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EFREM
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as we enter the crumbling structure of the Red Hook Grain Terminal, heading to the designated meeting place. The building’s vacant windows above look like broken teeth against the black mold–coated gray-brick facade. It’s pitch-black out, the abandoned warehouse a haunting image that looms above us, giving me a sense of foreboding.
It’s supposed to be neutral territory—an area neither the Veles nor the Zhivoder wish to claim, and I can see why. The structure looks as though it might come crashing down on our heads at any minute.
Pyotr walks, tense and silent, beside me, his lips forming a thin white line as he keeps his eyes focused forward on the ruins’ dark bowels. On his left, Gleb stalks on silent feet, his lithe movement ready for anything.
Two people does not feel like adequate protection for a meeting of this magnitude, but my pakhan insisted. He let Mikhail establish the parameters—who, where, when—to get him to come to the negotiation table, and I don’t like it one bit. I can see why he’s doing it, but that doesn’t make me like it any more.
I like it even less that Val had to stay behind. But he’s still not one hundred percent, and I suspect we might need all our combined skills to survive the night.
“Keep your eyes and ears open, but do not take action unless you absolutely must,” Pyotr instructs, his Russian low and hushed.
Though it does little to mask his words, as Mikhail is just as Soviet-born as the rest of us, it’s a comfort of sorts to hear my mother tongue. Not that anything is going to set my mind at ease about this situation.
I trust Pyotr. I trust him with my life, but I hate this last-ditch strategy he’s chosen. It’s an act of desperation, an attempt to end the bloodshed, but offering Mikhail a truce is far too risky, in my opinion. Our clans have been fighting for too many years. I don’t see how talking will help now. Still, I keep my mouth shut.
I know my pakhan is acting in the best interests of his family and the men. We can’t continue to lose the numbers we have been, and think we’ll have a chance of defeating Mikhail in the end. So as harebrained as it sounds, Pyotr’s holding a meeting with Mikhail Sidorov to discuss the concept of a ceasefire.
And as much as I might detest the idea, I won’t let Pyotr face Mikhail alone—no matter how much of a Hail Mary it is.
I’m here to keep him safe. No matter the cost.
Flashlight in one hand, gun in the other as I brace it against my wrist, I slowly scan the dilapidated space of the condemned grain warehouse, looking for movement, waiting for an ambush. Rats scatter under the harsh light, and somewhere above us is a steady drip of water. But other than that, all is still.
Reaching the main chamber of the ground floor, we pause. Stepping in front of Pyotr, I enter the room first to clear it while Gleb falls back into the shadows to look for anyone skulking nearby, waiting for the opportunity to take us down.
Pyotr follows me into the main room, his own gun out and ready, though he keeps it resting near his thigh. We got here early to scope out the location and ensure no one is lying in wait, ready to take advantage of the meeting. This could very easily be an ambush.
“Clear,” I confirm with a low grunt after shining light in every corner.
“Clear,” Gleb echoes a few minutes later as he enters from the far side of the building, stepping from the shadows as if he were made of them himself.
We position ourselves near the side entrance we came through, our backs to the solid wall of the warehouse, and our shoulders turned toward the door in case we have to make a quick escape. While I maintain my position at Pyotr’s shoulder, Gleb lingers in the back, making his presence scarce so he can stay mobile.
“Guns away but easily accessible,” my pakhan commands, slipping his into the waist of his pants and covering it with his fine suit jacket.
He looks perfectly at ease, like he’s managed a hundred of these meetings before. Though I’m still tense, ready for anything, his cool confidence helps me remain calm.
Gleb casts a wary glance in Pyotr’s direction but does as he says, slipping his gun into his shoulder holster. And though it makes my muscles quiver with tension, I follow suit. Then we wait in the dim light pouring in from the high-set windows.
Glancing impatiently at his watch, Pyotr remains silent. But I know from the tightness of his jaw that Mikhail’s late. No doubt an attempt to knock Pyotr off balance before we’ve even begun.
Then, after a good quarter of an hour waiting in the dingy space, I hear four car doors slam shut in the distance.
I bristle immediately. If that’s Mikhail, it sounds like he’s not even following the parameters he laid down. We’re already outnumbered. Perhaps I should have seen that coming, but Pyotr wouldn’t have let me bring a third guard even if I’d wanted to.
Low voices grow steadily louder as the men approach, and it seems as though Mikhail is perfectly at ease with tonight’s events, his footsteps casual as they crunch up the weed-strangled walk.
Two broad-shouldered men step through the doorway moments later, and immediately, I recognize the dead-eyed one on the right. He’s one of Ben’s friends who manhandled Dani the night I took her on our first date. Though it’s been months now, the memory is still fresh in my mind, and I have an overwhelming urge to strangle him now that he’s within reach.
He sneers at me, recognition touching his lips, though his eyes remain as black and soulless as ever.
The other is a higher-ranking man, someone I’ve seen hovering around Mikhail for years, lingering in the twisted fuck’s shadow. His graying hair and stony eyes match the scowling Clint Eastwood vibe I imagine he’s going for, only he’s a lot uglier.
Then the man himself enters, Mikhail looking for all the world like he’s come straight from a night of clubbing, the smell of alcohol faint but present.
A fourth person follows him through the door, stepping up behind him, carrying a good-sized camping lamp that casts an eerie yellowish-green glow about the room.
