Chapter 30Vasily
Vasily
It’s a bad shot.
It’s a miracle.
Kostya and those damn guns that don’t need to be cocked, making them silent as anything until the bullet is already ripping through the air.
The only reason I move at all is Kostya grunts as he pulls the trigger.
Considering his nose was just bashed in, I’m sure it’s hard to stifle involuntary sounds.
I’m pissed the asshole isn’t dead, but that’s about to be rectified.
The shot is low, crazy low, and the way I’m already turning has the unfortunate effect of putting Ana’s legs, not mine, in the line of fire. She collapses in my arms, and I have to duck behind the sea of benches to protect her when I really want to be killing the fuck out of Kostya.
A symphony of guns getting drawn and cocked tells me that taking Ana to the ground was the best call. I do one quick check, see Kseniya taking Artom outside, and then my focus is all on Ana.
“Fuck!” she hisses. “Holy . . . fucking . . . what the f-f-f-fuck?”
I’m pretty sure she’s never uttered that word in her life, but the fact that she’s that spitting mad and in pain tells me she’s not bleeding out.
I feel around, not immediately seeing blood on the black fabric of her mourning dress, finally finding a damp spot on her leg.
A quick hike of her skirt shows the wound to be on her thigh.
It’s nasty, but it’s on the outside, where it’s all fat and muscle.
It’s a gash; I know she’s got to be in serious pain, and it’s going to be a gnarly scar.
But I put her hand over it for pressure to slow the bleeding, and it’s enough for now.
Everyone who was slowly evacuating is rushing now, and people are getting jostled in the stampede.
I can only worry about so many people, so I crowd Ana in case anyone rushes through here as I find Miguel and track him to make sure he and Maribel get out safely.
On the other side, Gino’s torn between his kids and his wife, who’s still struggling with Tony, but he’s able to pass the kids off to another man before ripping Tony and Camilla apart, smashing his foot right into Tony’s crotch while he’s already on the ground.
Yeah, I’m going to try to recruit Gino. I want a guy who’s willing to kick another man in the dick to protect a woman. That’s hardcore.
People fall. There’s screaming. The undercover agents have their hands full with the civilians; for better or for worse, that’s always their top priority in a feud.
I may be the hero in this moment, Dima and Gino heroes, too, but we’re as villainous as Tony and Kostya.
Ana and Camilla? They chose to align themselves with us.
A faithful mob wife is barely better than her husband.
They can’t even be used as evidence in court .
We have to defend ourselves. We have to defend our own.
So it’s just me against Kostya, and I’m the only one who can protect Ana when Kostya growls, “Why can’t you just die like your brother did?”
I start to yell at him to leave Artyom’s death out of this. For all the ways I failed Ana and Artom the past six years, my greatest failing was Artyom bleeding out in my arms when I should have been protecting him. Kostya wasn’t there that night, he doesn’t know—
But then I remember what Dima said, that Kostya’s always wanted this position.
We’re still piecing together everything he orchestrated to take over the brigade at a major advantage.
He handed me the vial of heroin to kill myself, but he also had the print shops destroyed and pinned the attacks on Dima.
He had the IRA in his pocket and got the guns transported out of Flagstaff so he’d be able to sell them.
Was the IRA in his pocket the last time, too? Did he convince them to kill my brother? “You did it, didn’t you? You killed Artyom.”
“Everything was fine. He was building the brigade. Slower than I hoped, but he was building it, and then he just had to get married.”
He tries to shoot me then. I’m ready for it, already throwing myself over Ana, hopefully protecting us both, when I hear the dead click of an empty chamber.
I grab for my gun the same time Kostya crashes into me.
Ana screams in pain as we land on her. I manage to throw Kostya several feet away to protect her, but he grabs my gun. We’re right back where we started.
“I trusted you!” I roar, slamming into his shins as he tries to stand .
“And you’re a fool!” he spits back, pistol-whipping my shoulder with my far heavier gun.
I feel it right to the bone, but I’ll handle that bruise later.
“A profitable one, though. Slid right into the pakhan slot when I opened it up for you. I would have given you at least a couple more years if Dima hadn’t told me he was thinking it was time to bring the bitch and your spawn to LA. ”
I know I should grab the gun, finish the prick, move on with my life.
But not only did he kill my brother, attempt to kill me— and I think he just confessed to killing the former pakhan— but he also called Ana a bitch.
If I dig further, I bet I’ll find out he coaxed Dima into keeping Artom and Ana away from the beginning.
I take a swing at his nose, already swelling from the bench he got hit with.
He shrieks and falls back.
I lunge at him, punching him with everything I’ve got.
Rage is a terrible motivator. It makes a man blind. I leave myself wide open, and suddenly, it’s the back of my skull getting clobbered by the butt of my gun.
Everything goes sparkly.
I tip to the side.
I hear my name called, but I’m falling falling falling—
It’s impossible, I know it is, but I swear I’m still falling when Kostya drags himself upright and puts my own gun to my forehead.
It’s impossible, but I see the bullet flying through the air, over my head.
Slamming into the side of Kostya’s skull.
The boom of the gunpowder snaps me back in time to see several agents decide this is the time to seize Dima. I’m pretty sure he’s the one who just killed Kostya, and no one’s putting handcuffs on him, just holding his wrists back. He probably shot Kostya with one of their guns, so I’m not mad.
But I can’t get a single fucking second to breathe, so I haven’t even gotten my ringing head back on the floor before Camilla screams.
I’m up on my feet. I’m staring at the ceiling, then I’m staring at Tony, who’s gotten a gun and aimed it at Gino.
There are at least six agents closing in on them on all sides.
“Stop!” several yell.
He turns the gun on himself and fires.
Man, I get that Kostya’s shots were all over the place because that bench probably scrambled his brain well before Dima’s bullet painted it all over the tapestries, but I don’t know why Tony’s so incompetent.
The bullet pops right out his cheek, taking several teeth with it but nothing of any mortal value.
The agents actually look disappointed that what they end up carrying out of the church is a pathetic, drooling, groaning mess.
Silence follows. Just a couple seconds of it.
Dima grunts and waves the prototype, which he must have snatched back from the agents when focus jumped to Tony. “This is a real sleek gun, boss. Bet you could take this through a TSA scanner.”
Benedetti peeks out from where she took cover, in the unfortunate position of someone who can’t fight on either side without blowing her cover on the other.
She glares at me, and I point at the mess that remains of Kostya. “He came up with that gun. Never seen it before.”
“Is this where you live?” Artom asks wondrously as he hops off Ana and dashes across the living room to the balcony. “We’re in the sky. Cooooooool!”
“Just wait until he sees the penthouse,” I chuckle softly. We made it as far as the old Flagstaff apartment five miles from the church before stopping for the night. Not even night. It’s February, and the sun’s just begun to set.
“We’re going to be here for a couple days,” Ana calls to him. “Why don’t you go take a nap, sweetheart?”
“I’m not sleepy.” Which is a lie; I see the yawn forming. He was nodding off in the car, fighting the adrenaline crash we were all fighting. But as soon as I told him this was the city I grew up in— and that he would run this city one day, much to Ana’s chagrin— he refused to nap.
“Are you sure? That’s Uncle D’s bed right through there.”
It’s a gamble, but I’ve made my peace with how much love Ana has for Dima, a love that they assure me is purely platonic, and I have to believe them because I owe Dima my life twice over now, and Dima owes Ana his. I’m figuring that Artom loves Dima just as much.
And I’m right. He immediately course-corrects from the balcony into Dima’s room, where he scrabbles up onto the bed and starts to jump on it.
In his sneakers.
Ana sighs. “We’ll work on that.”
“It’s fine. We have housekeepers.” I shrug but have to grit my teeth as it rubs wrong against my bruised shoulder.
“Vasya,” Ana chastises. “You need to put me down.”
“Absolutely not.” I haven’t let her feet touch the ground since I carried her out of the church. A dozen federal agents tried to stop me, but I wasn’t about to put her down. I can talk to them later .
I have to talk to Blazing Hell, too. They came through in a big way. We’ve had an uneasy relationship ever since Artyom’s death, and I think that needs to change now. I see now how manipulative Kostya was.
I’m still blown away by it.
“Hey. Hey, hey,” Ana whispers, placing her hands on my cheeks and forcing me to focus on her again. “You need to stop thinking about the bad stuff.”