Chapter 27
Dominik
Back at my apartment building, we come in from the private elevator in the garage.
We put Archer in the mostly empty room of the penthouse with no windows and a chair that won’t forgive bad posture.
Petrov locks the cuffs to a spreader bolted under the table so Archer can sit and feel something solid in his life for once.
He pulls and swears through his gag, no doubt promising things he can’t deliver. I close the door on it all.
I should go to her even though I know I shouldn’t. I stand in the corridor debating joining Alina. She’s still in my bedroom, sleeping finally. I expected her to burst out when she heard us, but I’m glad she’s resting up for what comes next.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I answer since a call is better than another unexpected visit from him.
“Little brother,” Gavriil says, and he makes it sound like a slur. “You have him.”
The way he says it tells me he knows because he always knows. There are eyes we pay and eyes whose debt is older than money. Not even I know who all are on his payroll.
“Yes,” I say.
“Kill him.” He orders like it’s a simple request, no different from the way he would tell a man to close the door on his way out.
We both know he already has the guns and most of the money. Killing Archer isn’t about business anymore; it’s about obedience.
I picture Alina looking at me like she looked at Gavriil—wary, calculating, afraid. The thought makes my stomach twist.
I don’t breathe for a second because if I do, I’ll say no, and that will be a kind of war we don’t have enough bullets for today. All I can do is think of the way Alina would look at me if I did as I’m told.
The silence stretches enough for my brother to test its edges. “Did you hear me?”
“I heard you,” I say.
How many of his orders have I followed from when we were just children until now? How many times did he fix me with a hard stare or shove me against the nearest wall until I succumbed? Until I fell into line?
But he’s still not the worst monster either of us have faced.
“Then do it now,” he says. “Before she makes you do something you can’t afford to do.”
“Understood,” I say. The word tastes like rust in my mouth.
“Don’t force me to show you what betrayal looks like up close, little brother.” A breath. “If you can’t kill him and bring me the money by noon then bring her to me instead. But you will have to make a decision now, little brother. No more delays. I’m done waiting.”
The line clicks. I stare at the black of the screen a few seconds before I walk back into the side room.
Viktor straightens. Petrov moves out of the doorway and lets me pass.
Archer looks up, defiant as a dog in a trap that still thinks he can escape.
“Get it over with,” it sounds like he says, trying and failing to make himself sound brave.
“Not here,” I say as I jerk the gag down so we can have a conversation. “I won’t make her home into something that I can’t make right again.”
If I kill him now, it’s Gavriil’s win. If I keep him breathing, the next move is mine, not his. But every second Archer stays alive also keeps a gun pointed at Alina’s future.
“What the fuck does that mean?” He jerks his hands and the cuffs sing. “You going to take me out to the river and make me confess? You going to make Alina kiss your ring first, make her beg to take mercy on me?”
“You don’t talk about her,” I say.
“She’s my sister! I’ll talk about her whenever I want.
” Archer leans forward, chain clinking with defiance.
“You know she could never love someone like you.” He wants his words to hurt me.
He wants to make me unsteady enough to take the wrong step.
“She loves me. She’s always loved me. I’m her blood.
You can’t buy that kind of loyalty from her. ”
“I don’t plan to buy it,” I say. “I’ll earn it.”
He blinks like I slapped him from across the room. He swallows and then repeats himself. “She’ll choose me, and she’ll never forgive you.”
“Maybe,” I say, and it surprises us both that I mean it. “Maybe she will. She deserves to at least have the choice.”
Archer freezes. He doesn’t understand a man laying his weapons down on purpose. He doesn’t understand what it means for a man like me to open a door when he could easily lock it.
“Viktor,” I say without looking away from Archer as I put the gag back in place, infuriating him even more.
“Here,” he says quietly from the hallway.
“Add two safehouses to the list. Pull six passports. Burner phones. Cash in numbers that make cashiers sigh,” I order.
“Yes, sir, but…”
“But what?” I snap at him.
“If you sever ties now, you’ll be leaving the Pakhan vulnerable to attack,” Viktor remarks. I consider his opinion for all of five seconds. My brother brought whatever comes next on himself, just like Archer. I can’t afford to be my brother’s keeper any longer.
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I reply. Speaking of Gavriil, I tell him, “Put eyes on my brother’s estate and hands on his car. If he moves tonight without telling me, I want the street to report it.”
“Yes, sir,” Viktor says, no question in it.
“Petrov,” I say. “Dig up the bag in the false floor in the Jersey City garage. You know the one. Put it in the car with a long gun in the trunk and tape a second under the passenger seat. Switch plates twice before you come back.”
“Yes,” he says. He doesn’t smile, but something in him gets meaner in a way that I approve.
“Renat,” I add, knowing he’s been lurking nearby in the study, trying not to get in the way since we got back.
“Sir?” he asks. “Take six men to watch Jinx, Reed, or Manny, whoever is guarding the cold storage warehouse. Take long-rifles with scopes. If they run, you don’t let them make it ten feet. Let me know when you’re in position.”
“On it,” Renat says.
I step closer to Archer until the chain tugs his wrists, and his eyes won’t let themselves drop.
“I’m going to let you see her,” I say. “Not yet since she’s finally sleeping.
But soon you’ll see her, and you’ll listen to what she says, and if she chooses you, I will let you walk out of my house alive with a head start I pay for.
If she chooses me, you’ll still walk out, but you won’t get any help from me.
You will be a man who used up the last person who believed in him. ”
Archer finally looks nervous. I straighten, and the wound in my side calls me a name I’ve earned. I ignore it.
I walk out and carry a chair from the dining table down the hall, my side screaming the entire way. She’ll sleep better without me in the room, and tonight I need time to think through every scenario. Near her is where I do my best thinking.
So, I sit and I think carefully. I don’t like the taste of my brother’s orders in my mouth. I don’t like the way my head knows how easy it would be to walk back into that room and turn a gigantic problem into a memory.
Alina said she could handle the truth. But if I kill Archer, I take even that choice from her.
I close my eyes and say her name once under my breath. It steadies the part of me that would like to be a better man. When I open them again, I start plotting.
Time moves slowly, like it’s waiting for someone to die tonight.
My phone buzzes at 12:00 exactly, a text from Renat: Jinx and Reed seen by rifle scope at Manny’s walking the perimeter. Another two to three inside, one could be Manny.
I send back: 12:52 River. If they have guards on rotation every fifteen, thirty minutes, or hour, then we need to go in at a random time. Six of our men with Renat can sneak up on five easily enough, especially if they hit the two outside before the ones inside realize they’re done.
Then I type another message and don’t send it for three heartbeats because I second-guess her and hate myself for it.
To Petrov I finally text: Pack all her things from the guest room and load up the car when you get back.
While my men and I can buy whatever we need as we go, I think Alina will feel better if she has her own things with her. That is, if she makes the decision I think she will.
Petrov replies, Will do. Rug under the trunk is hiding a surprise you forgot we left ourselves. A bag we swore we’d never use unless we needed to vanish.
I breathe and remember a night about five years ago when Petrov, Viktor, and I thought we might need a different future and decided to hide a new start in a place where our worst selves wouldn’t find it.
It was right after Gavriil sent the three of us to take on an army of armed cartel soldiers on our own, and a miracle that we made it through that shit alive.
I put the phone down and look at my door. I want to see her, to join her in my bed. But I stay in the chair and let my body ache and my mind sharpen as I make plans for tomorrow. For the future. One I hope comes true.
There are two options.
The first is that we leave, if she wants to leave, and make a life some place far from the city. I don’t yet know what country I’ll take her to. Only that I’ll carry her there in my arms if I have to.
The second is my less favorable. I refuse to obey my brother and go to war with him.
I take a short nap in the bad chair without deciding, and wake with a knife in my side that’s nobody’s fault but my own.
My phone says it’s 1:12 already. The raid should be in progress, but there’s no update from Renat yet. That’s not a cause for concern, though. I’ll give him ten more minutes to get a handle on things.
I stand up and put my palm flat on the door, but I don’t go inside. I don’t need her eyes on me to know what I’m going to do. I walk down the hall, passing Petrov on his way to pack Alina’s things from the guestroom.
When he returns with the full duffle, we leave and I tell the guards on duty outside the penthouse, “Tonight you’re inside, on the traitor’s door.
” I don’t trust the locks or code anymore.
Not after Gavriil proved they mean nothing.
When they slip through the apartment, I finally press the down button and let the city lower us to the garage.
I pull out my phone and type three words I didn’t expect to write anytime soon to Viktor: If needed, disappear.
He sends back a single word: Understood.
An SUV waits in the far bay, black with a new plate. Petrov opens the trunk and lifts the rug. The bag is there, heavier than it looks, with the kind of money that doesn’t ask any questions.
“Well done,” I tell him when he tosses the duffle with Alina’s things inside.
My phone finally buzzes in my pocket.
Renat.
“Boss,” he says, and I can tell by the one word all went according to plan. “Pallets secured, targets down, no witnesses to report it. We’re loading up.”
“Good,” I say. “Deliver the guns to Gavriil, then get back here.”
Petrov closes the trunk as I end the call.
It’s time for my men to start reporting for duty, the ones going with us on this trip.
I want to greet each one, to ensure they can still look me in the eye, that they haven’t betrayed me to my brother, their true boss, and confirm that I can trust them to protect Alina at all costs.
Every contingency I begin to plan leads to one truth: Gavriil and I are now on a collision course.
No matter what happens though, I’ll find a way to crawl back to her.