11. Mikhail
MIKHAIL
The BMW’s cabin is a freezer, but I don’t want to put the heat on.
We need everything the gas tank can give us.
The only warmth comes from the ghost of blood seeping through my shoulder bandage, soaking my shirt.
I keep my eyes on the side mirror, tracking the glint of the weak sunlight off the windshield of the car that pulled off the highway behind us.
Grey Peugeot, late model, unremarkable except for the fact it’s been holding exactly two hundred meters behind us for the last hour.
Sergey drives with his whole body—tight hands, hunched forward, the way he digs his heels into the floor every time he wants to go faster but stops himself. He’s seen the car, but he hasn’t said a word since the last gas station. There’s nothing to say. We both know what we’re seeing.
Veronica is silent in the back seat. I know she’s cold, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
The tail doesn’t gain, doesn’t fall back. Slow to forty, he slows. Push to ninety, he’s right there. I let it go for a long time, just to see if maybe I’m wrong. But I’m never wrong.
At the next overpass, Sergey clears his throat. “Still with us?” he says, voice low.
“Yeah,” I say. “Since the gas station.”
He grins, a knife-edge smile. “Want to kill it now, or wait for nightfall?”
I watch the side mirror as the tail’s headlights warp in the wet. “Next industrial. I want to know who it is.”
Sergey’s jaw sets. He drops two gears and lets the engine snarl. The horizon is a mat of sodium vapor and oily clouds, the only other color comes from the orange bloom of a refinery fire on the horizon.
A hundred meters ahead, a side road branches off, unlit and half-drowned by standing rain.
Sergey checks the mirror, then yanks the wheel left, sending the BMW across both lanes and the shoulder.
He never touches the brakes. The Peugeot reacts late; I see it fishtail and then commit, following us off the main drag.
No reason to hide now.
The access road is barely paved. Potholes deep enough to swallow a tire.
Sergey never slows. We hit a puddle and hydroplane for a full second before the tires bite again.
The Peugeot is closer now, trying to catch up, I wonder if he thinks we’re panicking.
I watch the shadow in the driver’s seat and I know the look—he thinks he’s got us.
Sergey catches a dry patch, slams the gas, and as the Peugeot draws alongside he swerves hard, the move so sudden it almost throws me into the dash. The BMW’s right fender clips the Peugeot’s left rear, and the sound is pure animal: a yowl of metal, glass, and the bones of the car breaking.
The Peugeot spins, one taillight strobing as it skids sideways into a concrete barrier at the edge of a drainage ditch. The impact is huge—nose in, hood crumples like paper, airbags bloom white in the cab.
Sergey stops us on the shoulder, engine still running. For half a second, there’s nothing but the ticking of our cooling engine.
Veronica is breathing hard in the back seat, but she doesn’t scream.
Good girl.
Both doors open at once, and we’re out.
My jacket is soaked through in two seconds.
Rain is coming sideways, the wind carries the stink of oil and electrical fire.
Sergey moves with a kind of loose animal speed, his gun already out and pointed at the ruined Peugeot as he circles left.
I go right, counting off steps, my own pistol steady and sighted.
The Peugeot’s driver door is stuck, glass already fogging over. I see a shape inside—male, late thirties, neat haircut, no obvious ink. The airbag’s collapsed but he’s moving, pawing at something on the passenger seat. His window is rolled halfway down, letting in a river of rain.
Sergey reaches the car first, jams the muzzle of his gun through the gap and yells, “Out! Hands up! Out!” in three languages. The man inside freezes, then goes limp, palms open. He’s not holding anything, not even a phone.
I yank the passenger door. It’s jammed, but I give it a kick and the metal peels just enough.
I reach in, grab the man by the neck of his jacket, and wrench him out and into the mud.
He’s lighter than I expected, but limp as a dead dog.
I put my boot on his back and keep the gun at the base of his skull.
“Who sent you?” I shout.
He spits blood, says nothing.
Sergey crouches next to me, checks the man’s pockets. Nothing—no ID, no piece, just a cracked burner phone and a lighter. Sergey flicks the lighter at the guy’s face. “Talk.”
The man stays silent.
Sergey looks at me for a split second—permission. I nod.
He grabs the man’s left hand and bends two fingers backwards, so fast there’s no time to tense up. Both snap with a wet pop. The man screams, but he tries to swallow it. That impresses me.
I lean closer. “Try again. Who sent you?”
He shudders, then mutters, “Orlov.” The word is soft, like it hurts him more than the fingers.
Sergey grins wider. “I fucking knew it.”
“Why?” I ask. The gun is still pressed to his skull. “You had us. Why not just finish it?”
The man coughs, blood mixes with rain and mud and gravel. “Not supposed to kill. Watch only. Orders.”
Sergey doesn’t like the answer. He grabs the guy by the collar, drags his face up. He has stones stuck to his face. If this weren’t so serious, I’d be laughing.
“What the fuck does he want?” Sergey shouts in his face.
I lock eyes with my brother and he lets out a disgusted grunt as he releases his hold on our captive. He thumps back to the gravel, his face striking the stones.
“Start over,” I say.
The man spits a string of blood into the water pooling around his face. “Ambush was Orlov’s order. Not to kill. For chaos.”
I nod. “Who else was in on it?”
His breath stutters. “Nobody. All the men on the job are dead or paid to disappear. Orlov doesn’t leave loose ends.”
Sergey’s kneeling in the gravel, hands braced on his knees, watching me. He’s vibrating, still full of fight, but he waits for me to finish.
I squat down so the man has to look up at me, rain dripping off my nose and onto his cheek. “Why chaos?”
The man closes his good eye, sucks in air through broken teeth. “Orlov wanted war. Not with you—between you and Tolya. You’re insurance. Distraction. While Tolya burns, Orlov picks over what’s left.”
I let that sit for a second. In the distance, somewhere over the river, there’s a low rumble—the sound of freight trains or maybe thunder. He’s not lying. Or he’s too hurt to make up a better story.
Sergey finally breaks in. “Why us? Why her?”
The man sags, exhausted. “Because you’re not from Novarra. You don’t care about bloodlines or names. Orlov thought you’d do the job, then vanish. He thought if anyone could be bought, it was you.”
I glance at Sergey. He’s not smiling.
The man’s voice drops to a whisper. “He knew every move you’d make. The phones, the plates, even the route.”
I stand up, my legs stiff. The blood in my arm is leaking faster now, hot and sticky under my shirt, but I don’t let it show. I holster my pistol.
Sergey leans forward, so close the rain bounces off his shaved scalp and spatters the man’s face. “So what’s the next play?”
The man laughs, the sound more like a cough. “Doesn’t matter. He already won.”
Sergey cocks his head, like a wolf wondering if the carcass in front of him is worth the trouble. He looks at me, waiting for the cue.
I look down at the man. He’s ruined. Even if we left him here, he wouldn’t last an hour. But the thing that gets me is how sure he is, how sure Orlov was, that everything we did would be exactly what he wanted.
I step back, wipe the rain from my eyes, and look at Sergey.
“We’re done,” I say.
Sergey stands, his knees popping. He stares at the Peugeot, then at the man, then at me. “You sure?”
I nod once.
He shrugs, the gesture as loose as if he’s just tossing out a cigarette, and then he reaches into his coat.
I don’t look back at the man on the ground. I walk to the BMW, get in, and close the door behind me. The rain hammers on the roof, drowning out everything except the muffled concussion of Sergey’s pistol.
Veronica lets out a yelp, but claps her hand over her mouth.
Sergey’s boots crunch over the gravel, and then on the asphalt. He opens the door and slides into the driver’s seat. For a long time, we don’t move. The engine ticks over, the windows start to fog with our breath.
“He played us from the start,” Sergey says. “All of it.”
I don’t answer. I’m thinking about the next move. About what Orlov will do when he realizes we’re still alive.
In the side mirror, the Peugeot’s ruined headlight blinks in and out of the rain. The man is sprawled on the ground, face in the flooding ditch.
Sergey puts the car in gear, but doesn’t touch the gas. He just lets the BMW idle, tires humming on the wet.
I think of Veronica, frozen in the back seat, unaware that her life was just the lever for a war that was never about her. I think of the men I’ve killed for less than this, for a debt, a grudge, a misunderstanding in a bar.
“Ranon’s place isn’t far,” I say.
Sergey guns the engine, and the BMW peels off the shoulder, spitting a rooster tail of mud and rain behind us.
We don’t look back.