Page 11

I’m probably going to regret this. A few stray drops of rain collide into the windshield as we drive away from the bar and across town, but the worst of the storm seems to be lying in wait. Anya is quiet as we drive, only speaking when we stop in front of a nondescript house.

“This is it?” she asks skeptically, grabbing the door handle but not yet opening it. “I swear if you take me in there and there’s some bake sale happening, you are never going to hear the end of it.”

I believe her completely. “This is it. What were you expecting? A sketchy warehouse?”

I step out and do a quick scan of the surroundings, coming around to her side of the car.

It’s a dead-end street, and there isn’t another soul in sight.

She climbs out and frowns up at the yellow-sided house like she still doesn’t believe me.

The curtains are drawn in each of the windows.

Two cars are parked in the driveway. Everything is as it should be.

“Okay,” she says, tucking her hands into the pockets of my jacket, “let’s do this.”

She must’ve been inside an operation like this a thousand times, but there’s a note of something that could be excitement in her voice that makes me do a double-take, and when we stop at the front door, she rocks from heel to toe and back again.

I knock at the door and we wait, sheltered from the light rain by the gently sagging porch.

They already know I’m coming—I shot a text over before we left the bar, but I’m pleased to see the curtain twitch before the door opens so they can double-check my identity. With the latest Shevchenko attack, we’re all on edge.

Timofey opens the door, a cup of coffee in his hands. “What’s this about? Did something happen?”

I wave away his worry. “Just showing Anya around.”

Anya smiles at him, then steps past him into the split entry. “You won’t even know we’re here.”

“Everything go okay with the drop?” I ask him. We can’t take another problem, as Oleg loves to remind me. A stolen shipment would strain our finances to the limit if we intend to rebuild the brothel.

Relief washes over me when Timofey nods. “A-okay. Unpacking it all now. Want to see?”

Anya answers before I can. “Yes! Up or down?”

He gestures with his coffee cup at the staircase leading to the top of the house, and Anya trots up the stairs ahead of us both. Timofey raises his eyebrows at me, and I shrug before following.

“Woah,” she says, stopping with her hands on her hips.

There are crates on the floor choking the walking space and half-unloaded packages on the coffee table. Packing materials are strewn about. From the kitchen, I hear Valery and Oleg chatting.

“Is that you, Matvei?” Valery sticks her head into the living room, then spots Anya. “Oh, and Anya too.”

“Hi Valery,” Anya says with another quick smile, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I hope we’re not disrupting you.”

Oleg comes into the room with a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. “Please, Timofey, I’m begging you to maintain some semblance of order in the unpacking process. The way you throw everything about makes it impossible to keep track of what’s what. Oh, hi Anya.”

“Now that we’ve all said hello,” Timofey breaks in, draining his mug and setting it down on a crate, earning him an exasperated look from Oleg, “can we get back to work? This shit isn’t going to move itself.”

“Charming as ever,” Valery mutters. “Do you guys want some coffee? We just made a fresh pot because by the looks of things, we’re going to be here all night.”

Anya nods, and we head into the kitchen, which looks much the same as the living room, if slightly more organized.

Two stacks of crates are waiting to be emptied, and the table is taken up with Oleg’s laptop and papers.

One package of drugs is opened beside it.

Cocaine sits in a neat pile on a scale next to a purity testing kit.

Valery pours us each a cup, and Anya wraps her hands around the mug, shifting from side to side.

Her eyes are wide as they move around the room, and I remember what she said in the bar, about her brothers sheltering her from the underbelly of Bratva life.

Could this be her first time actually seeing what goes on behind the scenes?

It seems impossible, given that she grew up in this life, yet she seems distinctly uncomfortable here.

“Valery!” Timofey barks from the other room.

She rolls her eyes but takes her coffee and goes to help with the sorting, leaving me and Anya alone in the kitchen.

“Drugs in the living room, drugs in the kitchen. Do I want to know what’s in the basement?” she asks, taking a tentative sip of the coffee and wincing.

It’s thick enough to stand a spoon up in, so I know Oleg made it, and it tastes like an ashtray. No chance of falling asleep when Oleg is on coffee duty.

“I’ll show you.” I lead her past my bickering siblings to the lower level, where a few hired workers are unpacking the latest weapons shipment.

Shining, black firearms are laid out across the folding tables, and Boris, a leather-skinned man with hair gone white, looks up from assembling a rifle. “This shipment’s a mess, Boss.”

Inwardly, I groan. “What is it?”

He kicks a crate. “Too many barrels. Not enough stocks. Mismatched pieces. You’d better get our money back.”

Shit. This isn’t the first time this has happened.

I need a new dealer, but finding one that isn’t already working with the Shevchenkos or the Milovs is becoming impossible.

They’re choking us out of the firearms business.

If this shipment is screwed, I’ll have to delay construction on the brothel for another six months at least, and that means further delays on that particular income stream, setting us back even more.

Stress tightens my chest, and I feel my blood pressure jump about ten points.

It’s one thing after another lately, ever since this fucking alliance.

I’ve pulled the Abashin name out of the gutter with my own blood, sweat, and tears, and it’s starting to feel like everything I’ve done is for naught.

That I might just prove my uncles and my cousins right.

That I had no place taking over the mantle after my own father was the one who dragged us down.

“Does that happen often?” Anya touches my forearm, bringing me back down to this moment, this room. “Bad shipments?”

“More often lately.” I’ll let her put two and two together on why that might be. “Let’s go back upstairs.”

I need to make a few calls, and the service down here is never great.

She seems eager to leave the gun-filled room behind, solidifying in my mind the theory that her brothers kept this part of life hidden from her completely.

Oleg looks up from his clipboard for a brief moment.

Timofey is cursing and moving crates in the kitchen, and Valery is nowhere to be seen.

Anya reaches into a crate and pulls out a package wrapped in brown paper. “How can I help?”

There’s a chest-thumping boom, and the entire house shakes, rattling the glass in the windows. The power goes out, blacking out the room. Anya stumbles into me and I catch her, steady her as the rumbling stops. Smoke fills the air.

“What the fuck was that?” Timofey shouts from the kitchen, racing into the room. “It blew out the goddamn window!”

I wrap my arm around Anya to keep her close and draw my gun with my other hand. “Some kind of explosion. We’re lucky it didn’t take the whole house down. Where’s Valery?”

“She was in the bathroom. Shit,” Timofey swears again, taking off down the hall. “Valery!”

Oleg jumps to his feet, swapping his clipboard for his pistol. Despite his nature, he’s the best shot in the family. Anya trembles at my side. The explosion was in the house, but that doesn’t mean outside is safe. It might be a trap, intended to drive us outside where they can pick us off.

“Stay here with Oleg,” I tell her, guiding her over to my brother. “I’m going to check out what happened. Keep her safe. Don’t go outside until I say so.”

The boom seemed to originate from the lower floor.

A plume of smoke billows up the staircase.

I cover my mouth and nose with my arm and draw my gun, blinking through the smoke as I make my way down the stairs.

There’s a rush of heat, and I can just make out an obstacle in my path—something collapsed and brought down half the staircase, but it’s too dark to make out if there’s a way through.

“Grab me a flashlight!” I shout back up the stairs.

I expected Timofey or Valery, but it’s Anya who runs down with the flashlight, coughing as she inhales a breath of smoke.

“Here,” she says, sweeping the beam over the wreckage of the stairs. “I’ll hold it for you.”

“I told you to stay with Oleg,” I growl. “Why don’t you ever stay where I put you?”

She leans into the space to get a better look. “You needed help. I can help. Come on, we need to get the workers out of there before the fire spreads.”

The glow of orange from inside the room tells me it might be too late for that, but she’s right, we have to try.

“Boris!” I shout, picking my way through the debris. “Are you alright?”

There’s a muffled cry from somewhere past the debris, and I pray they’re not trapped. A beam has fallen from the ceiling, narrowing the gap in the staircase to an impossibly small size. There’s no way I can fit through there.

“Dammit.” I step back and think. The windows are sealed up for security down there. This is the only way out.

“I can fit,” Anya says, stripping my jacket off and tossing it at me.

She doesn’t hesitate, just pushes past me and through the small gap before disappearing into the room.

“Anya!” I call, coming back to my senses. “Get back here, it’s too dangerous!”

Does she have a death wish? I don’t know why she’s risking her own life to save Abashin workers she only just met, and she did it without a moment of thought. Either she’s completely crazy or she’s braver than I ever imagined.

“I’m okay!” she shouts back, before breaking into another round of coughing. “I don’t see anyone!”

Thank God the order was just firearms, no ammunition, or the whole place would’ve gone up from that explosion.

That was probably their intent. Shit, we have no idea if they’ve rigged a second explosion, and now Anya is right in the heart of danger.

I wedge my shoulder under the beam and shove.

At first, it doesn’t move, and my muscles scream from the effort, but I brace and shove again, and it gives the smallest of movements.

“Talk to me, Anya,” I grunt out, because the thought of her trapped in that room when another explosion goes off is doing terrible things to my heart. “What’s happening in there?”

Her voice is farther away now. “I found them! Oh shit, he’s unconscious.” There’s a pause, and I manage to shift the beam to the side. Just a little farther. “He’s breathing, but he’s knocked out. We’re going to carry him toward you.”

The beam catches on something, a torn piece of wall, and stops. The gap is just barely bigger than before, not enough to get the others out safely. I reposition and drive up with my knees, scraping the beam against the wall until it’s freed.

“Matvei!” Anya’s voice is touched with a tinge of fear that wasn’t there before. “The fire’s spread. I don’t know if we can get back to you!”

The thought of Anya burning alive fills me with a surge of adrenaline, and I heave the beam over, knocking it to the side and freeing a space through the debris. There’s a massive hole in the staircase now.

“Timofey, get down here!” I call upstairs before ducking through the debris, using the handrail to launch myself over the hole.

“Oh fuck,” Timofey says when he reaches the staircase behind me. “What do you need me to do?”

“Get ready to help the workers out, they’re trapped down here.” I don’t waste any more time before diving in through the smoke. Anya needs me.

The fire is spreading quickly, and half the room is already engulfed. I can just make out Anya and the shadowed shapes of the workers, the flashlight’s glow dimmed by the smoke. Boris is draped between them.

“Get out of here,” I tell Anya, pointing at the gap I made in the debris. “Now.

“Not until we’ve got everyone else out,” she insists, and I don’t need the light to know she’s wearing that impossibly stubborn look on her face.

We’d just waste time arguing, so I let it go. “Give me Boris.”

I drape the unconscious man’s arm over my shoulders and, with the help of one of the workers, get him to the stairs.

Anya guides the other workers over the hole in the floor, then turns back to help with Boris.

The heat of the fire dries the moisture from my eyes, and the flames are licking closer with every second we spend down here.

“Get over there now,” I shout at Anya, but she only shakes her head.

“Not until you’re both clear!”

Boris is not a small man, and navigating his unconscious form through the debris takes the two of us, working his arms through until Timofey can grab hold of him from the other side. Finally, he’s clear, and Anya ducks beneath the dangling staircase to cross the gap.

Behind us, the ceiling crumbles, consumed by the fire, knocking both of us forward. Anya screams, and I grab hold of her arms just as she slips into the hole, falling to my knees to keep a grip on her. Her blue eyes are wide, terrified.

“I’m not going to let you fall,” I promise her.

I can feel the skin on my back begin to burn from the intense heat.

“I’m stuck on something,” she whimpers. “I don’t think I can get free. My foot is stuck.”

That’s not an option. I pull and meet resistance. There’s panic in her eyes.

“Wiggle it side to side, see if you can free it.” If not, I’ll pull her foot off if it means saving her life. “I’m not going to leave you, Anya.”

She takes a shaky breath. For a moment, nothing happens, then she winces in pain and gasps, “Okay, it’s free! Oh shit that hurt.”

I yank her out of the hole, and she falls into my arms, but there’s no time to waste. She scrambles to her feet, favoring her right leg.

“Timofey, grab her!”

Together, we get her across, and once she’s safe, I leap to follow.