8. Lev #2
Doors slam—heavy metallic thuds that punch through the chaos.
Kostya's out, moving like violence given form, already tracking targets with the cold focus of a man who's done this a thousand times.
The second SUV—Maxim's vehicle—takes the worst of it.
Rounds punch through the side paneling with sickening precision, exactly where people sit, where bodies would be.
I hear screaming—raw, animal sounds of pain and terror.
I don't look. Can't. Every instinct howls at me to assess, to count casualties, to lead, but my whole world has already narrowed to one thing, one singular point of focus that overrides everything I've been trained to do.
Wren.
She's on the porch, pressed flat against the siding like she's trying to melt into the wood, hands over her head in an instinctive, useless gesture of protection, and she's alive—she's alive—because she stepped out for a dead phone.
Because of a stupid, pointless, ridiculous dead phone that I watched her forget this morning.
Twelve feet of open ground between us. Might as well be twelve miles.
I break across it, low and fast, reading cover I don't have.
The round takes me in the arm—punch of impact, heat spreading fast, blood slicking down to my wrist. I don't stop.
A man steps into my path and I put two in his chest. He goes down. I keep moving.
Kostya comes out from behind the SUV like something feral—no hesitation, just brutal efficiency. He drops one shooter, swings toward the next, no wasted motion. Maxim breaks from the second vehicle, weapon up, face set in cold fury. The three of us converge on the porch.
I reach her first. She's shaking, eyes wide, hands still over her head like that'll stop bullets. I shove her flat against the wall, cover her with my body, scan the tree line over her head.
"Down. Stay down."
"Lev—"
"Don't move."
Kostya slides in next to me, back to the wall, reloading without looking. "How many?"
"At least six. Maybe more."
"Who the fuck are they?"
I don't know. That's the part that makes my skin crawl. I don't recognize the shooters. Don't recognize the tactics. Someone just hit the pakhan and I can't even place who would dare.
The gunfire thins. Not because we're winning. Because someone called the halt.
A voice cuts through the smoke and the ringing in my ears—calm, warm, familiar.
"Lev. Look at you. The pakhan."
I know that voice. Have known it my whole life. I turn my head, slow, and Yuri steps into view from behind his men—unhurried, hands in his pockets, signet ring catching the light as he turns it absently. Smiling.
The floor disappears.
Not the gunfire. Not the blood running hot down my arm.
Not the fact that half my men are dead or dying in the driveway.
The floor goes because it's him. My uncle.
My father's brother. The man who sent me a watch for my eighteenth birthday—heavy, expensive, engraved on the back in my father's handwriting because Yuri couldn't be bothered to fly home and hand it over himself. I still have it. Wore it this morning.
Every birthday. Every Christmas. His voice on the phone, warm as a hand on the back of my neck. How's business, Lev? How are the boys? Always abroad, always busy, always generous. I never once looked at him.
He stops ten feet away, surveying the scene with the mild interest of a man inspecting furniture.
"You wondered why I didn't come to the wedding."
I can't speak. Can't move. The gun in my hand feels like it weighs a thousand pounds.
Yuri tilts his head, fond. "You were supposed to die, Lev. You and your father both. The bride and her daughter were incidental—collateral, really. But someone missed." He shrugs. "These things happen."
The words land one at a time, slow and deliberate, like nails driven into wood. He wanted the chair. Has wanted it for years. Stayed away from the wedding because he knew. Because he planned it.
"I have friends now," Yuri continues, turning the ring again. "New friends. A family from the east—you know the one. They're very interested in what happens next. Very supportive."
A rival family. Backing him. I didn't know. Didn't see it. The unknown shooters—they were never the point. He was.
"I've been watching you boys," Yuri says, voice softening into something almost affectionate.
"All three of you, playing house with the girl.
It's sweet, really. Devoted. I didn't think you had it in you, Lev—you were always so controlled.
But she's got all three of you wrapped around her little finger, doesn't she? "
Wren makes a small sound behind me—sharp, broken. I feel her shaking against my back.
Yuri smiles. "I hit the safe house this morning. Your man Pavel—good man, loyal—didn't last long. And Diane..." He pauses, lets it sit. "Well. She's comfortable. For now."
The safe house. Yuri's old property—the one he offered when we needed a place no one would think to look. The safe place was never safe. It was his. We handed her mother to him and called it protection.
"Lev—" Wren's voice cracks, her hands fisting in my jacket. "Lev, please. Please, that's my mom. Do something, please?—"
I reach back, catch her hand, hold it. For one beat I let her see it—the softness, the crack she's put in me. Then I turn back to Yuri.
He's watching. He sees. He's been watching long enough to know exactly where to cut.
"Listen to your whore, then," Yuri says, fond and amused, like he's talking about a child's tantrum. "Listen to your shlyukha."
Something in me goes very quiet.
I've been angry before. That kind burns off—fast and hot and over. This is different. This is the kind my father told me about once, when I was too young to understand. The kind that doesn't rise so much as settle. Even. Patient. Bottomless.
My hands are perfectly steady. That's how I know.
I rise. Slow. Unhurried. The same way Yuri walked into view. The same way he's stood here smiling while his men bled mine out on the gravel. I hear Kostya shift behind me. Hear Maxim's breath catch. My own men have gone still, watching, waiting.
Yuri's smile falters. Just a fraction. Just enough.
"Lev—"
I don't answer. Don't need to. There's nothing left to say. No line left to hold. No version of this where he walks away.
I take a step forward. The weight of the gun in my hand feels exactly right.