Chapter 20 Dimitri
DIMITRI
The warehouse door explodes inward under a hail of bullets, and I move through the splintered wood with my gun raised and my heartbeat steady in my ears.
I learned long ago that panic makes men stupid, and stupid men die fast in this business.
The two soldiers flanking me spread wide to cover the angles as muzzle flashes light up the cavernous interior like lightning strikes.
The Radich’s have chosen their ground poorly.
The warehouse stretches deep into shadow, but the overhead lights create harsh illumination that leaves nowhere to hide.
I count four men scrambling for position behind stacks of crates and rusted machinery.
My eyes sweep the space, searching for any sign of her.
The main floor is empty except for the Radich’s and their weapons.
She must be in one of the back offices.
My jaw clenches.
They have her somewhere I can’t see, which means I need to clear this room first.
"You brought friends, Volkov!"
The shout comes from behind a stack of pallets to the left.
I recognize the voice of Oleg Moroz, the nephew who thinks himself clever.
"That won't change how this ends."
I fire three rounds into the pallets without answering.
Wood explodes in splinters, and I hear cursing as the men behind them scramble.
My soldiers advance on either side like the well-oiled machine they are.
They've done this work before in places just like this one.
"You should've stayed out of family business," Oleg calls again.
His voice carries the edge of desperation now.
"Do you even know who she is?"
The question lands wrong in my gut, but I push forward.
A Radich soldier breaks cover on the right, swinging an automatic rifle toward where my brother Sergei has taken position.
I put two bullets in the man's chest before he can pull the trigger and the body hits the concrete floor with a sound like dropped meat.
"She's Ekaterina Morozova!"
Oleg's voice cracks across the warehouse.
"Daughter of Lyovik Morozov, the man your father made a pact with twenty-five years ago."
I know the history because every man in the Vetrov organization knows the history.
Lyovik Morozov was an enemy who provided intelligence and weapons during the territorial wars of the nineties in hopes to build some sort of bridge.
When Morozov died in 2003, the pact died with him.
No children were mentioned in the agreement.
No heir ever appeared.
If what he's saying is true and not just a ploy to draw me out and get me to make mistakes, then the entire game just shifted. I creep forward, wanting to analyze this and ask questions, but it doesn’t matter if she's Ekaterina or Katya.
She's the reason I came here, and I need to clear these men and find which office they have her locked in.
I advance toward the left side where a row of offices lines the warehouse wall.
Their windows are dark, but one door stands closed while the others hang open.
That has to be it.
A Radich soldier moves to block my path, and I drop him with a single shot to the chest.
Sergei and my other man pour fire into the remaining positions, forcing the Radich’s to keep their heads down.
Oleg appears from behind a forklift with his gun raised.
But I fire first and the shot catches Oleg in the throat, and he goes down clutching at the wound as blood pours between his fingers.
Another Radich soldier breaks from cover to drag Oleg back, and I kill him too.
The body falls across Oleg's legs.
"We're clear on the east side," Sergei calls from somewhere in the shadows.
"Two more targets retreating through the loading bay."
"Let them run," I order as I reach the closed office door and test the handle.
It's locked, but I don't dare shoot at it to get it open.
I lean back and kick it hard just below the knob, causing the frame to splinter, and the door crashes inward.
Katya stands trembling in the center of the room with shaking hands and tears streaming down her cheeks.
Blood streaks her face from a cut on her cheek, and her shirt hangs torn at the shoulder.
When she sees me, her whole body goes rigid.
Her eyes find mine, and I see shame and fear in her eyes.
But she hasn't given up or broken.
The sight of her sends something hot and violent through my chest.
I cross the room in three strides and drop to one knee beside her, wrapping my arms around her waist.
Her arms come around my head as I press it to her belly and feel years' worth of stress drain from me at the sound of her voice.
"Dimitri—"
"My God, Katya, I thought…" I stop myself, not allowing the thoughts to go any further.
Every one of my worst fears has been silenced.
She's not gone, and I still have to get her out of here.
"You came," she mumbles, but we can't sit here and have a happy reunion.
We've got to get out before the real fighting erupts.
"We gotta go, okay? We can do this later."
I stand and guide her out of the office with one hand in hers and the other holding my gun up.
Sergei has moved to cover the entrance, his gun trained on the loading bay where the last two Radich’s disappeared.
The other's on the main floor, checking bodies.
"We're clear," Sergei reports.
I keep Katya close as we weave through the warehouse, stepping over shell casings and blood that looks like black puddles.
My men form up around us as we reach the broken door, and I can almost breathe again.
Outside, the night air is a breath of fresh air after the cordite stench inside the warehouse.
Two black SUVs wait in the street with their engines running, gifts from my oldest brother who vowed to accept my affection for Katya and back me up.
I've never been more grateful.
We rush to them, piling in, and soon, we're heading away from Radich territory and back toward home where it's safe.
Katya curls against the door, watching the scenery blur past as I safety my weapon and remove the clip.
She's trembling, an aftereffect of all the adrenaline and terror.
I don't know what to say to her now, seated in the back of this moving vehicle, but a lot of questions rise the longer we sit in silence.
If Oleg was telling me the truth, we have a lot to talk about.
"So, is it true?" I ask her, and she looks up at me with fear in her eyes.
"What?" she asks, but I can tell by the look on her face that she knows what I'm asking.
"Are you who they say you are?"
The question can't be more direct.
If she knows about it, it's never come up in our conversations, and that either makes her a very good liar or a plant of some kind.
I don’t know if my heart can handle either one.
"I don't know," she whispers. "I think so."
Her voice comes out hoarse and her face screws up into an expression I can't read.
Then tears stream down her cheeks.
"They showed me photos. That girl looked so much like me but… But I didn't know about any pact. I swear to God I didn't know, Dimitri. I don’t know anything about that life. I'm just Katya."
I believe her, or at least I want to. Reaching for her, I pull her into my arms and hold her against my chest.
She's been through too much to keep pushing her, and she trembles in my arms as she sobs.
If she has hidden her identity deliberately, knowing what her name means, then everything between us has been built on lies.
I just can't see how that's possible. Not my Katya.
I can't believe she'd do something like that.
Besides, if she had, she'd have said something about the pact and enforced her right to my family's protection.
The SUV pulls into the underground garage next to my apartment building.
Sergei kills the engine but doesn't move to open the doors.
He waits for instructions while giving me time to process everything.
After a few long minutes, Katya pulls away and wipes her face with the backs of her hands and I pull myself together.
"Go home," I tell him.
"Be ready if I call."
I'm grateful to my brothers for backing me up, and I will forever be in their debt.
Sergei nods and climbs out.
Then he climbs into the second SUV with the other soldiers, and all of the men disappear into the garage's shadows.
I watch their taillights vanish before I speak.
"Come on."
I open my door and walk out, and Katya follows me to the elevator in silence.
I don’t let her leave my arms for the entire ride up to my apartment.
I can smell blood and sweat and the chemical residue of gunpowder clinging to both of us.
My hands are steady as I unlock my apartment door, but something uneasy still coils in my chest, even after I lock the door behind us and engage the deadbolt.
When I turn back to face her, Katya has moved to the center of my living room.
She stands with her shoulders drooping and her hand lightly touching the cut on her cheek.
"Tell me everything," I say, stalking toward her.
She takes a breath that makes her wince.
Something has hurt her ribs.
"My father was apparently Lyovik Morozov.
He died when I was five or six, but I wasn't there.
My mother told me he died before I was born.
I never knew him. She never talked about him.
She wanted me to be happy, but we moved around a lot, never stayed in one place for long. I swear I didn't know, Dimitri."
"Where is your mother now?"
I'm close enough to tell Katya reeks of sweat and it smells like she might’ve lain in her own urine.
It makes my heart twist uncomfortably in my chest.
"Perm. She lives in a small apartment near the university." Katya's hands wring together. "I haven't seen her in years."
"Fuck, Katya…"
I breathe, not knowing what to even think.
Rolan will know, and once he sees her, he may or may not know how to respond to the allegations that Katya is the missing Morozov heir.
If that's the case, then dismantling the Radich crew will be simple.
But convincing the Morozov family to unite with us will be trickier.
We owe a great debt to them now, one my father never paid, and in twenty years, the relationship has grown more and more bitter.
"I think it's time for me to leave Moscow, Dimitri."