Chapter 40
Alexei
The helicopter lands on the roof of the hospital, stirring up a whirlwind of dust. I don’t wait for someone to unbuckle me. I can get myself out, thank you.
There are two men on the roof, studying the helicopter. Seems they’re trying to discern whether this is a medical emergency or a coup. I aim my gun through the open door and shoot first one and then the other of these men in the head. Both of them drop, sacks of useless, forgotten flesh.
“You gonna let a man like Jonas Kelly make a fool outta you?” Burt asked me, a cigar in his mouth and a feral smile on his face.
Not a happy smile. Oh no. The mayor has personally insulted me and my family.
Again. “Alexei, son, if you’re going to keep reminding me that you’re a Borisov and I’m not, you better act like it. ”
I move quickly across the roof, alone. My uncle may have lent me the helicopter—and only because I invoked my poor dead Papa’s name, and all his promises of how the family cares for its own—but he didn’t send me with backup. He isn’t going to lift a finger to help me. I must prove myself.
I hop down onto the surface of the roof, holding my father’s Pistolet Makarova—an eight-round semi-auto—in my right hand.
My clothes are torn and bloody. I’m bruised and scuffed and contaminated and angry.
The doors the dead men were guarding lead into a long, sterile hallway.
Everything is white or silver, and the entire place smells like antiseptics.
There’s nobody here.
According to Hype, this is where the ambulance stopped, dropping two passengers off before speeding away. Scarlett and Bohnes should be here any minute, but sometimes, a minute is sixty seconds too long.
I move quickly but quietly down the hall, peering around the corner to find another pair of men stationed outside an interior door.
There are people coming and going in this space, in and out of those guarded doors, wearing scrubs and masks.
Taking advantage of the noise and movement, I slip around the corner and walk quickly up to the men before they take much notice of me.
The first one gets a shot to the neck. The second ends up with one in his spine when he tries to run from me.
One of the nurses starts to scream. I let her do it, waiting to see if any additional men have been left to guard this room.
If this is the wrong place, if these men somehow belonged to a person other than Jonas, I don’t particularly care. Expediency is key.
I reload.
Using my left hand, I push my way into the unguarded room and find myself face-to-face with a glass window overlooking an operating room.
Widow is on a table in the middle of the space, naked. His gold eyes stare up at the ceiling as a surgeon in a mask leans over him, pressing a scalpel to his chest. Adrian is bleeding everywhere, but it’s clear to me even from here that he’s not out. He hasn’t been put under.
There’s far too much rage in that sharp gaze of his for him to be either unconscious or dead.
Thank God, he’s still alive. But where the fuck is Ash?
My next shot shatters the glass. The one after that hits the surgeon with the scalpel in the chest, knocking him backwards.
I don’t stop there, hopping over the half wall and into the room.
The shards crunch under my feet as I take inventory, choosing which members of the medical staff I most want dead.
When only a few remain, I point the gun right at them, ignoring their raised hands of surrender.
“Wake him up.” My voice is hideous, an echo of the Borisov family and nothing at all like Mama or Papa would’ve approved of.
But you know what my parents did approve of?
Crushing those who would crush you. Saving the friend, companion, and partner that makes your wife’s heart beat and your own feel like it’s bigger than you ever imagined it would be.
“He dies, you all die. Three generations of your family will follow you to the afterlife.”
The remaining three people get to work, putting some drug into Widow’s IV at the same time another is stitching up the wound in his chest with shaky fingers. Luckily I got here when I did or I imagine that wound would’ve become something he was never going to recover from.
Widow’s fingers twitch at his sides before he lurches upright like something possessed. His hand wraps the neck of the man that’s trying to stitch him up. With his other, Widow takes the abandoned scalpel from the edge of the operating table and cuts the doctor’s neck with it.
I reload my gun and shoot both of the nurses before either of them gets it in their head to fight back.
“Where’s Ash?” I ask, moving quickly up to the side of the table and putting my arm around Widow’s waist. He’s trembling, weak from whatever drug he was given. It takes him several tries to get his lips to cooperate.
“Jonas…took him.” Widow leans heavily into me, closing his eyes.
If I have to carry him out of here, I’ll do it.
Adrian manages somehow to shake himself back to consciousness, climbing off the table and looking around like he’s trying to find something to wear.
“It’s bad, Alexei. We have to…he needs us. ”
I’m already on the phone, calling Bohnes and Scarlett.
“Pulling into the parking lot now,” she says, panting wildly. I hear the sound of tires screeching.
“Widow is safe; we’ll take the helicopter and meet you at the house. Ash has left the hospital with Jonas.” I deliver the bad news as quickly and efficiently as I can. At times like this, it’s life-or-death. A rambling conversation could see Ash in an early grave.
“When?” Scarlett makes that one word sound like a plea, a war cry, and a sob. “How long since he left?”
“How long…” Widow whispers, stealing the bloody scrubs off one of the bodies. His words are slurred and his hands shaky. “Maybe ten minutes?”
“I love you both, immensely.” Scarlett hangs up on me, probably to call Hype.
The pair of us go still at the sound of a knock.
There’s a door inside the operating room.
I step forward and open it, only to find a very surprised medical professional on the other end.
Without waiting for confirmation, I execute this person, too.
They won’t know where Ash is. Not even the men guarding the room would’ve known that. Jonas is too careful.
A young man, about our age, is resting on a table with a machine beeping beside him. Turning my head, I spot an older man that I recognize from one of Emma Jean’s many lessons. John Booth. He’s a politician friend of Jonas’, the man who co-owns all that logging land.
“His son,” Widow says, holding the scalpel in his hand as he follows my gaze to the man in the suit.
He’s staring back at us like he’s absolutely terrified to see us in that room with his son.
To his credit, John Booth is less apathetic toward his son’s life than any of the other men we’ve met recently.
Like Ernest. Or Chet. Or Jonas. “He needs a heart transplant.”
Mr. Booth shoves his way into the room, eyes darting from his son to me. From his son to Widow.
“Mr. Borisov,” he says with a false laugh, holding up both palms like he’s trying to beg for mercy. Too bad for him that I have absolutely none of that. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Mr. Booth,” I reply politely, inclining my head. “If you needed a heart transplant for your son, you should’ve asked the family.” Swinging my right hand over, I take aim at his sleeping son’s chest, and I shoot him straight in that heart he needed replaced so badly.
John screams and rushes forward, only to end up with a slit throat at the end of Widow’s scalpel. He crumples to the ground in a spreading red puddle, one that the other members of the medical team are quickly encouraged to join. I don’t spare a single one of them.
“They were going to do a heart transplant while you were awake and aware?” I shudder at the thought, moving out the door of the operating room and over to the one that leads back into the hallway. When I push it open, there’s nobody around that’s still alive. Excellent.
“We have to find Ash,” Widow says, instead of answering me.
He follows me down the hall, leaving bloody footprints as he goes.
He’s wobbly, accepting my arm around his waist when I offer it a second time.
“Jonas is even worse than I thought, Alexei. He’s…
fuck, he’s so bad. We can’t waste a goddamn second. ”
I nod, helping Widow outside and onto the roof. Back into the helicopter. We’ll ride it to the house and figure out what to do from there.
Ash and Jonas can’t have gone far.