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4
Dmitry
Fielding my father’s questions always reminded me of walking onto a battlefield. You could never have enough protection, never enough ammunition to serve back, and no matter how you felt going in, you would never be as prepared as you wanted. I knew that taking Manya with me was a risky move, especially unaware as she was to the situation. But I knew that it was a necessity.
I thought, for what we had come for, we were fielding it fairly well, despite a few hiccups.
At least until the bullets started.
As injured as I’dfeltduring my father’s company, the man had never pulled a gun on me. It didn’t stop me from ducking when the sound first went off though. Instinct combined with too many years dodging bullets intended for me had taught me well enough to jump first and reassess second, preferably from a point of safety. I’d never been married before though.
Dragging Manya with me was all the harder for how little reactionary instinct she seemed to have. Too Americanized, too soft. She didn’t dive under the table in the middle of the room, nor did she turn and rush for an exit . . . at least not until I threw her at Shura.
That should have been the last time I’d have to think of her until I was out of the crosshairs. I levelled my gun at the door in front of me as my father’s byki swarmed him to lead him out of the room by the back exit. I assumed this was where Shura would be taking Manya.
My father’s yelling, up to that point, had been nothing but a hazy backdrop to my thought processes. It only came into focus as I turned to ensure his byki were pulling him towards that back door.
“My fucking house!” he screamed, his face painted red. His veins stood harsh and purple out against his skin, and his teeth were bared as he gestured widely with the large-barreled gun in his hand. “Pah! To the devil with them! Let me go,” he growled, his skin growing splotchy as he tried to push past the byki.
“Blyat!” I yelled back. “To the devil with you, old man! There will be no home to speak of if you let yourself get shot!” My voice broke at the anger carried through it, waving him away and preparing to advance.
I could hear them dragging him away still voicing his protests. That was all I’d been waiting for. I moved forward, my finger moving more firmly over the trigger and—
“You can’t go out there!” Manya’s voice interrupted me in a sharp whisper. I turned in surprise and saw her black eyes staring up at me.
She was half crouched behind me, looking like a pale, frightened imitation of herself. Shura stood by the back door, leaning half out and firing his gun at something just out of sight. Which meant that whoever it was had made their way around back. I held back my curse, biting the side of my tongue instead as I turned my attention away from him.
I didn’t have time to question it or allow myself to worry about my father having left from that same door. I couldn’t even allow myself to pause, the yelling and gunfire like morse code that only I could follow. I didn’t have time for the rage felt towards my silver-haired wife, nor the worry for her that I also didn’t have time to process. I couldn’t send her with Shura now, not when he was defending that part of the house. I couldn’t send her on her own. . .
“Stay low, stay with me,” I barked. “We go out that way—because that is the way out. Blyat, if you cannot listen, woman, I will leave you here.” It was both a curse and an empty threat, but the flash of fear across her face made it clear that she only heard the former.
I took the same path I had moved to take before, listening to the quick footsteps behind me and pausing just at the double doors. I led with my gun, my eyes and ears as open as they could be as we advanced through the bullet-strewn house. My father’s men were further through, towards the front of the building, where the gunfire still shot off like lit firecrackers.
Behind them lay the carnage.
Men in black littered the sides of the hallway, their bodies bent in odd positions and full of holes throughout. Blood ran in streams along the marble floor, filling the blank spaces between corpses. I moved through them carefully, stepping in and around the puddles and bodies until we came to the byki with guns. They were holding back two men that stood just beyond the pillars which
led to the courtyard we had pulled up in.
“Italian,” the nearest byki scoffed as we approached. “Sons of whores come in disguise,” he added, spitting on the ground. His name escaping me as I grunted in response, holding my hand up to stop Manya from advancing any further. The two men being shot at outside seemed to be trying to edge back and away, their bodies angling for the still-running car at the far-left entrance to the property.
“Motherfuckers,” I muttered, catching sight of it and allowing my hand to tighten over the bottom of my gun. “One of you go and get me a car. . .” I ordered out of the corner of my mouth, not dropping my gaze from the men outside. Neither byki moved at first, but as I lifted my gun even higher, depressing the trigger and watching the bullet whiz past the men and towards the car they were angling for, I got their attention.
“A car?” asked the one who had spat before, snorting at my aim. No doubt he thought I had missed. And he was right, just not by quite so wide of a margin as he probably thought.
I cursed under my own breath as I realized how difficult shooting the engine of the vehicle would be from this angle. “Nyet, I said it to be funny.Spaseeba, did you not know this was time for joking?” I replied acidly before firing off another round and this time aiming at the tires.
The further byki reacted first and moved off to do as asked. The one who had spoken was still shooting at the men though, his derision clear. “You decorating their car for them, Koalitsia? Or is your gun off?”
My teeth set further, barely acknowledging him as one of the men darted into the backseat, kicking open the other door once he was inside and ineptitude. I straightened up, hearing the squeal of the Italian’s tires merging with the sound of another set pulling up.
“Take care of my wife better than you stop people from escaping, da?” I sneered, not turning back around once as I headed for the vehicle the other byki had brought up. As he got out of the driver’s seat, I slid in and was about to put the car into gear when the passenger door opened suddenly.
Manya slipped inside, pulling her seatbelt over her in almost the same movement, and my jaw tightened. My palm hit more roughly against the gear shift as we pulled out of the courtyard, in the same direction I had seen the Maserati going. “Do you follow no orders?”
“Not ones that leave me alone in a strange place, with a man who seems ready to bash my head in at the mention of my father’s name—and men trying to kill him on the other side,” Manya answered. Rather than shaking, her body was almost held too tightly as she gripped the seatbelt over her chest. “Take a left here.”
My gaze slid to her; eyebrows raised. “Left here?” I questioned, incredulity bleeding into each word. The fuck did she think a left here would do?
