind him and I take him down with a headshot that sprays blood across the rusted metal behind him, and Vivika shrieks in fear.
"Lev!" Yuri's voice cuts through the noise. "We're being flanked! They're coming around the east side!"
I spin to see a group of Veche men advancing from our right, trying to cut off our escape route. Dimitri's already engaging them, but there are too many and they keep coming like a tide that refuses to recede.
"We need to pull back!" I shout. "We're gonna be surrounded!"
Yaros appears at the edge of my vision and our eyes meet as he smiles, a cold and triumphant expression that makes my trigger finger itch with the desperate need to end him.
I raise my weapon, but a burst of gunfire from my left forces me to dive for cover, and when I look again, he's vanished into the smoke and confusion.
"Oh my God, Lev, are you okay?" Vivika is there with me in a heap on the floor, but I push up. There's no time to sit and lick wounds right now.
"Move, "I order her, and we retreat toward the back of the warehouse. If we can get out the back door, the SUV isn't but a forty-yard sprint. At this point, it's every man for himself, and every Gravitch here knows that.
Two more of our men fall. Then a third. The Veche forces push us back, overwhelming our defensive positions and causing more casualties. This is what Yaros wanted—a bloodbath that eliminates the Gravitch leadership and buries Vivika's threat once and for all.
But Yuri appears at my side, blood streaming from a cut on his forehead, and his eyes are sharp and focused. "Get her out of here," he orders. "Take Vivika and run. Our plan with Kolar might still work, but only if she survives."
"I won't leave you—"
"That's an order." His hand grips my shoulder and he gives me a shove. "You have to protect her now. Dimitri and I will cover your retreat, but you need to go. Now."
I look at him—my uncle, my mentor, the closest thing I've had to a father since my own died—and I see the resignation in his eyes. He knows the odds but he's going to stay and fight knowing with one less man, he may not come out of this clean. And I won't let him down.
I grab Vivika's hand and run. We weave through the maze of shipping containers and rusted machinery, bullets whizzing past our heads as Yuri and Dimitri provide cover fire behind us.
I can hear them shouting commands, rallying what remains of our forces, buying us precious seconds with every shot they fire.
My car is miraculously untouched by the carnage, and I shove Vivika into the passenger seat before sliding behind the wheel and flooring the accelerator. The tires scream against the pavement as we tear out of the warehouse district, and I don't look back.
"Where are we going?" Vivika asks. Her voice has a tremor though I can hear her trying to project an edge of steel in her tone.
"The safehouse." I take a corner so fast, the car starts drifting. "We regroup, figure out our next move."
She shivers and sits back in the seat, gripping the handle on the door and staring out wide-eyed at the road as I speed toward the only place in this city I know she's been truly safe. Yaros is out for her blood now, and I've made that happen. I'll never forgive myself if he gets ahold of her.
"Lev, I'm scared." Vivika reaches out and rests her hand on my knee, and I cover her hand with mine. She's said that a few times since I met her, but never with quite so much emotion. And she has every reason to fear.
For all I know, my family left behind at that warehouse has been entirely slaughtered. Yuri could be dead, Dimitri and Fyodor too. I watched our guys drop like flies over this.