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2
Dmitry
My jaw tensed as Manya’s hand tightened around my own. I could feel the tension in her fingers alone, and her body crowded more firmly into my side as if not wanting to stray too far. I could appreciate that. I didn’t want her too far from me either, with things the way they stood.
Russia had been a different world. The bubble that we had been allowed to exist in with one another had been something outside the realm of what I ever could have imagined. I hadn’t expected the emotions that had emerged when secluded from our normal lives, in stolen moments between the meetings and hand greasing I had been carrying out amongst my contacts there. The tattoo in such dark lettering on her wrist was like an emblem, highlighting the growth we’d undergone while there.
But all of this was taking a backseat to the developments within my father’s bratva.
It wasn’t an exaggeration, telling Manya how many men had been at that airport, hoping to catch me off guard, knock me out of the running. And those were only the ones willing to be seen. My stomach twisted with the thought, anger vibrating through me with every step.I didn’t want to be hiding out here. I didn’t want to be hiding out anywhere. I wanted to be part of the ground crew that was chasing down leads and finding those snitches and traitors hidden within our ranks.
More than all of that, I wanted my wife and my father to remain safe, which was why I was here at all.
My father’s estate had gone into shutdown, the open doors and lax attitude from the last time we had visited now a thing of the past. Guards stood at every door, their eyes ever watchful and their weaponry in plain sight. Inside the house, the tension was palpable. The eyes tracking mine and Manya’s movements were so very many and varied that they felt like pinpricks along my spine.
“Dmitry,” a deep voice called from the other side of the hall we walked down. Shura was holding open a half-cracked door, which he shut quickly behind him before lengthening his stride to catch up with us. “Moë sudno na vozdushnoy podushke polno ugrey,” he muttered, falling into step next to me.
I snorted, and Manya made a small noise. “My hovercraft is full of eels?” she repeated, her pale eyebrows climbing up her forehead. Her eyes darted between us in hope of an answer.
“It’s a saying,” I started, lowering my voice as we neared the next set of large double doors.
“You’ve never seen Monty Python?” Shura cut in, his disbelief almost matching hers. “My hovercraft is full of eels. . .” he repeated it more slowly this time, tilting his head as if waiting for her to catch on. She stared blankly back at him, but as he opened his mouth to explain, the sound of a throat being cleared stopped all three of us.
It had come from a closed room across the hall. The byki standing guard there seemed uncomfortable with more than one or two people passing through at once, shifting their weight from one foot to the other as we approached.
It was only to be expected given the current climate and what had happened here right before Manya and I had gone to Russia. They opened the doors for us, stepping back and allowing us to move past them without once breaking from their cycle of surveying the hall from which we’d come.
“Did you find what you left for?” My father’s heavy Russian accent was layered with condescension and sarcasm. He sat in the armchair by the fireplace, his frame kept upright by pillows that he was now trying to hide from us beneath a blanket.
Stubborn old man. Any other time I might have given him shit for it, but with people on the lookout for any sign of weakness.
“Da. I did. And I hear things went to shit in my absence,” I answered, no bite in my words no matter how caustically they were phrased.
A dry, rasping cough worked its way up through his throat, as if he had inhaled too much smoke in one sitting. “To shit in your absence?” he croaked, his eyes narrowing and his bejeweled fingers waving us over. “It was shit before you left, before your plane lifted off American soil. Pah, let things go to shit. If you’re scared of wolves, don’t go into the woods!” He waved his hand dismissively.
“Scared of wolves,” I chuffed, rolling my eyes. I lead Manya to the loveseat across from him, helping her settle into it. “Old friends, like old wine, are best,” I quoted back, lifting an eyebrow and ignoring his answering snort. “I leave my wife here with you. You entertain her, da? I am going to catch up on how it went to shit in my absence.”
“How it hasbeenshit,” my father corrected gruffly once more, resettling amongst his throne of pillows and pulling out a cigar. His narrow gaze wasn’t angry as it followed me though, signaling I’d got away with my impudence this time.
I could feel Manya’s hand, reaching out as if to recapture my grasp, but I knew if I stopped, I wouldn’t make it out of the room. Shura’s gaze weighed too heavily on my shoulders for all of that. “Don’t let the old man tell you any stories,” I muttered, brushing my hand across the back of her white-silver hair. I stepped back and followed Shura through to the side room.
The door shut behind us with a kind of finality that couldn’t signal anything positive. Shura sighed as he turned to face me.
“I give you bad news or I give you worse news, which shit will you eat first?” he asked, the wry line somewhat ruined by his somber tone. His face was grim, his lips set in a hard line as he leant his shoulder back against the door.
“You give me all the news,” I sighed, running a weary hand over my face. I’d had my break from it, back in the motherland. Even those necessary tasks I’d carried out hadn’t been infused with the violence of this country; I had avoided that sector while there.
“They are everywhere. These enemies, these cells that have infiltrated.”
Shura spat, both the words and the excess spit in his mouth, looking disgusted even to be admitting they existed. “We follow the trail to one, exterminate it, and other crops up in its place. Everyone wants piece of Koalistia empire. Everyone wants to find a weakness in, they will use your father’s death.”
“Da, and now they aren’t just gunning for me, but the old man himself?” My nostrils flared, the anger burning bright beneath my skin once more. “That goes against all law, all order. They think they can end him and uproot all the work he has put into his position? Then what? Does he have no one fully loyal left?”
My words were quick, and my frustration gave way to me voicing more than I had intended. I could see the sting of my accusation landing on Shura’s ears from the wrinkling of the skin between his eyes.
“Plenty loyal are still left. Plenty still believe in his way, but your enemies are many. Do not take one word and replace it with another. Did you not just tell your father that old friends are like old wine?”
“Da,” I grunted, rubbing my temple. “What are they doing, exactly, to create such discord among those that are loyal, then?”
