2. Kira
KIRA
My cousin Nika throws a dumpling at her brother’s head and it hits him square in the ear.
He doesn't even flinch. He picks it off his shoulder, inspects it, and eats it while maintaining direct eye contact with her, and Nika shrieks so loudly, the older men at the end of the table all look up from their plates at the same time with identical expressions of exhausted tolerance.
"You two are animals," I say, but I'm laughing so hard, my ribs hurt. It's good to have a younger crowd here tonight instead of just the stodgy old men who run this place.
"He started it." Nika points her fork at her brother. "He said my highlights make me look like a raccoon."
"I said a cute raccoon," Alexei corrects, which earns him another dumpling, this one bouncing off his forehead. He catches it, bobbling it for a second before that, too, goes into his gaping mouth with a grin. I swear he did that to get more food—the guy can eat.
Our family meetings aren't always this lively, but today is a bit of a different situation.
With my father and uncle out of town until tomorrow, we needed the help with the count.
I, for one, am glad it wasn't Arseny or Pyotr that my uncle sent in to help.
It'd be drier than August heat in here if that were the case.
I've got the printouts stacked beside my plate and my laptop open at my elbow, but I haven't touched either in twenty minutes because Nika and Alexei have been going at each other.
It's the most entertainment I've had all week.
My social life isn't exactly thriving. My inner circle's small enough that I could fit everyone in it at this table and still have empty chairs.
That thought makes me feel moody, which makes me want to bury myself in work and forget how badly I need a real life.
"Okay." I push my plate aside and pull the laptop closer. "Can we do ten minutes of actual work now? Uncle Victor is gonna wring my neck if we don't get our counts done." Alexei snickers at me as he chews and his sister lifts an eyebrow.
"But I've still got plenty of ammunition.
" Nika gestures at the serving dish. "There's a whole bowl left.
" Her tiny wink is her way of saying she gets it, but she sees my mood.
Too bad she and I are in two different worlds.
She's still young enough that she can be free and do as she pleases.
At my age, there's no free will left. You do what's good for the family and that's it.
"Ten minutes," I say. "Then you can throw whatever you want."
Alexei crams two more dumplings into his gaping maw before he turns his own computer on, though I’m not hopeful we'll get much accomplished. It took me two years to get my accounting certificate and I still didn’t understand what I was doing entirely until my father showed me step by step.
These two just have to crunch numbers, which they finally start to do after a few more pot shots back and forth.
After thirty minutes of hard work, Yakov, one of my uncle's men, stands and starts cleaning plates from the table.
He's not attuned to the financial side of things.
He's just here for added security, but he hovers like he's trying to learn.
When he leans over my shoulder, resting a hand on my arm, I pause and look up at him.
"Your father would be proud, Kira. You've got his mind for this."
"Thank you, Yakov." Forcing a polite smile, I reach for my phone to use its calculator app. But before I can unlock it, a force that takes my breath away rips through the front of the building where we're sitting.
The sound doesn't make sense at first. It's too big, too violent for the cramped space. Wood and metal explode inward, peppering the table in shards of glass and debris, and before my brain can catch up to what's happening, the gunfire starts.
It punches through my chest and steals my hearing and turns my thoughts into static.
Everything I understood about the world five seconds ago is gone, replaced by screaming and frantic activity.
Nika hits the ground and Alexei dives to the floor after her, and I don't know how I end up there, but I find myself under the table with my hands over my ears.
The sound is so loud, I feel it vibrating through my body, like the beat of a bass line in music or the shudder of a drag racer's engine.
And though I scream, I can't hear myself.
All I can do is cry and shake, curled into the fetal position, praying whoever has come to slaughter my family won't find me.
It's over in less than sixty seconds, though the sound of footsteps crunching over debris comes afterward.
I'm hysterical, barely able to catch my breath and completely unable to stop hyperventilating.
And when my eyes open and I see Nika's face covered in blood, it only makes it worse. My eyes snap back shut, and I don’t even see the man next to me until I feel his crushing grip on my elbow.
"Hey!" I shriek as I'm hauled to my feet next to him, but my legs give out and he shoves me into a chair.
"Look what we have here, boys..." The man standing over me is hulking, barrel chested and scraggly.
His beard needs a trim and the scar running down his left cheek makes me shudder.
"Ain't she a pretty one?" He licks his teeth and uses the tip of his gun to rub up and down my cheek.
The metal's hot, but it doesn't burn me.
"Please," I whimper, not knowing what else to say. I don't dare take my eyes off him. The gun in his hand will end me just the same way it took how many other lives in this place.
"Oh, baby girl," he purrs, bending over to sniff my hair like he's an ass-sniffing dog or something. "You wanna beg me?"
"Leave her," another man snarls. When he comes into my field of vision, I'm relieved for a fraction of a second. He's not as haggard, but he's every bit as large. "We'll give her to Tim as a gift." When he grins, I see bits of chewing tobacco stuck in his teeth.
"Why does Timur get the gift? I'm the one here with you trying to clean up your fucking mess."
"Can it, Dracon. Just do what I say." The second man looks down at me with greedy eyes and I cover my chest, which isn't really exposed, but it feels gross letting him look at me.
"Who are you?" I hiss, terrified of his answer. This is obviously one of Uncle Victor's enemies, but which one, I'm not sure—he has too many to count.
"Don't you worry yourself over that, honey.
" The second man nudges the first away and reaches down, taking a handful of my hair right at the base of my scalp.
He forces me to my feet, keeping my head arched back and my eyes trained on the ceiling as he makes me walk across the room.
"You just keep your pretty lips shut until you have a dick to suck and you'll do fine. "
I realize very quickly that he's guiding me out of the building toward the street, and I start fighting. That’s my family in there, and who knows if they’re dead or if they need help? "Please, no! I need to call an ambulance. Please, Nika is only eighteen... Please let me call for help."
But he's too strong to fight against him. When I try turning my head, he tightens his grip and I'm literally at his mercy. "Walk, bitch, and don't fight me or I'll just put a bullet in your skull to match your pretty little friend in there."
Tears roll down my cheeks as I scream for help and swing my arms, but there's no one around to hear me. That's why we do these meetings this time of night. It's Victor's way of keeping his business discreet.
When my hand connects with his face, nails scratching down his cheek, he gives me a shove. It sends me stumbling hard into the side of a black sedan, but before I can even get my footing, his gun is trained on me.
"Pop the trunk, he orders, and the first man walks over and opens the trunk while I stand there shivering.
"Please don’t do this. My uncle will pay you whatever you want." I'm not sure if Victor would give a cent for me, but when he finds out his brother's children are dead, he's going to wage a war.
"I don’t want your uncle's money, honey. I want his head... Now get in the trunk so I don't have to stain my nice paint job with your blood." He gestures with his gun, and I have no choice. I do what he says or he pulls that trigger, and then what?
"Please," I whimper one more time, and the man he called Dracon grabs my neck hard and jerks me back toward the trunk where he shoves me in.
My head knocks on the latch, and I feel blood trickle down my temple as I fall into the tiny compartment. And after he shoves my legs and feet in, the trunk slams shut and I'm plunged into darkness.
I don't even know what to think. Why did they not kill me like the others?
Do they need me for some reason? Is this a kidnapping?
My mind races a million miles an hour until the car hits a pothole and jerks hard.
It throws my body into the roof of the trunk and shakes something loose in my thoughts.
I saw a show where a woman in a trunk was able to get help by busting out the tail light and signaling for help.
I have no other chance at escape right now, so I twist my body around and contort until my legs can reach the tail light, then I kick hard.
Once, twice, three times, and on the fourth kick, the plastic housing cracks loose.
Cold air rushes through the hole and I shove my hands out into it, spreading my fingers as wide as they'll go and waving, praying that somebody driving behind this car will see a woman's hands reaching out of a trunk and care enough to help.
But it's no use. I don’t know where they're taking me or even how long I'm in that trunk, but when the car stops, I hear the men cursing about the broken tail light and then the trunk opens.
And before I can even protest, the man with the scarred face hits me with the butt of his pistol and everything goes black.