Epilog
Artem Voron
They call themselves “The Golden Army.” Not because they dress in armor made of the precious metal, like in some famous movie everyone knows – not me, obviously – but because each of them receives a gold ring with a circle engraved on it.
And their money seems limitless.
We’ve hit every one of their locations and eliminated hundreds of their soldiers, but someone can still afford to buy more mercenaries.
We attacked their accounts and even tried to influence the cryptocurrency market, which suffered significant depreciation. That plunged a great number of investors into panic, even after dozens of articles and news reports talked about the strange phenomenon. But even that didn’t stop them.
I feel like I’m fighting a hydra, except this one doesn’t show me a single face.
And now Dima has been missing for over a week, while all I know about Yaroslav is that he was wounded, but I haven’t been able to find him either for two days.
My gaze slips toward Ekaterina, who is drinking her coffee on the terrace near the pool, where I have a direct view of her.
I don’t take my eyes off my wife, even though I suggested she leave with Oksana for a while, somewhere as far away from this chaos as possible.
She refused. And now she sits beneath the London sun, occasionally checking the images in an art catalogue open in front of her.
She is worried about the two of them, and I am trying to find them while doing everything I can to look after her and my little brother too.
Unlike my wife, Sasha is becoming harder to control.
Since Dimitri’s disappearance – Dimitri who has been like a brother to us since childhood – I haven’t seen him smiling once. And his state has worsened exponentially since one of the boeviki told us how he and Yar were attacked, and how our big brother disappeared after apparently being shot.
I don’t know where. I don’t know how badly wounded he is. He isn’t in any hospital, and the thought that my brother might be a prisoner of the Golden Army makes the voices scream, while Sasha is transfigured by rage.
He is a ticking time bomb on the verge of exploding. It isn’t a matter of if, but of when and where, because it is inevitable. Especially since hunting and the desire for revenge seem to be the only things giving him air and sustenance during this time.
My family is in a bloody war, and with every step we take closer to discovering who leads the other side, we realize no one is safe.
It all happened only a few days after the grand funeral organized in honor of two remarkable people. A mother who always believed her prayers would save our souls, and a father who, despite his powerful position within the organization, tried to be a patient parent to three complicated boys.
I will miss the pancakes with smiley faces my mother used to make.
We didn’t even have time to process their deaths before two others were taken from us, though at least we still have hope that they are alive. I know Dima, and I know my brother far too well, so I am certain they will fight until they leave pools of blood behind them.
Even bloodier days are coming, and Sasha’s words echo in my mind like a whisper from the
voices: “ War.”
The darkness is calling and I will answer.
The end