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“You said the cars were headed south?” Luka verified.
Agata nodded. “Definitely.”
“I know exactly where they’re going,” Luka said, already sweeping toward the exit. “And I know exactly which road they’re taking to get there.”
“Let’s go,” Mikhail prompted. “No time to waste.”
“Please, don’t let those horrible men hurt my daughter,” Polina pleaded.
“The boys will get her home safely. You two stay with me. We’ll make some tea and go play with the babies, okay?” Annika said, trying to find a distraction to keep Polina from thinking the worst. She nodded goodbye to her husband, Mikhail, and the men bolted out to their vehicles to leave.
As they burst into the late afternoon haze, Luka explained, “There’s a ghost town off the freeway called Roach. Not much there but some old railroad equipment and dilapidated structures. It’s a perfect hideout for a couple of snakes.”
Andrei, who was Mikhail’s commander, jumped to action. He ordered, “Rad and Ivan, go to the shop to recover Agata’s grandmother and make sure they don’t circle back. Mikhail, Luka, Vadim, and I will go to Roach.”
The men followed orders without hesitation, climbing into their cars and speeding off. Luka was parked behind Andrei, and they ran alongside each other.
“You good, man?” Luka asked. It was a simple question asked casually, but Andrei knew the weight behind Luka’s words. It was as close to a comforting gesture as he could get.
“Dasha wants my attention. Well, he has it now,” Andrei said darkly, taking out his keys to unlock his car.
“Don’t let him get in your head. That’s what he’s after,” Luka replied.
“I tried to keep her safe, Luka, but it wasn’t enough. I should have listened to the Pakhan when he said it was too dangerous to involve Inessa in our world. If that filthy rat harms one hair on her head, I will never forgive myself,” Andrei admitted.
“She’s been a part of our world since Mikhail hired her mother and they moved into the estate. You’re not her downfall, Andrei. You’re the man who will stop at nothing to save her,” Luka encouraged him. “Right?”
Andrei stood just a little taller. “Da. I’ll get her back. And Luka… when you find Dasha, keep him on ice for me. This one is… personal.”
Luka nodded as he slid into his car. “Understood.”
The small convoy of cars made their way across town, heading south to the freeway. Luka remained perfectly calm and resolute, just watching the city drop away until there was desert on all sides. The dusty brown earth stretched out in every direction. To the untrained eye, it was all the same. But Luka knew precisely where to turn and how far to go down the rough gravel road until he saw the fuzzy shadows of a ghost town in the fading light of day. His heart pounded a little faster as he parked his car and hopped out. He ran to his trunk, opened it up, and began plucking out weapons for the battle.
Mikhail, Vadim, and Andrei pulled up behind him. The sky above was a bloody red streaked with orange and lilac as the sun set. Luka stuck to the shadows of old buildings, looking around for signs of life, gun at the ready. They had to be hiding Inessa somewhere in this godforsaken ghost town, and it didn’t take long for Andrei to figure out where.
In the center of ‘town’ was a large building with rusted metal siding and a deteriorating roof. The door was missing, with just a gaping, slanted hole where it used to be. As the men approached cautiously, they heard a scream from inside.
“Inessa!” Andrei shouted, and broke into a run. At the exact same time, several figures went darting out the other side of the building. They took off into the darkness.
Luka, Vadim, and Mikhail looked at one another and wordlessly decided to give chase. Luka’s arms pumped at his sides, his body warming to the challenge. His excellent eyesight allowed him to track the men for a long time, gradually gaining on them even as Mikhail fell behind a little. Luka, still shirtless and wearing blood-stained pants and shoes, looked like a demon from hell. He followed one of the men into what looked like the shell of an old general store. The others veered off into the desert with Mikhail and Vadim chasing after them.
Luka rushed into the building and found it full of filthy old shelves with items in varying stages of decomposition. He ducked behind a shelf and began carefully edging along, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. He caught a flurry of movement clear across the store, by a half-shattered window. The bearded man was struggling to scramble out the window as glass shattered and crackled around him.
The rat was trying to escape, but it wasn’t the swift exit he had hoped for.
Luka grinned to himself as he raised his gun. “Dasha Turgenev,” he called out.
The man whipped around, surprised to hear his name in a stranger’s mouth. That was all the confirmation Luka required.
He fired his gun at Dasha two times, striking him in each leg so that the older man howled with pain and fell back out of the window into the pile of broken glass beneath it. Luka took his time approaching the cornered target, enjoying every second of Turgenev’s panic. Dasha swore and scrambled to grab his own weapon from his jacket, but Luka shot him in the arm before he got the chance. Blood sprayed across the grimy floor, reminding Luka of the bloody scene he had caused earlier that same day.
The blood, the bullet casings, Dasha’s mortal fear polluting the air like a sickness — none of it troubled Luka in the slightest. He stood over his target, pointing his gun at his face as Dasha held up his one uninjured arm in surrender. Luka was pleased to see hot, angry tears burning in the criminal’s eyes. He was a soulless man, but he wasn’t immune to pain.
“You came all the way from Russia to make your statement,” Luka growled. “All those years, all that hard work. Just to end up here, bleeding out in a ghost town called Roach. Fitting name, don’t you think?”
“Fuck you,” Dasha spat, even as he shivered violently from pain and blood loss. “Why don’t you just put a bullet in my head? Are you a coward?”
“I’m a gentleman,” said Luka, pocketing his gun. “As much as I would relish it, you are notmykill.”
