Chapter 33 Laszlo #2
Grisha moves up on my right. Dmitri and Yuri split up behind us, covering angles and clearing the booths one by one with quick, efficient sweeps.
“Nothing,” Dmitri mutters.
That makes it worse.
A scene like this should not be quiet after a fight. If men are still breathing, they should be shouting. If they’re dead, more bodies should already be on the floor.
Instead, we get absence. Deliberate. Controlled.
I hate controlled silence almost as much as I hate panic.
We reach the bar.
Bottles are smashed across the mirrored back wall. One stool lies on its side. Blood smears the lacquered wood and drips in a dark line down the brass rail. Fresh enough to shine.
I hold up one hand, and everyone stops.
Listen.
Nothing from the main floor. Nothing from the corridor behind the bar. Just the faint hum of refrigeration units and, underneath it, something else.
Someone’s panicked breath, they are trying desperately to conceal.
I move to the bar hatch and lift the section to step behind it.
A woman leaps up, smashed bottle in her hand.
“Yelena!” Galina hisses. “What is going on?”
I lower my weapon as Galina confirms what I suspected long enough not to blow her head off.
“Fuck, Galina,” Yelena breathes out. “Vik is here somewhere. He got me out. The kids are with the nanny. Anton came after us. The timing was messed up—”
“Stay calm,” I say to her before she spirals into a rehash of what happened. We don’t need to know past actions. We need to know what’s going on now. “Where and when did you last see either of them?”
“Vik made a call—to you, I presume—and then he went after Anton. Ten minutes ago, maybe?” Yelena says, breathing hard. Her face is pale under the club lights, hair half out of whatever style she started the night with. There is blood on one sleeve that I can’t tell is hers or someone else’s.
Timing is off slightly. Viktor called me around twenty minutes ago, but I don’t expect her to have been clock-watching, waiting for the cavalry. “Where did Anton come through?”
“The back with six men. Maybe more. Vik got me behind the bar and told me not to move. Then he went after them.”
“Alone?” Galina snaps.
Yelena shakes her head. “Two went with him.”
“Yuri, stay with her.”
Galina’s eyes cut to mine at once. “I’m not staying behind the bar.”
“No. You’re staying with me.”
That satisfies her.
I look back at Yelena. “Where exactly are the kids?”
“Safe,” she says, lifting her chin defiantly. She wouldn’t tell me if I tried to torture it out of her. I nod, appreciating it. “You move when Yuri tells you. Not before.”
She swallows and nods.
I step out from behind the bar and motion for Galina to stay glued to my left. Grisha and Dmitri at my back. We head for the corridor at the back. “We are so blind,” I mutter. “If they went into the tunnels, we are fucked.”
“Dad wouldn’t do that. He called you for backup, not for us to get lost wandering around an old Soviet tunnel work.”
“Good point,” I agree, smiling at her. The corridor narrows fast, turning from polished club excess into service access and concrete walls painted a colour that gave up years ago. One strip light flickers overhead. Blood marks the floor in dragged streaks and boot prints.
I move first, gun up, every sense keyed raw. Galina stays exactly where I told her. I can feel her there without looking. Grisha checks the rear. Dmitri clears the utility doors on our right, one by one, quickly and silently.
At the end of the corridor, a steel door hangs open.
I stop dead when I hear a noise.
Impact. Flesh on flesh. A grunt. Another hit.
I push through the door and step into a storage space stacked with crates of spirits and boxed glassware.
One fluorescent tube buzzes above us. Another body is down against the far wall, throat open, eyes fixed on nothing.
Galina says nothing, so I’m assuming not one of her dad’s men.
Ahead, another door stands ajar. The sounds are coming from beyond it.
We move.
I take the door hard and fast.
The room beyond opens into a loading bay, its shutter half-raised to the alley outside. Cold night air cuts in. A black SUV idles just outside, exhaust curling into the cold, rear passenger door standing open.
Viktor has Petrov pinned against the side of it with one hand in his shirt and the other driving fist after fist into his face with the focused brutality of a man finishing a job he should have done years ago.
Petrov is barely upright. Blood covers his mouth, his chin, his collar. One eye is already swelling shut.
Two more bodies are down near the shutter. One moves. Barely.
One of Viktor’s men is on one knee by a stack of pallets, gun hanging loose in his hand, blood soaking through his side.
Petrov sees us first.
His good eye goes past Viktor and lands on me, then on Galina, and something ugly brightens in his expression. He spits blood and laughs, cracked and wet. “Family reunion.”
Viktor slams his head into the car, and Petrov’s laugh cuts off, and he looks over. “About fucking time, Voronov. Need a witness.”
“To what?” I ask as Viktor’s eyes land on Galina and go ice-cold. I’m in for an arse-kicking later, but right now we have bigger things to deal with.
“This.” Viktor steps back, and his other man hands him a gun. Viktor presses it to Petrov’s forehead and pulls the trigger.
The bang is loud, no suppressor.
Galina gasps and turns away, her hand over her mouth. Not distraught that Petrov is dead, just that she saw her dad kill him in front of her.
“You dragged me all the way down here so I could watch you shoot this fucker?” I ask, my patience threading very thin.
“I dragged you down here because this is your club now, and I needed you to corroborate that Petrov was being unreasonable, and this was necessary.”
“It was necessary. You don’t need me to agree with you.”
“Tell that to the rest of his family and every other Bratva family that aligned with him.”
“Where are the kids?” Galina asks, spinning back around.
“Safe,” Viktor responds the same way as Yelena. “Did you find Yelena?”
“Yes, she is with my man.”
“Good. This is over.” He kicks Petrov’s body and spits on it. He gestures to his man to get cleaning, and I finally lower my weapon.
“Do I want to know how you got them out?” I ask.
“That isn’t necessary information. They are out. She is widowed, and she and her children are safe. That is all you need to know.”
“Thank you,” Galina says and rushes towards him, flinging her arms around him.
“Don’t be absurd,” he says, and she laughs, through her tears.
“So what’s the story?” I ask.
“The truth up until the point I shot him point-blank in the head,” Viktor says and turns to his other man, who has gone pale. “Galina. Move.”
“No,” I say as Galina stumbles back, but the shot has already been fired from, I’m assuming, Petrov’s gun into Viktor’s thigh. The old man grunts, but that is about the extent of his complaining.
“Fuck!” Galina cries out, and I grab her, pulling her to me and turning her face to my chest, even though it’s too late.
“Necessary,” Viktor growls. “Now we all know what happened.”
Right. Now we all know.