Page 21 of Lash

We are outside in the night; a taxi passes us, followed by a diesel-spewing bus. The others follow as I head for the doorway where I left Tatiana.

Only…

She isn't here.

A pair of shell casings lay in a pool of blood; the blood points away in a messy trail, as if someone dragged a body.

I follow the trail down the sidewalk, Solomon and the others behind me. The blood trail enters a yawning alley mouth.

"Tatiana?" I call, voice pitched low.

Nothing.

The trail continues, bloody skid marks glistening in the ambient light. I follow it further in—this is a dead-end alley. A heavy male body lies slumped at the end of the alley.

"Tatiana?" I call again.

I hear a whimper.

I look around—a dumpster, overflowing with stinking trash, a pile of discarded boxes and haphazardly stacked pallets, drifts of crumpled newspaper. "Tatiana? It's me—It's Lash." I pitch my voice in a low murmur, in Croatian.

"Lash?" Her voice is tiny, fearful.

"It's me. It's okay. You can come out."

Boxes and newspapers rustle and topple, and Tatiana emerges, a blood-drenched specter.

"Lovely One," I whisper. "What happened?"

She takes a shuffling step, falters, and topples. I catch her and pull her into my arms—she's trembling and hyperventilating.

"He-he-he…" she points at the dead man on the ground. "He—I hesitated. I hesitated."

"Are you hurt?" I ask, scanning her for injuries.

"N-n-no. No. It's his." Her eyes are wet and wide, searching mine. "I hesitated. I hesitated."

I cup her face, smearing blood. "You're alive, Tatiana. He is not."

"I—I—I had to…" she mimes a stabbing motion. "He—he wouldn't die! I—I kept stabbing and stabbing. So much blood—so much blood." She squeezes her eyes shut. "I hesitated. You told me not to hesitate, but he—I didn't see his knife at first. He was going to—he tried to—" she shakes her head. "I fought him, Lash. He was so strong. So big. So heavy. But I fought him. He had a knife and I got it from him and I stabbed him. I stabbed him so many times."

I pull her into my arms, against my chest. "You did what you had to do, Lovely One. Killing a man with a knife is no easy feat."

"So much blood," she whispers.

Muffled gunfire dopplers off the alley walls, and I whirl, putting her behind me, pistol in hand.

Solomon jogs to the alley mouth and crouches against the corner, poking his head out. "Coming from the compound," he says.

I frown. "What? Who would attack Stjepan?"

"Mercado," Lorenzo answers. "We embarrassed him. We got away. He has Sophia, but we took out a lot of his men. His ego cannot allow that."

"I do not see the connection between him and Stjepan. Why Stjepan? Why does he want Tatiana?" I'm asking the questions out loud, more rhetorically than anything, but Lorenzo answers anyway.

"Who knows with Mercado? His distribution network is massive, and he has agents everywhere. If this Stjepan of yours is a major mover in this area, it's likely Mercado is trying to leverage him into service."

I nod, considering what I know. "He styles himself a warlord. Drugs are just how he pays for his real ambition."