Page 32

Ciro

Longest fucking flight of my liiiife.

Who even flies to Moscow?!

Me, apparently. On orders.

That I may or may not have shirked for a few weeks, getting sidetracked in Amsterdam.

Ero got to go last month, and I just had to check it out.

Party it up a bit.

Lose a week getting high with a few friends from way back in the day…

Until I got my head back on and realized I needed to get to it, to follow through on Adriano’s plans. Namely, to get as far away from Dom for the time being.

Being.

Seeing.

Freeing. Maybe I should free that watch from the display window of that store…

Stop.

Sometimes the repetitive thoughts, the intrusive thoughts, I think they call them, get so damn loud in my brain that I almost can’t see straight. See anything around me.

That’s why my mouth is always running.

It’s like a valve, dribbling off the excess of my runaway brain.

As a kid it always felt like if I stopped talking, held it all in like teachers and the elders always wanted me to, I’d flat out, no joke, explode .

I got good at finding the right places to vent.

Most notably to my twin brother who rarely says jack shit. Or I get a little drunk, get into a little fight. Maybe do a backflip off of a high place into a deep pool.

No pools for me hear, though.

Moscow is cold . Way too fucking cold for my taste. Why can’t I get the sweet jobs, the beach paradise? Like all the ones my emotionally challenged twin brother seems to get.

Instead, it’s mosquito-infested jungles or a frozen wasteland dystopia.

I swear they do it just to punish me for complaining. Aless, Adri, and Dom too. Though the latter really is vindictive and has it out for us, I am 100 percent positive about him taking it out on me via his assignments.

I crunch my way down a dark, abandoned alleyway beside a dilapidated warehouse. Classic place to get jumped.

Rubbing my hands together, I set to scoping the place out, shivering despite the jacket I put on over my outfit at the hotel. You’d think that I’d be used to the cold, growing up in NYC, brutal winters and all.

But I’m a fancy city boy.

And a rich kid.

I spent as many winters in the tropics as Aless would let me get away with.

“For fuck’s sake, it’s barely the end of summer.”

But of course, the day I arrived the cold front came through.

Yay.

Otherwise, Moscow’s just like I remember it the last time I was here. Cloudy. A little rigid.

I’d be happy to never see it again.

Wagging my head back and forth a few times, I clear my head, focusing on the task at hand.

Need to locate the contact that Dom sent me to find, and Adriano told me to see through. According to the burner phone text I received, he should be meeting me in this old rust bucket shithole that looks like a Cold War weapons factory.

Exactly where I want to be late at night, alone, in Russia.

On the upside, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve, including the Desert Eagle and the .38 that I was able to retrieve from one of our old stashes from years ago. Hopefully the quick once-over I gave the weapons will keep them from jamming up on me.

If all else fails, I’ll stab and run.

My fingers trace over the various blades I keep strapped to me, the two in my belt, two in my shoulder holsters. And the dagger at my hip.

But hey, maybe this will be the “meet and greet” that it’s supposed to be and I won’t have a care in the world.

Yeah.

Right.

This guy isn’t even supposed to be my mark, just an informant that’s going to point me in the right direction. Dom’s old friend and cohort, Viktor Popov.

Then there’s the real reason I’m here.

Or at least the reason Adriano used to get me clear of his wedding.

He wants me to make contact with the Bratva. The head of one of the families, Andrey Sokolov. They were once allies of ours, years ago, before Aless came up. And he wants me to reestablish the old truce.

Which is a very transparent way of Adriano saying, I want you out of harm’s way.

I should have gone to Fiji.

The two days I’ve been here, I’ve had zero luck making contact.

So maybe this punk Nikolai knows something.

Or he’ll be as talkative as the rest of the warm, smiley folks I’ve run into so far. So much sarcasm.

After making a lap of the area, I spot my target up on a raised walkway inside the warehouse, smoking a cigarette in the dark, the only light a single bulb hanging over the warehouse floor below him.

There doesn’t appear to be anybody else around, but there’s plenty of hiding places.

Lots of cover.

Doesn’t make me entirely confident about the situation. All the same, I climb an adjacent roof, hop the low wall, backflip down onto a covered walkway, and slip in through a cracked window, letting myself down ever so carefully. Right behind Nikolai.

“Hi, Niko.”

“Fahking gavno !” Nikolai jolts, spinning around and freezing until he sees that I’ve only got finger guns raised.

“Bang.” I flick my thumb down.

“You Italian svolach are sneaky as they say.”

“Hey, I knew my mother and my father, at least briefly.”

“Sure you are not Russian? Your jokes are terrible.”

“Nothing compares to the look on your face just now. What do you want me to do? Had to be certain that you weren’t trying to get the drop on me.”

“So you get dropped on me instead?”

“Drop. Not dropped.” Huh. Now I know how Ero feels. “So. What do you got for me?”

“File is below. You come.”

“Oh goody. That’s not totally a trap,” I mutter, skipping down the old cheese grater stairs. Even stepping as softly as I can, we’re clanging a racket, echoing into the darkness. “But seriously. No traps, please.”

Stealth is not my friend today.

“You have good flight? How long you in Moscow?”

“Seriously? Small talk?”

“What is this? ‘Small talk’? Is there big talk, as well?”

“Definitely. But it’s pronounced ‘big cock.’ Say it really slowly.”

Nikolai smirks, looking back at me as we reach the center of the circle of weak light from the hanging bulb.

Hm. Definitely getting an I’m about to get murdered vibe.

Should have invited Nikolai out for drinks. Gotten drunk, become best friends.

But I’ve been a little uneasy lately. Maybe it’s because I haven’t heard from Adriano in weeks. Ever since he went back to the States to get married.

“Dammit, Niko. I just said no traps!”

“What? No trap, I swearing.”

“Uh, fuck off. Perhot’ podzalupnaya !” I shout.

Nikolai cocks his head. “You using this wrong.”

“No. I was talking to that guy right over there. Yeah, I see you, Dimitri.”

“Heh. You got me.” The giant man steps out.

Followed by ten more.

All six-foot-shit and two hundred and fifty-fuck-my-life pounds.

“Wow. That’s a lot of Dimitris.”

“Hey, that is racist.”

“Shut up, Dimitri.” Nikolai frowns, clearly upset that I spoiled his ambush.

“Oh shit! I called it,” I snort.

“Honestly, those five are really called Dimitri.” Nikolai shrugs.

“If the other five are called Ivan I’m giving up, I don’t think I could take that kind of blatant humor.”

“Only two of them are.”

“Nikolai!” One of the tanks barks.

“Right. We have to, how do you say…whack you?”

“Whew, tease me with a good time, Niko, but I think I’ll just head on out. You boys have a good night. Vodka’s on me.”

“Not how this works, Diamante. You poke nose in beezness. We must make example.”

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool. So what’s the drill? Beat me up? Drag me to your boss? I’d love to talk to him, so we could just skip the beating.”

Several guns cock, and several other bludgeoning weapons smack into meaty palms.

Welp.

Nikolai’s between me and the stairs, the easiest way out.

And he never expects me to leap onto his chest, plant one foot, launching myself over him, right toward the metal beam behind him.

Slicing the old rope pulley, I fly up through the air, soaring out over the stunned faces of my attackers. Only a couple of them think to start shooting.

A front flip and I launch two of my knives, whipping out the Eagle and popping off a couple of rounds before I touch down, diving into a roll.

Three out of four ain’t bad.

Fourth shot hit the behemoth in the flack vest. Damn.

His fist whooshes in at my face, sending me bending back, skidding to my knees and slicking out one foot to crack the side of his knee. Snap, crackle, pop, he’s screaming.

Planting one hand, I pinwheel, taking Nikolai in the chest with both feet, sending him and his gun flying into the steps.

I manage to get off one more throw of a blade before the bullets start ticky-tacking in my wake. Sprinting for cover, I hop up between two massive old machines, suspending myself just as a shotgun blast scatter-shots under the feet of the contraptions.

Hm. These guys know their shit. How to flush out someone in cover.

So I go up instead, spidering between the two surfaces and swinging up onto the piping above.

Just below me, two hunk-hunk-a-Russian-thugs creep by, scanning for me.

The massive steel hook dangling beside me unclips easily enough, dropping right onto the first with a sickening thud.

Followed by me, dropping knee-first onto the shoulders of the other, driving him into the ground.

Sweet! Four left?—

The clotheslining arm juts out ahead of me, slamming me to the floor in a coughing fit. Right before the butt of a rifle hits the concrete where my head was a split second before.

I keep rolling, twisting into a somersault, back to my feet?—

Ping!

A steel pipe takes me in the side of the head.

“Ow!” I yelp, going with the flow and tumbling sideways to the ground in agony. Midair, I get tackled by fur and teeth, growling and snapping at my upraised arms.

They brought a dog to a man-fight!

Bastards.

I hate when they use animals as weapons. This one is particularly feisty.

Definitely not going to go for tummy rubs.

And I don’t like hurting animals.

Before the bucket of fluff can tear my face off or snap my arm, I fish out my snack pack, some leftover jerky I keep for emergencies, wiggling the meat right into his nose.

“Go get it Booboo!” And he’s bounding off into the dark after the treat. Lucky break.

Not so lucky break: the bat clipping me in the ribs.

Or the boot to the stomach.

The hair drag to the middle of the room is less than ideal, but way better than the face punch that one of the remaining Dimitris lays on me. Kiss-kiss.

The next guy that drags me back up is an honest to goodness Dolph Lundgren look-alike, blond flat top and all. He pulls me up by my throat, gets right in my face.

“Whoo, your breath really does smell like vodka.”

“And you smell like man who is about to die.”

“No, that’s probably just pee. Nervous reaction.”

He laughs, a sinister sound, turning me around. I’m swaying, held up by his massive set of arms, my head held up by another gracious gentleman by my hair again. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to hold it up to see the bombshell that steps out of the darkness.

“Holy hooy !” I say, or at least that’s what it was supposed to be. My lips are acting weird. Numb.

And she just smiles. Like actually smiles.

It’s the prettiest damn smile I’ve ever seen. And I’ve looked in the mirror a whole bunch.

“So this is the komik ,” she intones, her voice sultry, like Adele or something. But Russian.

“ Komik ?” I ask, putting on the charm. The blood and drool dribbling out of my mouth really ice the cake. She can’t resist me.

“Da. We know of you. The Diamante who is joker. You put up good fight.” She glances around at the bodies of a few of her men, the wounds on the ones still standing.

“Does that mean I get to see you naked now?”

“Excuse me?” She glares.

“Buh. I mean your boss. See your boss, now.” Whoops. “What was his name again?”

“Niet. My father does not want to see you.”

“But I really need to talk to Andrey.”

“Andrey was my grandfather,” she muses, tilting her head.

“Oh.” Oh .

“Enough of this, Vanya. I kill him now.” My beefy assistant snarls behind me, giving me a hearty shake.

I wonder if he knows Rocky?

“Fyodor!” she snaps, all of her chill gone instantly. She rattles off a string of Russian too fast for me to interpret.

He growls behind me, going silent and passing me off to two other kindly gents who take me by the arms. Without a word he storms out of the warehouse.

“Bring him,” she orders.

Vanya whistles and the skitter of paws and claws announces the burly rottweiler I met earlier trotting up beside her as she starts to walk past me.

“Wait … where are we going?”

She pauses, leaning in close, grabbing my face with one hand and pulling me in. Her hair smells like cinnamon.

“You did not hurt my Skanda when he attack you. For this, I let you live. But you will not like it.”

“You might be surprised,” I quip, trying to shrug casually.

“You must prove your worth. For saving dog, I throw you to the wolves,” she whispers into my ear, sending chills down my spine.

“Will I see you again?” I raise my only functional eyebrow.

“If you survive gulag…we’ll meet again.”

To be continued.