Another shot tears into the crate near my head, showering me in splinters.
I move again. The men outside are still firing.
My people holding the perimeter, theirs trying to keep them wide and blind, but I can tell it’s not working. There’s too many of them.
Exactly what my father wanted.
I make it to the rear office and find it empty.
I go through it into the yard by the water.
The noise from the main fight dulls here, replaced by the slap of the river against concrete and the metallic rattle of something loose in the wind. Two bodies lie near the fence line. One of them is one of his. The other I don’t recognize.
Then I see him.
My father.
He stands near the open water gate with a gun in his hand, as composed as if he’s waiting for me at the end of a business meeting instead of in the middle of an ambush.
I stop. He raises the gun. So do I.
For one suspended second, everything narrows to that line between us.
I think of my mother. I think of Moscow. I think of Katerina standing in the apartment doorway telling me to bring the children back.
“Where are they?” I ask.
He looks at me with the same calm, ruinous expression he’s worn my entire life. “You came.”
“Where are the children?”
“They’re alive.”
“Where?”
He doesn’t answer.
He studies me for a long moment, almost like he’s admiring the scene. The warehouse. The bodies. Like me, he thrives in violence.
“You brought enough men to make noise,” he says. “Not enough to make a difference.”
I take one step toward him. “You sent for me. So, talk.”
He gives the smallest tilt of his head. “You always were impatient.”
“And you always did like hiding behind other people’s blood.”
That touches something in him, but his gun stays level.
I can still hear the fight outside. My men are holding, but they’re tied up exactly the way he intended. This whole place was built to separate me from them without leaving me truly alone.
It almost works.
I take another step. “If they’re hurt?—”
“They’re not hurt.”
“Then tell me where they are.”
