AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I crash onto my elbow, falling with all of my weight into the wet, glistening road. Gregor, drunk and clearly a lot less interested in discretion than me, lets out a wild roar and lunges for me. I roll as he lands on his knees, bringing both fists down into the asphalt, fingers interlocked like some kind of melee fighter. I kick out, nailing him in the ribs with my boot, hard enough that he lets out a viciouswhoomp!of air.
He’s slow getting up, but so am I. My head is ringing. My elbow has sopped through my shirt and jacket, and my face is slick with blood. I’m slower than usual, thanks to the shot I took in the shoulder, but that’s no excuse.
Gregor is doubled over, lumbering, as he reaches for his gun. I step close, catching him by his short grey and brown hair, and slam my knee up into his already bloodied nose. He grunts,hands swinging pathetically, and I pluck the gun from his waistband.
In Russian he says, “I would have done much more, to the girl. If he’d let me. She has a good spark in her. I imagine she is a hell of a time in bed.”
“On your knees, or on your feet?” It’s an old courtesy. I ask in Russian. My voice comes out thick, and I realize the blow to the head might have fucked me more than I originally realized. “And don’t worry about riling me up; there’s no point. I’m putting your brains on this street right now either way.”
“She must be a riot,” he says anyway, straightening. He’s loose on his feet, barely standing. If he’d been sober, this would have been even more difficult. I make a mental note that next time, I will keep Yuri at my side. I have better reasons to live than my pride, now; I have a wife to protect now. “I could tell just by the way she looked at me when I hit her…that one—she likes it rough.”
“Where is Konstantin?”
Gregor turns and spits. A bloody glob flies onto the concrete. In the distance, a semi blares its horn on the highway; the sound catches and stretches into the night, and once it dissolves, the silence is otherworldly, insulated by the fog whirling around us.
“He’s going to lose this whole thing,” says Gregor. “I warned him to let it go. But he will die for it. On principle, for his brother, he will die for it—he must. Surely someone with an ego like yours understands.”
“I do. Indeed, I’m banking on it.” I have my gun in hand now, leveled at his head. I cock back the hammer. “Where is he? My men have clocked him at no fewer than six different locations. But I have a sense the one he’s really using is a bit more underground, am I right?”
“You give him too much credit. Konstantin cares little for espionage—what really matters to him right now…is her.”
Her.“What are you talking about?”
“I have a kid; did you know that? A daughter. She’s eighteen.”
Is that who he’s saying Konstantin cares about? “I don’t give a damn about you or your family. I’m sure your daughter must be a lovely girl, with such a father as you.” But something feels off-kilter in the moment; something feels off, and I don’t like it at all. The fog seems to be moving too fast now. Milky rushes, braided currents, like a sea of ghosts, pouring from the trees. “Where the hell is he?”
“Where do you think?” Gregor slowly stands. When he reaches into his jacket, I roll my finger onto the trigger fast—but he just pulls out a tiny bottle of whiskey. He holds it up, along with his free palm, as though to signal surrender. “Easy there.” He unscrews the cap and drinks the whiskey in one gulp. “My daughter—she’s smart. Very smart. Smarter than her old father, and a better person than I’ll ever be. Her mother took her from me… Left me when my girl was only nine. I was angry at the time. I got it in my head to strangle her, my wife…but even drinking didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear, which was that I could give her a good life. That I wouldn’t ruin her.”
I stare at him. I’m not sure if it’s the ringing in my head, or the blood loss, or the strange atmosphere of the night, but I’m getting the oddest sense that I’m not really here at all; that this is some bizarre dream I’ve trespassed into by accident.
“So, I let her go,” says Gregor. “Only good thing I ever did. And you know what life gave her, my daughter?” His eyes glitter, and his smile is full of despair. “Cancer. Eighteen years old, and life gave my girl cancer. She’s so smart, I tell you. She’s got scholarships to study in England, be the first in my family ever to go. We’re nothing but criminals in my line, all the way back to the Biblical times. But this one, she beat it, the family curse—only to get another.”
I shake my head. “Why the hell are you telling me this?”
“To stall, mostly,” he says, shrugging. When he reaches into his coat again, he pulls out a pack of cigarettes and shakes one into his hand. It takes a few tries of the lighter to get it lit. “For such a smart guy, Lukin, you sure can be a bit thick.”
I am, I guess. Because it’s not until that very moment that I put the pieces together: his daughter, him, and why he’s here. “You’re bait.”
“Bait.” He smiles, inhaling deeply from his cigarette. Smoke spills out the side of his mouth. “I knew I was going to die on this mission. But my girl, my sick girl…all the money Konstantin will pay out to me for this, all of the money I won’t be alive to spend—it goes to her. Maybe it will pay for those medical bills, I don’t know. Or maybe it will pay for university in England. Or hell, maybe she’ll just go on a nice tropical vacation.” He shrugs again. “It doesn’t much matter to me.”
I’m shaking now, with rage, black and red. A tunnel of it, soaking into my periphery.He’s playing with me. This was all a game. This was all a trap.“Where the fuck is Konstantin?”
“I ask you again,” says Gregor, with a little impatience now. “Where the fuck do you think, Lukin?”
Where is the one place I wouldn’t expect him to be? Where is the one place worth letting one of his closest men die for?
The house. Kat’s house.
Kat.
“You really are thick,” says Gregor, jerking his chin toward the pistol in my hand. “Go on, then. Shoot me and get it over with. The minute you left that house to come looking for me, I knew just where to put myself. I knew just where to be in your path, and look, now, here you are—right where you’re supposed to be. Konstantin has probably been there for half an hour now. I wonder if anyone is left. Like I said…” His eyes glint, and his smile is full of pure malice. “At least that girl of yours is a fighter.”
I snarl, squeezing the trigger. My aim is true. Gregor’s head snaps back, a rope of dark blood loosing from the hole that opens smack in the center of his forehead. I don’t even wait for his heavy body to hit the ground. I turn, and run for the car.
I barely make it. I’m bleeding, and a lot. Was it part of the arrangement that Gregor do as much damage as possible on his way out? If so, he did his job well. I stagger into the car. Yuri’s eyes widen, his face going pale as the blood drains out of it.
In Russian: “What the hell happened? I’ll call the medic—”
