Nightfall

by Nicole Fox

  Pipes and rusted metal hang from the ceiling, and I can hear the distant ping of gunfire.

  For a second, I think it’s someone popping popcorn or some mechanical misfiring. But once I recognize the sound for what it is, it’s unmistakable.

  The man who came to alert Rurik said Dmitry had arrived alone. Then, why is there so much gunfire?

  I want to believe Dmitry can handle Rurik and his men single-handedly, but I have to be honest with myself: it isn’t likely.

  I listen to the gunfire closely and try to decide where it’s coming from. I intend to take the dead guard’s advice, and when I do, I want to know which way to run to avoid being shot.

  The guard to my right must take my concentration as a sign of fear. He chuckles to himself.

  “Don’t worry. This will all be over soon. Dmitry can’t fight them all alone.”

  Having my own suspicions spoken aloud is depressing, and the little bit of hope that had sparked in my chest is extinguished.

  The guard with me is large, and I think I can outrun him. I just have to wait for my opening, and then I’ll dart behind the machinery and navigate to a door.

  I understand my chances are slim, but they’re all I have.

  I’m taking a deep breath, preparing myself to escape, when there is the bang of a door and then frantic footsteps. I don’t have time to move before Rurik rounds the corner.

  The last time I saw him less than fifteen minutes ago, he wore a smug grin. Now, his eyes are wide, his forehead is sweaty, and he’s frantic.

  He sprints towards me, and I try to back away, to scramble out of the path he’s cutting across the floor, but the guard grabs my shoulders and holds me in place.

  My opportunity to escape is gone. It presented itself, and I hesitated.

  Despair wraps around me like a thick blanket, stifling and suffocating as Rurik wrenches me out of the guard’s hold and presses a gun to my forehead.

  I don’t even fight. I just squeeze my eyes closed and pray that dying doesn’t hurt.

  One second. Two. Three.

  I count to nearly twenty before I crack one eye open and then the other.

  I don’t understand what is happening.

  Rurik is breathing heavily beside me, his chest heaving and brushing against my arm with every inhale.

  But he isn’t pulling the trigger.

  I turn my head slightly to try and see his face, but he jerks me forward again.

  And that’s when I see him. Rounding the corner ahead of me. Blood splattered across his shirt.

  His blond hair gleams white in the fluorescent warehouse lights.

  “Dmitry,” I breathe.

  Hope flares inside of me.

  It might be my imagination, but I think I see the corners of his mouth pull up in the smallest of smiles.

  27

  Dmitry

  Courtney whispers my name, and I take a long overdue sigh of relief.

  She’s still alive.

  There’s a gun pressed to her head, but for the time being, she’s alive.

  The confirmation is enough to make me smile. For a second.

  Then, I see Rurik standing next to her, and my face twists into rage. Disbelief. Vengeance.

  I knew I’d been betrayed when I showed up at the plant, as Akio and his men infiltrated in less obvious ways around the rest of the property, but I didn’t know by whom.

  Looking back, I should have expected Rurik. After the way he spoke to me in my office that day, I should have known something in our relationship had fractured.

  But after Sevastian’s betrayal by speaking with the FBI, I didn’t want to believe that another one of my most trusted men could betray me. My own selfish denial might cost Courtney and our child their lives.

  If it does, I’ll never forgive myself.

  Rurik’s face is bloody and gouged, and I can see blood on Courtney’s face. On her fingernails.

  She attacked him. In spite of everything, I have to suppress a grin.

  “Put down the gun,” I say calmly, raising my own, aiming it at Rurik’s chest.

  He barks out a laugh. “I could say the same to you.”

  I hear footsteps behind me, and I know they’re my allies. Akio’s men took out the guards at the other entrances and then attacked Rurik’s men from behind while they were focused on me. Rurik didn’t see it coming.

  I watched him run from the fight, and I knew wherever he was going, Courtney would be there waiting.

  And here she is.

  Here we are.

  Rurik’s men, Italians and some of my own men mixed together, stagger in from the wings. Akio’s soldiers gather behind me.

  We’re two forces advancing on the battlefield, and I want to know who is going to take the first shot.

  “Why?” I ask, partially to delay him and partially because I want to know.

  “Because you’re weak.” The words are vile, spit at me with hatred and bitterness and years of resentment I’d never noticed. How did I miss something so obvious? “Your grandfather and father built this Bratva, and your cowardice is destroying it.”

  “How?” I ask. “Nothing has changed with our territory or inventory. We have allies, and we deal with our enemies.”

  “Nothing has changed?” Rurik says, shaking his head. “That’s partially the problem. You aren’t asserting our leadership, our dominance. You allow our enemies to attack us, to kill us. What kind of leader doesn’t act?”

  “The kind who doesn’t want to start a war,” I snap. “My father was constantly fighting and scraping. I didn’t want things to be that way. I want peace.”

  Rurik tightens his arm around Courtney, but I can’t look at her. If I look at her face—see the fear in her eyes—I’ll pull the trigger. I’ll kill Rurik on the spot, but it might not be enough to stop him from killing her too.

  So, I keep my eyes on his face even as his expression morphs into blind fury.

  “Your father told me he viewed me as a son,” Rurik says. “Did you know that? Your father viewed me as a son, more so than you or your brother. And yet, I’m stuck as your lieutenant.”

  “My most trusted lieutenant—”

  Rurik shakes his head, the hand with the gun waving around dangerously. I stop talking to keep him from accidentally pulling the trigger. “No, that was Sevastian. Remember him? The man you trusted most turned you in to the FBI. That should have taught you how poor your judgment is, but you refused to learn from your lesson. The moment Sevastian was gone, you brought this woman into your house.”

  Rurik turns away from me for a moment to look at Courtney, genuine hatred burning in his eyes. I push my rage into the back corner of my mind. I’ll open it later. Not now.

  Not yet.

  “She brought nothing but trouble for you,” he says. “It was so easy to take Tati from right under her nose and to convince her friend to spy for us.”

  My jaw clicks at the realization that Rurik was behind Tati’s near-kidnapping.

  “I tried to show you again and again that she couldn’t be trusted, but you still welcomed her into your bed. Now, she’s pregnant with a baby neither of you is ever going to meet.” Rurik takes a deep breath and then turns to me, face red, screaming: “DO YOU SEE WHAT YOUR LACK OF LEADERSHIP HAS DONE?”

  The room feels deathly quiet as the echoes of his yell fade.

  Rurik clears his throat. “Then, you had me beaten for questioning her. After everything this bitch has done,” he says, shaking Courtney. “You had me beaten for being disloyal. That’s when I officially cut ties with you.”

  He laughs but it’s a distant, disconnected sound. “Though, I suppose I actually cut ties with you when I killed your brother.”

  The world stops turning.

  My heart stops beating.

  Everything freezes and I take in Rurik. The amusement in his eyes. The joy he finds in my shock.

  Rurik killed my brother.

  “And his wife,” he continues, smirking. “I nearly got
the daughter, too, but children are resilient. She recovered.”

  “They were run off the road,” I say, not truly believing it yet.

  Rurik raises a hand and then points down at himself. “By me. Remember the mysterious car? Guess who … Your brother found out that I’d been asking around to see who was loyal to you. He planned to tell you, and I couldn’t take the chance that that would be the one time you’d actually act on that kind of information. I couldn’t risk you making an example of me and having me executed. So, I executed him before he could do the same to me.”

  Blood is pounding in my ears.

  I don’t want to shoot Rurik anymore; I want to rip his head off with my bare hands. I want to squeeze his neck until he turns blue. I want to feel the life drain out of him.

  A gun is too impersonal.

  “Fight me,” I say, narrowing my eyes, breathing through my nose.

  Rurik’s brow raises. “Excuse me?”

  “Fight me,” I repeat more slowly. “Put down your gun, tell your men to stand down, and fight me.”

  Rurik rolls his eyes.

  “Unless you’re a coward.”

  Something in his expression crystallizes at that, and I know I have him. Rurik cares about appearances. He doesn’t want to look weak in front of his men.

  So, with one move, he shoves Courtney aside.

  She drops to her knees and it takes everything inside of me not to rush over and help her up.

  “Whoever wins takes everything,” Rurik says.

  I nod. “Do you want it in writing?”

  “Not necessary,” he says. “When it’s all over, there will be no one left to dispute.”

  He’s right. We’ll fight to the death. At the end of this, only one of us will remain.

  The circle of people surrounding us spreads out as Rurik and I move to the center of the large room.

  Slowly, I divest myself of my weapons, revealing each gun, knife, and hidden blade before setting it on the ground and sliding it back towards Akio.

  Rurik does the same.

  I watch him carefully and count our weapons.

  I know he has more.

  “Is that all?” I ask.

  He holds up his hands. “I’m clean.”

  This isn’t a wrestling match. There is no bell, no cheering fans in the stands, no ring girls.

  Just Rurik and myself, pacing in half circles across the concrete floor, growing steadily closer to one another with each pass.

  He takes the first swing.

  Just a lazy swipe of his arm across the air. I reach out and grab his wrist, jerking him forward slightly.

  As he falls, I draw my knee up.

  He dodges, and my knee misses his chin by millimeters.

  Adrenaline pulses through me, blurring the edges of my vision as though I’m high. Rurik is crystal clear, though.

  I lunge forward with a right hook, and he dodges. This happens again and again until I finally lunge forward and then swing my weight, kicking out at him with my back leg.

  My boot connects with his thigh, and he winces. I take the opportunity to shuffle forward again and land a one-two hit to his cheek and his jaw.

  Faster than I think should be possible, Rurik returns the blows with a left knee that lands dangerously close to the center of my legs and a right kick to the leg. My knee buckles, and Rurik brings down a fist to the top of my head.

  I roll away from him over my shoulder and rise to my feet, blinking to clear my starry vision.

  The fighting goes on like that until my arms feel heavy and sweat drips in my brow.

  Rurik and I trained together. We learned to fight together.

  We’ve been in many similar sparring matches over the years, except those were for practice.

  If we knew then what we know now, we never would have trained together.

  Rurik knows all of my moves. And I know his.

  I know that he isn’t afraid to play dirty. He isn’t afraid to break the rules to get what he wants. Which is why I keep a close eye on him as we move, waiting for him to pull a dirty trick from up his sleeve.

  Courtney stands in an open space between Akio’s men and Rurik’s men. I can feel nerves rolling off her like a physical heat, but I try to push them aside.

  If I can focus now, then this will all be over.

  My mind is half on Courtney when Rurik suddenly lunges forward and kicks my legs out from under my feet.

  I’m on the floor before I realize it, and Rurik jumps over me.

  His fist comes down again and again and all I can do is lift my arms to guard my face.

  Rurik’s punches become more and more brutal, and when he rears back to get even more power, I thrust my hips up, knocking him off balance.

  He tumbles to his left, landing on his shoulder, and that’s when I see the knife.

  It slips from his hiding place inside his shirtsleeve and clatters across the floor a foot or so away. Right next to his hand.

  Rurik’s eyes widen in surprise, but he wastes no time lunging for the blade.

  I scramble to my knees and try to push myself to my feet, but Rurik’s right elbow collides with my jaw before I can, and I fall to the side.

  Up until this moment, the fight has been in anyone’s favor. The odds have shifted back and forth with every volley of blows.

  Now, however, I know I will lose.

  I’m off-balance, falling onto my back on the floor, and Rurik has a knife.

  He will carve me up like a Jack-o-lantern before I can even regain my balance.

  In the haze of the moment, I turn to look at Courtney one last time. To express in the half second I have left that I love her. That I’m sorry. That I should have trusted her.

  Except, when I look over, she isn’t there.

  Just then, Rurik’s body blocks my vision.

  His knee lands in my stomach, and I groan, and there’s nothing I can do.

  I see the knife flash in the bright overhead lights, and I wait for the impact.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a leg comes shooting in from my right.

  It’s Courtney. She’s screaming a string of curses I’m too overwhelmed to understand, but her foot connects with Rurik’s hand and the knife goes flying.

  It clatters across the floor, and Rurik and I both dive for it. I grab his shirt, dragging him back across the concrete floor, and crawl over him, more determined than ever to end this.

  When my hand closes around the hilt, I grip it until my knuckles are white, until I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to open my hand again.

  Then, I roll onto my back.

  Rurik is over me in an instant, but I don’t give him even a second to understand how severely the scales have been tipped.

  If he can play dirty, so can I.

  I slash my hand up and over and blood sprays out like rain. Rurik tries to scream, but instead, he coughs up more blood.

  28

  Courtney

  Cutting someone’s neck is harder than I would have imagined.

  Dmitry slices the knife across Rurik’s neck, and he’s clearly mortally injured, but it takes several more wrenches of the blade before Rurik finally stops trying to crawl away, before he finally lies still.

  As soon as it’s over, I expect Dmitry to order everyone around, to claim his position as their leader.

  Instead, he turns towards the men who sided with Rurik and watches them carefully.

  I don’t understand. Dmitry won. He killed Rurik. So why the hesitation?

  I’ve stayed away from him long enough and suddenly, I can’t bear it another second. I step around the blood and wrap an arm around Dmitry.

  His face is bruised and swollen. He’s sweaty and breathing heavily and covered in blood.

  But he’s Dmitry.

  My Dmitry.

  He tucks an arm around my back and continues looking towards Rurik’s men.

  “Well?” he asks with a shrug. “Does it count?”

  Does it count? Of course it
counts. It has to count. Right?

  “Oh,” I say, realizing the problem. I helped him. For a moment, I’m embarrassed and maybe even ashamed, but as the absurdity of the situation washes over me, I’m furious. “Oh.”

  Everyone is watching me, and I can’t believe there is any question about the legitimacy of who won that fight. I can’t believe anyone would stand here and defend Rurik after what he did.

  “You have to be fucking kidding me,” I say, pushing away from Dmitry to stand in front of him, arms crossed over my chest. I point down to where Rurik is still bleeding out on the floor. “This piece of shit tried to cheat to win, and you want to debate whether it was fine for me to step in or not? You’re all pathetic.”

  “Courtney,” Dmitry says quietly. He reaches for my arm, but I give him my hand instead. I turn to him, eyes misty because he’s alive. We’re both alive. Somehow.

  “I’m going to be this man’s wife.” I don’t know where the words come from, but I know they’re true and loud and undeniable. Dmitry blinks, stunned, and then his swollen mouth quirks into a slight smile. With what I know is his blessing, I turn back to Rurik’s men. “I’m going to be the—the First Lady of the Tsezar Bratva—”

  “Queen,” Dmitry whispers, squeezing my fingers. “You’ll be queen.”

  I like the sound of that. “I’m going to be the queen of the Tsezar Bratva, and unless you want both mine and my husband’s wrath, I suggest you choose the correct leader to follow. And since your original one is dead, there is really only one choice.”

  Someone in the crowd mumbles something about the threat of my wrath, and I can’t see who the scoffer is, but I point to Rurik again. “Two guards had to pull me off Rurik to keep me from ripping his face off, and my feet were tied to a chair. So perhaps you don’t want to see my wrath.”

  Immediately, the room goes quiet, and I feel Dmitry standing close behind me. His warmth leaks into my skin, and I realize all at once how much I missed him.

  How much I missed his body pressed against mine.

  I lean back against his chest, my head resting on his shoulder, and he wraps his arm around me, laying his hand over my belly.