41. Chapter 37
Chapter 37
Nikolai
T he smoke clears as the last Italian foot-soldier drops to his knees in a scream of agony.
“Is everyone okay?” I yell, twisting to look back at the rag-tag rescue team I’ve assembled.
I grin as I see Viktor wrap an arm around a shivering Camilla.
“You were fucking amazing, lady! You ever need a job shooting bastards, call me.” Booms Viktor.
Camilla looks shaken, but she manages a fragile nod up at Viktor, whose huge body makes her look child-like in comparison. She’s probably never shot a man before, even if she is a natural. I wish I can say the same for Percy. The old man loves a war cry, and throwing shit he picks up off the ground, but the closest he came to hitting a mafia man was when one of his shots almost took my ear off.
Camilla looks around. “Where’s my Percy?”
A groan from behind the crates we’d used as cover snatches our attention.
Percy’s sprawled out on his back, cuddling his knee into his body in a pool of blood. Camilla rushes over to him, dotting like a mother next to a sick child. Viktor and I follow over to the old man.
“Is he alive?” Viktor’s gruff voice manages as much empathy as he can muster.
“I’m fine. Stop fussing me!” Percy snaps, shooing us away, but it only takes one look at the old man to see he isn’t fine.
“Viktor, take him to the car, get a med kit and stop the bleeding.”
“What about the-”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“The what?” Asks Camilla. But her curiosity dies away as Percy splutters into a fit of bloody coughs. “Oh, no. No, no, no,” she whispers to herself, anxiety crawling through her voice.
Viktor scoops Percy into his arms and bolts to the car with Camilla hot on his tails, leaving me to deal with the dead and the wounded.
I stalk through the hangar, leaving bullets in the still bodies in case any of the bastards are playing dead. By the time I’m finished, I find one left alive.
Blood soaks into my boots as the groans of the dying fade into the void. I tower over the spluttering Italian, his eyes fixating on the barrel of my gun. I tilt it up to meet his eyes, letting him gaze into the short distance between his life and his death.
“Talk.” I snarl.
With every passing moment, his olive skin drains paler.
“Don Leonardo said you’d come.” He spits a mouthful of blood up at me. “Bratva pig.”
The blood splatters across my neck and into my shirt underneath the body armour. I place the end of my gun under his chin, lifting it up and forcing him to look at me.
“Where’s Isabella? She should be here.”
He flashes a bloody, broken smirk.
“The problem with Russians is you’re all fucking stupid. Dumb as fucking pigs.”
It takes all my strength not to pull the trigger as I realise what’s happened.
I crouch down, so I’m eye level with the bastard. His chest is riddled with bullet holes.
“You know who I am?” I ask, catching his eye.
He swallows and nods rapidly.
“I can keep a man alive for hours, you know.” I push my ringed finger into one of the bullet holes and he starts to scream. He’s too weak to scramble away, and the gun digging into his body promises he won’t get far if he tries to. “It’s a skill that takes years to perfect.” His screaming is the most agonising melody, another song to haunt my dreams.
“Stop, fuck.” He bites down on his lip, tears streaming from his eyes. “Please! Please, stop!”
“Where is Isabella?” I growl.
“They’re taking her by ship.” He yells. I pull my finger back, my ring dragging the flesh apart, and the man sucks in huge breaths, his eyes struggling to focus. “You’re too fucking late. Don Leonardo left a trail, so you’d come here. She’s already sailing to Italy as we fucking speak.”
He focuses his eyes, and I pin his gaze.
“If you knew that, why are you here? You were happy to die as a decoy?”
He pulls himself back up onto his elbows, regaining an inch of pride as he straightens up. “I was happy to be the man who killed the bastard that dishonoured Don Leonardo’s daughter.”
I let out a cruel laugh. “Congratulations.” Without another word, I send a bullet between his eyes.
The single shot rings out, echoing through the hangar before it’s joined by my own scream of rage. I kick a handgun across the room in frustration. After all this, it was for nothing? Don Leonardo sent us on a wild goose chase. He probably has Isabella halfway across the Atlantic by now.
I pop four more bullets into the Italian’s limp corpse before Viktor comes rushing in.
“Nikolai!” The worry in his face switches to anger. “Stop shooting the poor fucker.” He approaches me slowly. “I thought he’d gone for your gun when I heard the extra shots. What happened? Where’s Isabella?”
With a tense jaw and shaking fists, I manage to draw out a response. “She’s not here. It was a decoy.”
Viktor’s expression goes stony. He nods and looks out into the distance, probably wishing he had a bottle in his hand to help him find something to say to me.
“Do you know where she really is?”
“That bastard said Don Leonardo is transporting her by ship. She’s out of reach by now.” I suck in another huge breath, barely holding back the growing lump in my throat from suffocating me. “Is Percy okay?” I switch the subject, because if I have to think about Isabella for one more second I’ll take the gun in my hand and empty it into my own skull.
It hurt losing her the first time, wrapped up in that hospital bed, wondering why I didn’t hate the woman who’d almost killed me. Wondering why, when I thought of her, my heart pounded until the doctors came in, terrified they were about to lose me. There was hope then. A voice in the back of my head refusing to let go of her, even when it made no sense to cling on. Some part of me, buried beneath all the pain, that thought it knew we were fated to be together. Now, I have to find that part of me, and extinguish it.
“He’ll live.”
We follow the trail of blood Percy left behind to find him sitting with his back against my car, looking up at the sky and panting. Any ferocity in Camilla’s eyes bled away into a deep care as she checks and re-checks her husbands wounds.
Percy’s eyes lock on me the moment I come into view.
“Well?” He barks. “Where’s Isabella? Is she safe?”
I shake my head. “They tricked us.”
Viktor takes over as he sees the emotion bubble under my skin. “This was a decoy location. Don Leonardo is taking her by boat. They would have already begun the journey by now. There’s nothing we can do.”
“What?” Camilla’s eyes flicker between me and Viktor. “Are you kidding? We almost died! How could you not know that? How could you lead us here and risk our lives when you didn’t even know if she was here!?” Her voice strikes like the clip of bullets I want to empty into my head.
What can I say? She’s right.
She shoots to her feet, throwing her arms in the air in exasperation. “You can’t be fucking serious? So, she’s gone? Forever? How could you-”
“-Hey,” Viktor interrupts, “he didn’t know. Cut him some slack. You both care about her, you both wanted to save her-”
“-Don’t tell me to cut him some slack! Without him, she'd be fine.” Her eyes lock back on me. “The moment you took that girl into your life, it was your responsibility to keep her safe.”
Memories flash through my mind. Isabella running from my apartment with the gun in her hand. Anton’s body hitting the floor as Ivan stands over him, blood dripping from his hands. The dark room where I died a thousand times. Why did I ever think I could protect her when I can’t even protect myself? When I’d let down all the people closest to me?
“What are we supposed to do now?” She yells, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Unless one of you knows how to pilot a plane, there’s nothing we can do.” Says Viktor bitterly.
Camilla’s eyes light up. She glances down at her husband, who meets her eyes for half a moment before flickering back up to the clouds above.
“Percy, do you think you can fly?” she asks.
“Fly?” Asks Viktor.
“Percy was a pilot in the war. It was a while ago, and I’m sure the technology is different now, but how different can it be?”
“That’s fucking suicide. Even if you find them, how will you get her back? Nikolai, you can’t-” Viktor stops himself because he recognises the look in my eyes. He knows the feel of a man in love. A man willing to take any odds, no matter how small, if it means he might get one last chance to make things right.
“Percy, can you do it?” I ask, hope daring to return to my torn heart.
He simmers in a solemn silence, his eyes never leaving the clouds above. Blood stains his shirt, and the leathery creases in his face suddenly look so much older than they did earlier today.
“Percy?” Camilla’s voice pierces his bubble. The old man closes his glassy eyes, taking in a long breath.
“I never actually flew by myself in the war.” He spits it out, like every word is dirty.
“What?” Camilla’s eyebrows knit together. “But all your stories? The Falcon … Why did you…?” She covers her mouth and shakes her head as her words run away from her.
“My friend was The Falcon . That’s what we called him. He was the best pilot I’ve ever seen. But war doesn’t care about how good you are…” Dead eyes stare up at peaceful clouds. “I knew so many brave men who lost their lives, I just… I arrived as the war was ending." His expressive eyes turn grey. "It started out with me talking about him, to keep him alive. One day, I told a story like it was mine, and it just stuck. I don’t know… He's still with me. Most of the stories are true. Only, I was the assistant pilot, or they were from people I loved who aren’t here to share them anymore.”
We all drop into a deathly silence. Camilla wrestles with a lie that has snaked its way through her marriage, while Percy sits among the pieces of his broken pride and his shame.
Anton pads over to me, brushing my fingertips with his head, as I fall deep into my thoughts. I step forward with force, breaking through the misery bearing down on us all.
“So make a story you can tell.”
“What?” Percy and Camilla’s eyes both snap to me.
“You told some lies, exaggerated some stories. What guy hasn’t? Now you’ve got a chance to live up to the name you’ve been wearing. Everyone fucks up. What matters is who you are today.” I shoot my hand out to him. “Get up, get in that plane, and help me save my wife.”
Percy glances over at his wife. At first, Camilla averts her eyes, but, tentatively, she looks back. Old couples, the ones who really love each other, have this way of communicating. They don’t need to speak, because words only really serve to make things more confusing. They understand each other. They know the meaning behind every micro-expression, behind every type of smile. I don't need to hear her say she’s mad, or that this is a big deal. In the same way I don't need to hear her say she still loves him. That she doesn’t want him to get hurt, but no matter what, she believes in him.
With Camilla’s help, Percy gets to his feet and takes my outstretched hand.