26. Nikolai
Nikolai
The tournament will start on schedule. It cost me fifty grand in expedited inspections and another twenty to make sure the right people signed off on the right paperwork.
Money talks. It always does.
Pasha walks up beside me with his phone pressed to his ear. He’s been on calls all afternoon, smoothing over the VIP guests who got soaked and reassuring sponsors that the tournament will go on as planned. He’s better at that than I am. I don’t have the patience for hand-holding.
He ends the call and slides the phone into his pocket. “We’re good. Everyone’s staying. Nobody’s pulling out.”
“Good.”
“The media’s spinning it as a minor incident. No major coverage. We dodged that bullet.”
We didn’t dodge anything. Someone tried to embarrass me in front of the world, and they almost succeeded. The only reason it’s not worse is that my team is competent.
“You ready to go?” Pasha asks.
“Yeah.”
He texts my driver, letting him know we’re ready. We head toward the front entrance. The late afternoon heat hits us as we step outside.
My driver is just pulling around. The SUV is maybe forty feet away when it explodes into flames.
The force of it knocks me sideways, and I feel the heat. I’m knocked on my back, and my head bounces off the pavement. Debris rains on me. I instinctively roll to my stomach, protecting my head with my arms. My ears are ringing. Everything is muffled and far away. My vision swims for a second.
And then things go quiet. Almost like someone pushed pause on the world. I roll and sit up.
The SUV is engulfed in flames. Black smoke pours into the sky. I can see what’s left of the frame, twisted and burning.
Fuck. My driver was inside.
I get to my feet. One of my security guys grabs my arm and pulls me back. He’s shouting something, but I can’t hear him over the ringing in my ears.
I shake him off and look around.
Pasha.
He’s on the ground a few feet away, not moving.
“Pasha!”
I rush to him, dropping to my knees and checking for injuries. There’s blood on the side of his head. His eyes are closed.
“Pasha, wake up.” I tap his cheek lightly. “Come on.”
Nothing.
I press my fingers to his neck, searching for a pulse. It’s there. Steady.
Fuck. He’s alive.
I slide my arms under him and haul him up, keeping his head as steady as I can. He’s dead weight. My shoulder screams in protest, but I don’t care. I get one arm behind his back and the other under his knees and lift him.
My security team surrounds us, weapons drawn, scanning the perimeter. One of them is on his radio, calling for backup. Another is trying to get me to move.
“We need to get you inside, sir.”
I move.
We go back through the front entrance, past the construction crew who are frozen in shock, and straight through to the back of the building. Someone’s already brought another car around.
I lower Pasha into the back seat as carefully as I can, supporting his head until he’s down. Blood is still running from the wound near his temple.
“Hospital,” I bark at the driver.
The car peels out of the lot as sirens wail in the distance. Fire trucks. Police. They’re coming, but they’re too late.
I pull off my shirt and press it against Pasha’s head wound to slow the bleeding. My hands are shaking. I clench my jaw and force them steady.
He’s alive. He’s going to be fine.
This is not my first explosion. It’s not even my second. I know this feeling. The ringing in my ears. The general feeling of having my brain scrambled.
The driver is weaving through traffic, pushing the speed limit. I don’t tell him to slow down.
“Call his mother.” My voice sounds strange. Distant. “Tell her to get to the hospital. She can take Mila to my house. Kylie is there.”
One of the security guys in the front seat makes the call.
I keep pressure on Pasha’s head. Blood soaks through the fabric. Too much blood.
“Pasha, don’t you fucking die on me.”
His eyelids flutter but don’t open. He won’t deny an order. He’s fighting.
The hospital comes into view, and the driver pulls straight up to the emergency entrance. The security guard jumps out and opens the back door.
“Get a doctor,” I tell him.
They pull Pasha out of the car and onto a gurney. I follow, but a nurse stops me at the doors.
“Sir, you need to stay here. We’ll take care of him.”
“I’m going with him.”
“Sir…”
“I’m going with him.”
Something in my face makes her step aside.
I follow them through the double doors and down a sterile hallway that smells like disinfectant. They wheel him into a trauma room, and suddenly, there are too many people, too many voices, and too much noise.
Someone is asking me questions. What happened. How long was he unconscious. Does he have any allergies.
I try, but I can’t get my thoughts to form words.
I walk out of the room.
My hands are covered in his blood. I realize I’m only wearing a black tank top. I look down and see debris embedded in my forearm. I pull out a shard of metal and barely feel it.
One of my security guys appears beside me. “Sir, we need to get you looked at.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
I look at my arm. He’s right. Blood is running down to my wrist. I still don’t feel it.
“Home,” I say. “I need to go home.”
The guard looks like he wants to argue. I’m escorted back into the SUV.
The rage that’s been simmering all day, building since the casino fire, finally detonates into something white-hot and consuming.
The Italians did this. They crossed a line they can’t uncross.
They killed one of my men. They hurt Pasha.
This isn’t a turf war anymore. This is war.
I walk through the front door and hear SpongeBob echoing down the hall. I never imagined I’d feel relief at the annoying laugh.
“Nikolai?” Kylie appears in the hallway. She takes one look at me, and her face goes pale. “Oh, my God.”
I glance down at myself. I’m covered in blood. Some of it is mine, but most is Pasha’s. I look like I crawled out of hell.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Olga just dropped off Mila. She said she had to get to the hospital.”
“Where’s Luke?”
“Cinema room. I just set him and Mila up in there. What happened?”
“Car bomb.”
Her hand flies to her mouth.
“Is anyone hurt?”
“Yes. My driver is dead. Pasha.” I say the words, but they don’t feel real. I’ve lost men before.
Her eyes widen. “Pasha?”
“Alive.”
I see the relief. “I’m so sorry.”
I nod curtly. I don’t want sympathy. I want to shower. I want to change. I want to hold a gun in my hand and put a bullet in the skull of whoever did this.
But first, I need to see Luke.
I walk toward the cinema room. Kylie follows a few steps behind, probably worried I’m going to collapse. I won’t. I’ve been through worse.
“Nikolai, wait.”
The door is open. Luke is on the couch with his blanket and a dinosaur. SpongeBob is on the screen. Mila is sipping a drink. They both look up when I walk in.
Luke’s eyes go wide.
I know I’ve just made a huge mistake. I shouldn’t have let him see me like this. I should have cleaned up first.
“Nikolai.” Kylie moves to stand in front of Luke.
I’m an idiot. “Sorry,” I murmur.
I turn and walk down the hall.
“Are you hurt?” Luke’s voice stops me from behind. He followed me into the hall.
I hesitate. I’ve never lied to him. I’m not about to start now.
“Yes.”
“Bad hurt?”
“No. I’ll be fine.”
He takes a step toward me. Then another. Kylie reaches out like she’s going to stop him, but I shake my head. Let him come.
He stops a few feet away and looks up at me. His eyes move over my face, my arms, my hands. He’s cataloging the damage the way he catalogs everything else.
“You have blood,” he says.
“I know.”
He processes this. “Where’s my mom?”
“At work. She’s safe. I had an accident.”
“Will you be okay?”
“I will.”
He studies my arm. “You need a Band-Aid.”
“Probably.”
He looks at Kylie. “Can I get one?”
She disappears for a moment and comes back with one. Luke carefully presses it over one of the smaller cuts on my arm.
“Better,” he says.
“Better.”
Then he turns to Kylie. “Can I have a snack?”
“Of course.” Relief floods her face. She’s grateful for the redirect. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”
Luke walks past me without looking back. I watch him go. He’s fine. He’s processing, but he’s fine.
I walk upstairs. My legs feel heavier with each step. The adrenaline is wearing off, and everything hurts. My shoulder. My arm. My head, where it bounced off the pavement.
I make it to the bathroom and close the door behind me. I strip, tossing my clothes in the corner.
I turn on the shower as hot as it will go, and step under the spray. I brace my hands against the tile and let my head drop forward.
The ringing in my ears is still there. A constant high-pitched whine that won’t go away. I know from experience that it’ll fade. Give it a few hours. Maybe a day.
I scrub the blood off my hands, out from under my fingernails, and off my arms. The debris embedded in my forearm stings when the water hits it. I’ll need to clean that out properly. Make sure there’s nothing left in there.
When I finally turn off the water and step out, I catch sight of myself in the mirror. A bruise is forming on my shoulder where I hit the ground. Another one on my ribs. My forearm looks like someone took a cheese grater to it.
I dry off and wrap a towel around my waist. I need to call the hospital and check on Pasha.
Pasha has to be okay. I refuse to believe otherwise.