by Tara Wylde
I scream at a group of people gyrating on the dance floor as he hauls me past them. “He’s going to rape me!” They flash me glassy-eyed grins and toast me with their plastic cups full of booze, never losing step with the thumping beat of the music filling every square inch of the club.
He yanks me through a lineup at the bar and grabs a bottle of vodka, draining a third of it in one swig as he marches. Finally, he tosses me through a side door into the empty street.
“This is my car,” he says, waving at a big black SUV. “Get in.”
“Fuck you.”
He rolls his eyes. “I don’t have time – ”
The edge of my right palm collides with his Adam’s apple and cuts his reply short. He drops to his knees on the asphalt, gagging and clutching his throat.
For my part, I’m doubled over, trying to catch my breath, but still mighty proud of myself.
“I just needed some room to move,” I puff, positioning myself in front of him.
Next I take my hands off my thighs, clasp my fingers around the back of Arkady’s head and pull downward. At the same time, I bring my right knee up squarely into his nose. The wet cracking noise gives me goosebumps.
“Aagghhk,” he grunts, his eyes still wild.
As I look down at him, an odd calm comes over me. He’s incapable of defending himself now. After just two moves, I’ve got the upper hand and he’s helpless. Just like how I felt at the party in Long Beach. And on the cliffs with Darya. And in the storeroom upstairs.
And now I have the chance to do to him everything he’s done to me. And worse, if I want. I scan the area – there’s not another human being out here for blocks.
“How’s that blood taste going down your throat?” I ask casually, circling him. “Cakes a bit, doesn’t it?”
Arkaday snuffles out a clot of blood onto the pavement. I grimace and look away.
“That’s disgusting,” I say, picking him up off his knees by the collar. “Your mother must be proud.”
“Shu fuh up about muh mutha…”
I open the driver’s side door of his SUV and push him back down to his knees. He leans forward and props his hand on the running board to steady himself.
Meanwhile, I close the heavy door on the side of his head with a satisfying thump. When I open it again, he’s swaying.
“Would have thought your head was harder than that,” I sneer. “Guess we’ll see what a second one does to you. I have a feeling it’s going to crack like an egg.”
“Storm.”
I stop in mid-swing as I hear Nick’s voice. I turn to see him stumbling towards me, blood dripping from his chest and side.
“Nick!” I cry, running to him. “Thank God! Are you okay? What happened?”
“Darya and one of the others is dead,” he says. “The other isn’t a threat.”
I try to inspect his wounds, but there’s not enough light out here. Meanwhile, Nick looks at Arkady, kneeling against the side of the SUV.
“Nice work,” he says. “Come on. We have to go.”
“Go?” I ask, incredulous. “I’ve got him where I want him.”
Nick’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”
“One more slam of this door and it’ll all be over,” I say, standing over Arkady now. “He can never hurt us again.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t want to do that, Storm.”
I blink at him. “You were the one who told me, if someone attacks me, I need to stop him, no matter the consequences.”
“I was wrong,” he says, his eyes boring into mine. “This is wrong. This is murder. You’re not that person. I know you.”
“He made me that person!” I bellow. “He deserves worse than this!”
“But you don’t.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Nick?”
“You don’t deserve what will happen to you if you kill him,” he says. “What it will do to you, to your soul. Believe me. It eats at you. No matter how justified it is, it will always eat at you.”
I goggle at him. The man who taught me to kill is telling me not to.
“I need you to trust me on this,” he says. “We can still walk away.”
I look down at Arkady, see the blood pooling around his head. Think of his wild eyes, the cocaine flying up his nose, the insane ramblings. It would be so easy to just…
But Nick is right. Better to leave him like this.
“You owe Nick your life,” I say, toeing Arkady’s head with my shoe. “He convinced me to let you live.”
I crouch down beside him so that my words are for him alone. This is between the two of us.
“You’ll always have to live with the knowledge that you were beaten by a woman,” I whisper. “The woman you terrorized. Brutalized. That woman almost killed you, but decided in the end to let you live with it.”
I straighten up. “Have a nice life, Arkady,” I say as I turn to walk away.
Nick was right. The freedom I feel is incredible. Arkady can never have power over me again.
“Storm – ” Nick says, but before he can finish his thought, I feel the forearm around my neck and the cold steel of the gun barrel at my temple.
“Shoo of ooked inna cah, bish,” he mumbles. “See muh gun.”
My heart races as time seems to slow around me. I hear the gun cock, feel Arkady’s hot breath on my cheek, smell the coppery stench of his blood in my nostrils. My mind swirls as I try to think of a way out.
Then the deafening crack.
And the feel of Arkady’s forearm giving way around my throat. I open my eyes to see him sliding to the pavement, a red hole where his right eye was. In front of me, I see Nick, the barrel of the Ruger pointed in my direction, a wisp of smoke escaping.
Time catches up and I stagger forward, crashing into him. My body is wracked with tremors, forcing him to hold me up, even with his own injuries.
“He can’t hurt you anymore,” he whispers in my ear.
I try to get my breathing under control, but Nick grabs my hand and starts pulling me along with him.
“It’s not over yet,” he says as we jog.
“What do you mean? We’re going to run away.”
“I killed Arkady,” he says. “We don’t have that option anymore. They’ll hunt us.”
“I don’t understand,” I pant as we reach the alley behind the building. Nick pulls his motorcycle from behind the Dumpster and hands me his helmet.
“We have to go home,” he says. “And prepare for war.”
Chapter Forty-Two
42. INTERLUDE: JOSEF
Josef’s heart leaps as his phone finally rings. He’s been waiting for this for hours.
“Arkady?” he breathes. “Is that you, son?”
“Sorry, boss,” Mookie says on the other end of the line. “It’s – it’s not him. It’s me. I’m so sorry.”
Josef’s heart drops. Even though he knew, deep in his heart, that this was how it would end, he still feels like he’s been punched in the gut. How is he going to tell Pamela that her only son is dead? Killed by the family friend she had lunch with not a week ago?
The whole family will react. Some will demand Nick’s blood. Some will want Josef’s blood. But the common denominator will always be blood.
“It’s not your fault, Mook,” he says, sniffing away tears. “He brought it on himself.”
“So what do we do now?”
Josef runs a hand down his haggard face.
“We go to war,” he sighs.
Chapter Forty-Three
43. NICK
The ride home on the Mission is long and silent by necessity. I don’t know what’s going through Storm’s head, but I can hazard a pretty good guess.
We came close to getting away. Or did we? The more I think about it, the more I believe this was all a pipe dream. No matter how we played it, the story was going to end this way. People like Arkday can’t be reasoned with, won’t listen to logic. All they’ll ever listen to is their own desir
es. Like wild animals, they can’t help themselves. They are what they are.
I feel Storm’s arms tighten around me. It’s like heaven, despite the driving pain I feel everywhere. Between the fall and the fight, I’m in rough shape.
And the night isn’t over yet.
I kill the light on the bike before we pull into the driveway, on the remote chance that someone is here waiting for us. I doubt word could travel that fast, but it’s better to be safe.
Storm steps off the bike and takes off her helmet. Her blonde hair is matted to her head, and her make-up is a tragic mess, but she’s still the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.
“What happens now?” she asks, eyes wide.
“I better get myself fixed up,” I say. “Get some sugar in me, too. I’ve lost a lot of blood.”
We go inside and the dogs meet us in the foyer, whining. Delilah licks my hand as Storm helps me to one of the bathrooms and strips off my shirt.
“It’s not as bad as it could have been,” she says, inspecting my wounds. “I think we can hold the cuts together with tape.”
She washes me and dresses the new wounds, taking tender care not to cause me any more pain than necessary.
“It feels good,” I say.
“What does?”
“Having someone who loves you taking care of you.”
“Yeah,” she smiles. “I know.”
As Storm showers, I sneak away and sit down in the kitchen. Pull out my phone and hit the second of the two numbers in my contact list.
Josef picks up on the second ring. We’re both silent for a few seconds.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” I say. “He didn’t suffer.”
That last is a lie, and Josef either knows it already or will know it soon. But it doesn’t matter.
“I appreciate the call, Nick.”
We’re silent again. What else is there to say?
“I guess we have to wait for the inevitable,” he says.
“Yeah. What has to happen has to happen.”
“I’m sorry it had to end this way, Nikolai.”
“So am I.”
“See you on the other side?”
I smile. “First round is on me.”
We hang up. It’s the last time we’ll ever speak to each other.
I meet her in the bedroom after she’s toweled off. There’s a closed suitcase on the bed.
“We can’t dance around it anymore,” she says. “What happens next?”
“Josef and his men will come here for us.”
The look on her face tells me that her heart is breaking.
“Are we going to go out fighting?” she asks, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Will we at least go out together?”
I close the gap between us and place my palm against her warm cheek.
“We’re going out together,” I say. “But not the way you think.”
Chapter Forty-Four
44. INTERLUDE: JOSEF
It takes surprisingly little time for Josef to arrange an all-out assault on Nick’s place. A dozen phone calls is enough to summon a small army, all of them willing to lay down their lives for the family’s honor. To avenge their fallen comrade, Arkady, even though he’s almost positive none of them truly cared about his son.
The armories are raided for assault rifles, grenades, even a flame-thrower. There’s enough firepower lined up to overthrow a small banana republic. Granted, it is Nikolai Chernenko they’re going to war against.
Because of the firepower and the potential for a very public show, Josef hands out more than three hundred grand in bribes to cops, sheriffs, deputies – anyone who might start asking questions afterwards. He can’t get them all, obviously, but he can make sure that the ones he does have can offer a convincing story that will make the investigation go smoothly.
The truck is a military surplus personnel carrier with a canvas tarp. It approaches the Chernenko estate around 3 a.m. from the south via a private back road. They can still trace the tire tracks, but at least there won’t be any witnesses who saw them approach.
The driver builds up steam as he approaches the gate and tells everyone to brace for impact. They feel it when the truck’s grill hits the gate at ramming speed, but they regain their equilibrium soon enough. Once inside the compound, they leap out of the truck and form a line across the front of the big house.
Josef drops his hand like a general ordering a strike, and they let loose. Thousands of rounds of ammunition pummel the ancient stone exterior, shattering windows and ripping apart old, polished wood into expensive kindling.
Grenades are launched onto the second floor, where they tear apart bedrooms and bathrooms and libraries, blowing apart rare books and tapestries. Finally a lone grenade sails through the window of the music room and lands square in the centre of the old Hamlin piano, vaporizing it.
When it’s all done, Josef directs the men to aim the flame-throwers at the main floor and stand ready. Meanwhile, he has the driver, who happens to be Mookie’s nephew, take the truck around to the back of the house. He hoists a pair of heavy bags on his wide shoulders and shuffles into the kitchen with them.
Once there, he unzips the bags and removes the bodies inside. One is a large man with a crewcut. The other is a young woman with green hair. They’re far from exact matches, but for the level of investigation that will go into a mob hit, they should be good enough.
Once the man is back at the front of the house, Josef gives the order to torch the place. Orange flames light up the night sky for miles around, making more than a handful of neighbors to wake up and wonder if there’s a forest fire, and whether they should evacuate.
As the house burns its way down to a pile of ashes, Josef rounds up his men and sends them into the woods. The last order of business is to torch the truck, the last bit of evidence. He stays perhaps a little too long himself, watching the mansion go up in smoke and reminiscing about the old days that will never come again.
Chapter Forty-Five
45. NICK
From our vantage point on the shore, all we can see is the orange glow of the fire, but it’s enough to light up the sky almost as bright as a sunrise.
“I can’t believe this,” Storm breathes. Beside her the dogs whine and fidget, but they don’t give in to their instinct to run away.
“It was the only way,” I say. “To keep the peace, we had to die.”
Storm blinks at me, then looks back up at the glowing sky.
“You call that keeping the peace?”
I wrap an arm around her shoulders. “What’s the old line about breaking a few eggs to make an omelet?”
“But it was your home,” she says. “All those antiques. The Hamlin. So much of value going up in smoke.”
“There’s no value in things. There’s only value in people.” I lean down and give Samson and Delilah a pat. “And dogs, of course.”
We watch the fireworks for a few more minutes before we head to the boat. Storm insists on carrying the case that has our clothes and cash in it. She hoists it into the Trojan’s galley as I climb to the cockpit and take us out to sea.
We’re not going far; just to the coast to Narragansett, where I’ll scuttle her. No one will ever know Nikolai Chernenko and Jessica Armstong didn’t die in that house tonight.
Well, except for Josef, Mookie and his nephew.
From the deck of the Trojan, the fire at the mansion looks like a campfire that’s gotten out of control. As we stare at it disappearing into the distance, Storm snuggles into me against the chill coming off the Atlantic.
“How will you access your money?” she asks.
“I left it all to my cousin Andrei Grabinski in Siberia,” I say.
She frowns. “And you’re sure he’ll give it back to you?”
“I’m sure,” I say smugly.
“Yeah? And why is that?”
“Because I’m Andrei Grabinski. At least, that’s what the new passport I have made up is going to say.”
She stares at me, taking it all in. It’s been a long night, and it’s not over yet.
“New identities,” she says. “I can’t believe it. My whole life I’ve wished I was someone else. Now I can be.”
“So what name are you going to choose?” I ask.
She gives me a quizzical look. “Storm. Duh. But you’re going to have to get another passport made after you collect your money.”
“Why is that?”
“Because there’s no way in hell I’m going to be Mrs. Storm Grabinski.”
I chuckle. “Wait a minute,” I say. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“What you think what means?”
“You accept my proposal? I couldn’t be sure – I kind of got shot and fell off a cliff before you answered.”
Storm slides her arms under my jacket and closes them gingerly around my wounded torso.
“Yes,” she sighs. “Yes, yes, a million times yes.”
“I’m sorry about the ring,” I say. “It got lost in the fall.”
“You better be, mister. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all night long.”
I snort a laugh and she grins.
“Maybe it’s a good thing we’re getting new names,” she says. “We’re new people. I’m beating the shit out of bad guys, you’re laughing and making jokes.”
“It’s enough to make you believe in miracles,” I say.
It’s meant as a joke, but Storm turns serious and squeezes me tighter.
“It was a miracle that brought us together,” she whispers. “I believe that with all my heart.”
I kiss her forehead. “We met in a rainstorm, and we’ve been reborn in fire. There’s definitely something Old Testamenty about that.”
“Can I ask you something? A favor?”
“Anything.”
“This boat is where we met for the first time. Where you saved my life.”
I nod.
“And you’re going to sink it once we get to Rhode Island?”
“Yes.” The thought of it sparks just the tiniest twinge of regret.