Page 74 of The Pakhan’s Heir

I hope my last thought will be of Nona.

I’m walked along the boardwalk to the edge of a long pier. All four men surround me, still arguing over who gets to take me out.

“I’m only saying,” the driver says, “Of the four of us, I’ve been Bratva the longest. I’m practically Slavik’s most trusted man.”

“You are far from his most trusted. You are mid-rate at best…”

We’re about halfway down the pier when I hear it, just under their voices. The sound of a car engine behind us. I hear it rumble, then stop with several clicks.

But there are no headlights and these four haven’t taken notice.

“If anyone is his most trusted,” one of them says, “it’s probably Stefan.”

“Well, he’s still in Russia, so that makes me⁠—”

“Enough,” the one who was the passenger says. We’ve reached the end of the pier. “It doesn’t matter who does it as long as he’s dead. You want to do him so badly? Go ahead.”

They’ve been bickering so much that they don’t notice the sound of the footsteps on the boardwalk, but I have. I ball up my fists and lift my arms up a little, getting ready to fight back.

The one doing the most complaining puts his hand on my shoulder and pushes me to my knees. “Get down,” he says, then pulls out his gun.

If I’m still alive when the shot goes off…

It does. The air fills with the smell of gunpowder as bullets ring out above me. I duck down, raising my arms and slamming them against my back, ready to fight.

But there’s no one left. All four of my captors have fallen. Two fell in the river and the other two are lying next to me. The complaining one is dead, a hole in the side of his head, his blood pooling out underneath him.

I look up to see a figure rushing up to me. It’s Kostya. The last man is still alive, holding his bloodied chest as he turns over on his side. He moans and curses in Russian.

Kostya jogs up, his eyes on the living one. “You whole?” he asks me.

“I am.” I stand up and brush the dirt off my knees. Kostya nods, then he raises his gun again and shoots the last man in the head, ceasing his moans of agony.

He looks at me, and the lights above us catch the side of his face. It’s bruised all to hell and one eye looks as though it’s starting to swell shut.

“Got jumped back at the park,” he says. “Sorry. They had me hemmed up so I couldn’t get a good bead on the sonofabitch.” He wipes at his good eye and says, “Fucking Irkutsk scum.”

“Where’s Rikki?”

“He’s circling the wagons,” he says. “We figure Slavik’s taking Nona back to his place.”

I nod, then I reach down and grab a gun from the waistband of one of the dead men and say, “We’d better hurry.”

27

NONA

I’m doing my best not to cry. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction, despite the fact that my heart feels like it’s been ripped from my chest.

The sight of Alex being thrown to the ground as they dragged me away has been replaying in my mind. They are going to kill him. The thought twists my heart up in my chest so tight that the pain is almost more than I can bear.

I won’t be able to say goodbye to him. He’ll probably be dead before we even get to my father’s house.

I’m wedged between two men in the back seat as my father curses about his wounded shoulder. He tells the driver that when this is all done, he wants the shooter found and castrated. As angry as I’ve seen him, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this full of rage. Constant streams of curses keep erupting from him every few minutes.

I focus on the rain as it mists over the car and onto the road. I have no doubt that Papa meant what he said about killing me too, and I suppose this is the point where I reflect on the last night of my life.

But I can’t. I don’t want to die. And I don’t this baby to die, either.