by Nikki Wild
Maybe I should get my hands on some real drugs, I thought bitterly. Heroin might make the comedown bearable.
“Aly,” I said, seeing my sister at the kitchen table with a horrendous frown on her face. “What’s wrong?!”
“I didn’t tell him, I swear, I made the call but…”
“Sidet!” Alexei’s voice made me jump, his demand that I sit down coming out like a Doberman’s bark. I obeyed it out of surprise more than anything. I hadn’t seen him lurking in the corner there. He stared at me, green eyes shaking in anger, arms crossed over his chest.
“Where’s Daniil?” I immediately asked, lapsing back into Russian. Alexei was having some kind of fit, and I wanted nothing to do with it unless Daniil was here to stand between us.
“He’s out of town, on business,” Alexei hissed. “Unlike you, yesterday. Out of town on pleasure.”
My stomach sank. I glanced at the table and saw the envelope, noticing it for the first time.
“Open it,” Alexei demanded. My fingers shook as I slid it towards me. Alyona watched me with wide, fearful eyes. Her lower lip quivered.
“It’s okay,” I said softly, knowing that I was lying. She knew it, too. And so did Alexei, who sneered at us. I opened the envelope, and couldn’t say I was surprised by the contents. Pictures, of Sinner and Amy and I. At the aquarium. Eating dinner. Laughing. Having a grand ol’ fucking time. I dropped the pictures on the table. Looking at them wasn’t going to do me any good.
“Where’s Deda?” I said, not willing to acknowledge what Alexei knew. If Daniil couldn’t be here to protect me, I wanted my grandfather. Alexei was capable of horrible things. Alyona, Daniil and I knew that better than anyone. After what happened to our parents…
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Alexei spat. “And don’t try to explain those photos to me.”
I wasn’t going to, anyway. But I didn’t bother trying to get enough nerve in my heart to tell him that. The way he was staring at me had my stomach clenching and rolling. I felt sick. Alyona let out a sob and grabbed my hand.
“Stop crying,” Alexei snapped. “You two snakes dug your graves. One of you, sleeping with the enemy. The other one, letting it happen.”
“Alyona had nothing to do with it,” I said. “She had no idea.”
“Ha! Like I’d believe that! You two. Always trouble. Always whispering, secrets, secrets.”
Alexei’s eyes narrowed, his lips curling up in a snarl. But it was his fault. It was all his fault! He was the one who got wasted in the strip club during the deal, and left the drugs out there! He wasn’t fit to be Vor, he wasn’t even fit to be a Maximovich. Anger swelled inside me, overwhelming my fear. Flames licked in my cheeks. Every ounce of hatred and anger his eyes threw my way, I threw right back.
“You have some nerve, looking me in the eye, cyka. I ought to shoot you right here, in front of your sister.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” I deadpanned. “How would you cover it up this time, Alexei? You did a decent job with our parents. Who would you blame for my death?”
All the sound in the room seemed to be sucked up into a vacuum. All movement, too. For at least one long second, no one moved. Alexei’s hands didn’t shake. Aly didn’t sob. The clock didn’t tick, the fridge didn’t hum. And I didn’t back down.
But then it all broke. Alexei came at me, all curses and rage. The chair fell over with a clattering bang as he ripped me up by my shirt. Alyona screamed, her chair falling too as she jumped across the table and launched herself against Alexei, trying to topple him. She had no chance. Her tiny frame barely nudged him, and she fell on her ass, sneakers squeaking on the tile.
“Aly, get out of here,” I screamed, grabbing at Alexei’s wrists, his hands fisted on my shirt, lifting me off the ground as he walked. “Find Daniil, find Deda…”
“They can’t help you,” Alexei growled. He carried me down the hall, out the door, where the frigid air hit my skin like a million tiny knives. How could no one see it? Why wasn’t anyone coming to help me? I screamed the whole way down the block, struggling as best I could. But these houses - all these houses - were Bratva houses. Bratva men lived in them. Loyal to my uncle, not to me. Loyal to my bloodline, but not to me.
Alexei’s rage fueled his strength, and finally he threw me through the door of his house. Weak and numb from the cold, I hit a wall and crumpled to the ground. But a second later I was up again, being dragged by my hair, forced into an awkward crouch. Alexei’s house, the big house that should have gone to my parents, held many rooms, but only he and Deda lived there.
He may as well have selected a room at random, throwing me again; this time, I had less space to fall, and carpet cradled my shaking body. I saw his face one last time, those awful eyes, the thin mustache, the sneer I knew as well as I knew my last name. And then he slammed the door shut, and locked it.
And I was alone.
Chapter 27
Sinner
I was an idiot to get so damn drunk. I was barely fit to drop Amy off at school that morning, and my headache was so bad that I immediately went to my room at the clubhouse for a nap.
But sleep wasn’t coming. All I could think of was Lucy. I’d been half-crazy with whiskey all night, and when I woke up I felt like I’d burned out all my anger. I had to give her a little more credit. Something was up, but it wasn’t fair of me to just blame her right out. There was still a chance for us – if I had the guts to give us that chance.
All thoughts of Lucy disappeared when the raid started.
Sonic and deafening, the sound of our front door exploding open in a stampede of boots and foreign shouting. I was on my feet in a second. Half a second. I grabbed my pistol and ran out into the hall; I was only wearing my boxers, but it was the last thing on my mind. A blonde girl, who was about as dressed as I was, ran screaming down the hall. In front of me, I recognized Tank's broad back running in the same direction as me, towards the action.
Taking the stairs two at a time, my heart lurched when the last step slipped out under my heel, a sharp pain from the wood scraping my flesh. One of them - whoever they were - turned in my direction. I shot first, and he crumpled backwards like a rag doll. Tank was roaring around a corner, where more shouting, more shooting, reverberated.
The big living room was empty, but there were a lot of doorways, a lot of places I could go. Someone was raiding us. Two seconds to guess who it was. My brothers' screams rushed like blood in my ears; whichever path I chose, it would put me in the line of fire.
I didn't think twice.
My feet decided for me, as I ran across the living room into the far hallway, where a dead, or dying, Russian lay slumped against a wall. I padded past him, listening for anything, any sort of direction. A shot rang out in the bathroom to my right, followed by a yell of pain.
My palms were slick, but I held my pistol firmly in both hands, raising it to shoot at whoever might appear from the bathroom; I nearly shot Train as he trotted out, dashing sideways, gun still pointed into the doorway.
"Fuckin' Russians!" He roared, seeing me. "They're all over the fuckin' place, Jesus Christ..."
"I'm going up to the kitchen," I said, running past him.
"Basement," Train hollered at my back. "When it's clear, basement. We need..."
To protect the drugs. Right. I waved that I understood, and shouldered my way down the hall, going quickly but pressing myself to the wall just in case. The kitchen lay at the very end, and I could hear clattering and crashing noises from inside. The house was echoing with violence, the kind of noises that'll stick to your ribs like a good stew, but in a bad way. Too many gunshots get your ribs hurting.
I peered around the corner, into the kitchen. One of them was in there, making a goddamn mess of the place, throwing the cabinets open, throwing things around. Looking for the drugs. I had the advantage, and I used it. I crept close enough to get my sights on him, to make sure I wouldn't miss. But just as I pulled the trigger, he turned, and my s
hot hit nothing but Cheerios.
Oh, fuck.
I knew that face. Everyone knew that face. You couldn't do business in Vernon without knowing that face. Plus, it was damn familiar – at least the eyes were. He sneered, raising his pistol at me, but I rushed him, shoulders driving into his chest, one hand twisting his wrist until the tendons went spongy and he screamed, dropping the gun. We collapsed to the floor together, me on top, still holding my gun. He struggled, but wised up once I stuck the barrel under his chin.
"You motherfucker," I said. Lucy's uncle. Dear old Uncle Alexei. I could shoot him. I should shoot him. He was in our house, messing with my brothers.
He was also her family. And family is family is family. You don't go around putting bullets in your old lady's uncle. Not if you want her to stay your old lady. Maybe me and Lucy were fucked already, but killing Alexei would make sure of it.
"Thieves!" He spat. Literally, he spat up into my face. His eyes were going crazy, looking for anything in reaching distance he could use against me. But I was bigger. Much, much bigger. I held him down, my mind racing, my heart howling. What the hell was I supposed to do? I had Alexei Maximovich underneath me, my forearm crushing his throat, my gun under his chin. I could kill him. I could take out the Bratva with one shot. What was he even doing here by himself?
Well, at least that question had an answer. Those crazy, rolling eyes of his - blue, just like Lucy's - landed on something. I heard words from the doorway, and ducked just in time to feel the breeze of a bullet over my shoulder blades. I shifted, peered over my elbow, pointed my pistol and squeezed the trigger, my forearm still holding Alexei to the floor. His man spun backwards, gun flying, curses in another language propelled from his lips like vomit. I didn't have much time; more would come, looking for their boss, making sure he wasn't in exactly this situation.
"We're going to burn you out, we're going to make you pay..." His voice trailed off and he began to study me. His sneer deepened. Something was going on in his head, and I didn't have the time or energy to care about what it was.
"Yeah, yeah," I said. I shifted my weight and grabbed his gun from the floor, sliding the cartridge out and sliding the piece across the floor, under the fridge. Better safe than sorry. "But right now, you're going to listen. I'm going to get to my feet. I'm going to keep my gun on you. You're going to go out that door...." I nudged my chin towards the door that led to the backyard. "And I'm going to go back and kill some more of your friends. But you get to live, alright? Fuck me!"
"Don't...want...your...mercy!" he spat, losing steam as my beefy arm crushed his larynx. "...Sinner!"
I did not like the fact that he knew my name. Not at all. I cocked my gun.
"She never...loved you," he coughed out. "She was good, wasn't she?"
My stomach clenched. She told him. When? When he forced her to, or before it even started between us? What else did she tell him? Lucya. Beautiful, blue-eyed Lucya.
"Your daughter," Alexei said. I doubled down on him the minute the last syllable slipped through his lips. Every nerve in my body said to just shoot him. Just blow his fucking brains out. There was no reason not to, if Lucya...
His eyes were desperate with the pain of my body bearing down on him. I hesitated before pulling the trigger, because some part of me was just as desperate as he was. To believe that he was lying. That Lucy would have told me about this raid, if she could. That she...
That second of hesitation damn near killed me. Should have killed me, really. One second I was on top, with the advantage of a literal lifetime. The next, my side was ripped open and splattered red onto the kitchen floor. But the man who shot me got it even worse, when I put a bullet between his eyes.
In that time, the time it took me to take a bullet and give one back, more footsteps pounded the hall, and Tusk's heavy body appeared in the doorway, while Alexei's skinny frame disappeared out the back door. The one I'd offered up, way back when I still believed in that woman who'd spent so many nights in my arms.
Panting, I stumbled backwards until I felt something solid on my back. Then I let myself slide down. I could feel very little - but I remember the feel of my own blood against my back, the smear of it on the wall sliding up between my shoulder blades, one awful line of wet warmth against the cool white plaster of the wall. The world began to fishbowl away from me, every sound swimming through water to get to me.
After that, I didn't feel a goddamn thing.
Chapter 28
Lucya
The room was typical: lavish, opulent, antiquated. Everything made of a deep purple velvet, and burnished gold. Garish wrought iron posts framed the bed, stone lions guarding at the foot of it. An olden wooden desk sat under a portrait of some long-dead Maximovich. There were books, at least. I didn't know how long Alexei would keep me locked up here, but at least I wouldn't be bored.
I'd be heartbroken, panicked for my family, scared for Sinner, and full of conflicted regret, but I wouldn't be bored.
The only article of clothing was a royal blue smoking robe, but it beat hell out of my camisole and boxer shorts. For the first few hours of my captivity, I just sat in bed, wrapped in blankets that smelled familiar in only the vaguest of ways, and waited. To hear anything would be a blessing, compared to the cursed silence. Where were the boyeviks and bratoks that usually roamed around Alexei's house, either guarding him or meeting with him on business? Where was Deda?
And what about everyone outside of the house? Where was Alyona? Where was Daniil? Where was Alexei?
I feared that Alyona met my same fate, that she hadn't taken my screamed advice to run, and had been waiting like a fish in a barrel when he came back to finish the job. I feared that Daniil may not be "on business" at all, and that "out of town" meant "six feet underground." I feared the worst about Alexei, because every single thing I could imagine was worse than the last.
He knew about Sinner, but even worse, he knew about Amy. Ruthless and heartless, would a man who killed his own brother think twice about slaughtering a toddler just to punish her father?
Kill him, Sinner, I suddenly thought, not entirely surprised by the heat of it burning my mind. Fucking kill the bastard
I was so lost in thought I didn’t hear when the door opened.
"Lucya," Deda said, closing the door softly behind him. I looked up from where I lay on my side, my head near the foot of the bed, a pillow clutched to my chest.
"Deda," I said, and immediately started crying again. My grandfather was a man of deep contradictions. As violent and ruthless as any Vor before him, but with a gentle love he reserved for his family. In his old age, his body was softer, the wrinkles in his face making it look doughy and cracked, the bushy gray hair of his eyebrows comical. But his eyes never lost their stern sharpness. As a young girl, it was always Deda who I feared as a disciplinarian; even my own father, whose raised voice could rattle the windows, paled in comparison to my grandfather's quiet seething disappointment.
But he wasn't seething or disappointed now. At least, not that I could see. He approached the bed as I lifted myself up to a sitting position. The mattress dipped under his weight when he sat beside me. My tears flowed steadily but silently, my throat raw from screaming and wailing. Deda took my hands into his own, holding them on his lap. He spoke to me in Russian, as always.
"Alexei told me about you," he said. I couldn't imagine what kind of response would be appropriate, but meeting his eyes was too much for me, and I kept them downcast. "He insists that you should be punished."
"How?" I asked.
"Perhaps like this," Deda said. "Right now, he has brought the boyeviks to the Rogue Tide. He wants to get revenge."
My heart thudded quickly. I knew this raid was coming, but I never knew when, or how. Of course, it made sense; fuelled by his rage, and without my brother there to try and compel him otherwise, Alexei would act rashly, thoughtlessly. I closed my eyes and tryed not to think about the color of blood.
"I didn't do anything wro
ng," I said softly. "I just fell in love."
"I know, zvyozdochka," Deda said, calling me little star. He hadn't called me that in years. "Love is a terrible thing for us. It's in your blood to let it destroy you."
I nodded, wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand, thinking of my parents. How their love sometimes seemed like pain, its heights always matched by its sorrows, their passion and anger taking similar forms.
"I loved your grandmother beyond reason," Deda said. "I shouldn't have. She was from the wrong family. My love killed her."
I'd never heard this story, and finally managed to meet his eyes. He didn't seem like he wanted to expand on it, but he didn't have to. I saw it in his eyes.
"What's going to happen?" I asked.
"I wish I could say," Deda intoned. "I'll talk to Alexei for you, but my son...he hasn't listened to me in a long time."
His voice halted, hesitant to continue, hesitant to stop.
"Alexei was never supposed to lead this family," he finally said, speaking low. "It broke my heart when your father - when we found him. Alexei doesn't have the heart to lead the Bratva. He doesn't even have the balls for it."
He leaned in even further, conspiratorially.
"He is a coward, and always has been," Deda said. Now, those old, wizened, terrifyingly clear eyes flashed. I swear, my heart stopped for a beat, the energy of his words arresting. "Don't think for one second that I don't know what you and your siblings think."
A lump at the bottom of my throat threatened to cut off my airflow as I tried to see what Deda was trying to make me see.
