I might be able to keep my cool surprisingly well in a fight, but I can’t move like he does or do the things he does with such precision and expertise.
Not yet, a voice in my head says, and that puts a chill down my spine.
Is that where my life is going? Training to become a killer with Mikhail?
I push aside those thoughts. They’re trivial. It’s too soon to relax. That much is abundantly clear as I watch a man walk out of the bushes, gun blazing. I line up a shot, but Mikhail takes him down first. He’s so damn good.
But as he and his friend Petyr settle down again, I keep an eye out. And then I see it.
We’re not done.
“Mikhail!” I cry out, but even he can’t be quick enough to save his own ass this time. The angle is all wrong, the gunman is too close.
I’m all there is between my lover and death.
I hold my breath and fire.
BANG!
I step forward and as my feet touch the ground again…
BANG!
One more step forward and… BANG!
I keep pulling the trigger as the man topples over. He’s a bullet-riddled mess as he hits the ground. And I’m still pulling the trigger, even as my clip empties.
He’s dead.
Mikhail pounces up, puts his arms around me and pulls me behind cover of the car in case any more are out there.
“You did it,” he says to me in a husky breath, so full of pride. “You saved all our asses.”
“You owe me a cheesecake later,” I quip, looking between the two of them. “For now, I don’t really wanna hang around here.”
I’m out of breath, but Mikhail’s strong arms comfort me, soothe away the agitation in my shoulders. It was a rush to save them, to do what I had to, and my entire body feels like this intense tingly sensation. It doesn’t feel right.
It kinda feels like I’m horny, which definitely isn’t appropriate right now. Is that what they talk about when they say your adrenaline spikes during a fight?
“You have to go end Gregor, Mikhail,” Petyr says as he finishes binding up his wound, and Mikhail checks his own leg, finding little more than a superficial graze.
We hear a groan from nearby, and Mikhail and I are immediately on alert. But it quickly becomes clear that it’s the sound of a dying man.
Approaching the spot with care, Mikhail finds him, and I realize, judging by the spot he was in, it had to be the guy I shot at the very beginning. I did it.
He’s nursing a wound in his gut, his blood looking like black oil over his hands, not at all what I’d expect. I find myself grossly fascinated, which is a far cry from who I was—who I thought I was—just a couple weeks ago.
“Tell me what you know,” Mikhail says darkly. But the wounded man just pants. Mikhail bends down and stabs that knife of his into the man’s hand, making him cry out.
“H-he has a girl! Held captive! In case you get away!” He says, his agony palpable.
“What girl?” Mikhail asks as Petyr moves off to check around the area.
“Some bitch who works at the bar,” he says, and Mikhail makes him hurt again for that crass language.
“Nikki,” Mikhail says. “Her name is Nikki.”
“S-sorry! He says if you turn over the girl and this friend of yours out here dies, all is forgiven, and you get her—Nikki—back.”
“Final question. Where are Gregor and Nikki now?” Mikhail asks. “Answer well, and your suffering will end.”
“An expensive hotel… in the city. Says you’d never dare show there,” and Mikhail just ends the man’s life without a word more, sinking his knife into the man’s heart before my eyes.
“What—why?” I ask, shocked.
“He was a goner and he knew it. It is less painful this way, at least. And I know where Gregor is,” Mikhail says, wiping off his knife on the man’s clothes before standing up.
Petyr returns just in time, and the two men exchange knowing nods.
There are still intricacies I don’t understand. I might have killed someone in self-defense, but I’m not like these two. They were born into blood and violence and mayhem, and I was only recently adopted into it.
But I’m not afraid anymore. And if Nikki is a friend of Mikhail’s, and she’s been put at risk because of me, then there’s no way I’m going to back down. No innocent is going to die on my behalf.
“What do we do?”
“Gregor has to die,” Mikhail says, and Petyr nods to his words.
“The sooner the better. Otherwise we have a full blown civil war within the Bratva. And nobody will be getting out cleanly,” Petyr says, and Mikhail nods in agreement. “I will take your girl with me, keep her safe while you do the job,” he says, deciding things as clear as that. But there’s no way I’m going to be pushed aside again!
“No,” Mikhail says even before I can speak up. “Leave her to me,” he says, and the two men exchange a look before shaking hands. “Dos vedanya old friend, I will see this through.”
“And when it’s done, I’ll see to it you’re where you belong,” Petyr says before the two of them part, and it’s just us again.
I look up at Mikhail, relief and apprehension mixing in my gut. This is real. We’re making it real. Part of me knows that I have a choice, and that I could simply run away and let him handle it. Even if I left, I know Mikhail would never let Nikki or me get hurt.
But another part of me feels like I’m riding a water slide, unable to stop or slow down, and even though I’m frightened, there’s no turning back.
“We’re going back to where this all began, kotika,” Mikhail says to me.
* * *
“How did you know he meant this hotel?” I ask, feeling a strange sensation as I sit outside the hotel where my whole life changed.
“Gregor knows I never set foot back at the scene of a hit. Especially not one as big as this with an ongoing investigation. He thinks he’s safe from me here, because the increased security will make it impossible for me to get in without being detected and recognized,” he explains, and that all makes too much sense.
It’s past midnight, time crawling by as we race back to the city, and I’m still wearing my messy mix of his clothes and mine.
“So how are we going to do this?” I ask.
* * *
Walking into the hotel, I feel an uncanny sense of deja vu. Even though I wasn’t really fully conscious the entire time I was here before, I know it. And I have a queasy feeling in my stomach.
What happened here—and especially what almost happened here—turns my stomach.
I’m holding a coat over one arm and wearing a dress that fits not quite perfectly, but near about. My hair is done back in an emergency ponytail. Where Mikhail got the dress in such short notice, I didn’t ask, but I put it on.
So here I am, dismissing the approaching concierge as I make my way to the elevator with my best attempt to appear like yet another lady arriving late. I know what they must think, I’m either some young kept girl coming back after a late night or a sex worker heading up to a client. But that’s kind of the point: to be dismissively ignored as a part of the usual guests.
Each floor up is agony, and I feel my heart beating like loud drums, foretelling a coming doom.
Once I arrive at the floor Mikhail told me about, the very same one he plucked me from that bloody night, I see at the end of the hall two men in dark suits clearly standing guard. Another one is pacing the hall. And all three see me immediately.
I push down my fear, though, and I walk ahead.
Stick to the plan, my inner voice tells me. So I stick to the plan.
The three men all stare at me, not sure what to make of my approach at first. But then one of them mutters into a microphone pinned to his jacket and two doors open alongside me. More men pour out around me, and one immediately blocks off my way back.
Why did I propose this? Why did I insist?! This is madness! A voice in my head screams, but it’s too late to b
ack out.
I stop in front of the two guards at the big, double-door.
“I have a message for Gregorovich.” My voice sounds surprisingly calm, in control. My mind is chaos, but I don’t betray my inner fears. “It’s important,” I say when they hesitate.
But their eyes dart away, and it’s just as Mikhail said. They’re being watched too. For all the security this place brings them, the cameras prevent them from gunning me down or forcing me into anything then and there. It’s a double-edged sword, as he said. Hems both them and me in.
One of the men takes hold of my arm, and though he tries to make it look harmless, his grip is tight. I immediately struggle, make a big show of it for the cameras as Mikhail instructed.
“He has to meet me out here,” I say as the guard relents. “I want to talk in the hall about an exchange. Just him and I.”
“Nyet,” says one of the men immediately. “The boss will not see anyone privately.”
“Very well,” I say, licking my lips as if thinking about it. But Mikhail told me they’d say this. Thankfully, they’re predictable, and my boyfriend knows them better than anyone else. “One of you can remain. But has to stay at the end of the hall. For my safety.”
“Nyet,” he says again, but then he pauses, seeming to listen to something coming from his earpiece. “Da. Da,” he says then instructs the other men with simple hand gestures, and they all begin to walk away, returning to side rooms until there’s just the one head guard and me. “I must frisk you first,” he says.
I walk a few paces away to the most open area of the hall, there I hold out my arms, put my feet apart a bit as the man moves in, patting his big, grubby hands over me. Every second is torture and reminds me of what Mikhail really saved me from, but I don’t even quiver.
How am I handling this so well? Even as he cops a feel of my ass, just to show to me he can get away with it or put me on edge, I don’t sway. He’s going to get his, and soon.
The whole time, my heart is beating faster than it ever had before. No marathon can tax that muscle as hard as it is now. But I never show it. I kept my cool, my face stony and calm.
The thug who frisked me merely rises up and backs away without a word, opening the double-doors for his boss. Gregorovich.
The man who wanted me—wants me—tortured and killed. The man who made it so that I have nightmares of blood.
The man who gave me Mikhail.
It’s a twisted emotion, to loathe someone and yet be grateful for how all their horribleness opened me up to so many amazing things.
Yet this is my first time ever seeing him, and he’s not at all what I expect. He might even be handsome and charming, if he weren’t grinning at me deviously, the mastermind of all my pain and fears.
And he didn’t come with Nikki.
“Very brave of you to come all this way alone,” he says to me in his Russian accent. “Or is your little boyfriend around here somewhere?” he asks, making an act of looking around, as if Mikhail were some imp hiding behind one of the fancy tables lining the hall.
“I’m not going to let an innocent woman take my place, no matter what Mikhail wants,” I say firmly and with conviction. It surprises Gregorovich a little, but not much. He’s leering again in no time in that ivory colored suit of his, one hand in his pocket. No doubt grasping a gun.
“How noble. But I don’t think that dyke is as innocent as you believe,” he says, and I take back everything I said about him. He’s a creepy, greasy piece of shit, and no one could ever find him attractive after more than a few moments with him. “You don’t hang around bad men for that long without being a little bad yourself, hm?”
I want to hit him, then and there.
“If you let her walk on out of here now, I’ll come with you inside. That’s a fair offer. And a no-brainer,” I say firmly, sticking my chin up as I stand there in my blue dress. “I’m the one you want, after all.”
He stares at me a while, and I can almost see the nasty thoughts playing out in his head being broadcast through his eyes like projectors at a theater. It’s enough to make me feel like I need a long, scalding shower.
“I could just have you both right now, what would stop me?” he says.
“Why would you want to bother?” I counter. “This is much easier. Fewer chances of being caught,” I say, gesturing to a camera in the corner.
That really gets him, because he grins so wide it almost looks genuine. Mikhail says that’s how you know this creep is on the ropes. When he really pours on the deceit.
“Very well,” he says, then speaks into his own communicator. “Bring her out.”
We wait a moment, staring at one another. But when she doesn’t immediately appear, he grows quickly anxious and turns to the door, cursing into his mic. “What’s the hold up? Is that dyke struggling again?”
“That word is fucking gross…” I hiss under my breath, unable to contain my annoyance at him for a second. Which was dumb of me, I know—it drew attention back to me when I least needed it.
When I was pulling the sharp blade from my hair, used like a hair stick pin.
He turns to mock me just as the lights go out all around us, and I plunge the pointed tip at him.
I’m blind, he’s blind, everything is impenetrable blackness but for the lights of the city outside through the windows at the end of the hall. But I know I hit him, I could feel the dagger plunge in.
“Piz’da!” he cries out, and he lashes out at me. I take a blow to the side of my head that knocks me aside, but it’s nothing serious. I stumble in the dark and my eyes focus enough to make out his silhouette. And most noticeably, the dagger stuck through the palm of his one hand.
My disgust with his name-calling had given him time to raise his hand in defense. But I’m not sure that this was a better result for him than my original target anyhow.
The door to Gregor’s room opens, and in the inky blackness, the man I just stabbed raises his gun and fires into the nothingness wildly. The second pointed dagger in my hair had fallen to the floor when I pulled out the first, but keeping my cool, I use Gregor’s distraction to fumble on the carpet for it.
It’s easier said than done, and just as I find it, he turns his attention back to me.
“Piz’da!” he says again, but from out of the darkness looms Mikhail’s wraith-like shadow once more. And he puts a bullet through Gregor’s unwounded hand, making him cry out as his gun clatters to the floor. He screams in pain.
It’s my moment. That shot of Mikhail’s wasn’t a miss, he was giving me my opportunity. And I intend to use it.
Grasping the thin stiletto dagger in my hand, I jerk it up at him, stabbing it into his inner thigh. Then again I thrust it, this time piercing his groin. Then again. And again. Until the larger man falls over, and I climb atop him.
From that vantage point I can see the glint of fear in his eyes, as the city lights cast inwards, and I know we have the floor to ourselves. Mikhail never fails, and the way he confidently stands behind me indicates he did his job well and used all the time I bought him to eliminate Gregor’s goons.
“Take your life back,” Mikhail says to me in his deep husk. “It’s your choice how.” And he rests his hand upon my shoulder reassuringly.
We talked about it briefly when planning this.
I’ve shot men before, twice now. Even killed one myself. But that was self-defense. Strict and simple. A life to save a life in the moment. Stabbing a wounded man to death as my lover steps on his arm and pins him down, however…
That’s a choice. A dark choice.
A choice about what type of woman I want to be, or could be.
I’ve maimed him, and I’ve made him suffer for what he’s done to me and Mikhail and Eva and Nikki, for all the collateral damage that he’s accumulated in what Mikhail told me was an unsanctioned power play.
None of this should have happened, and none of it would have happened, if not for Gregorovich, this disgusting creep beneath me.
He must sense me wavering, because his hand squeezes my shoulder in a reassuring manner. “It’s okay.”
He helps me up, and Gregor lays there, looking confused.
“Now wh–” he starts to say, but the sound of Mikhail’s gun firing a muffled shot through its silencer ends him before he can finish his question.
Gregor can’t live. Too many people would suffer and die if he did. But Mikhail will shoulder that burden for me.
“Let’s go,” he says, picking my coat up off the floor and draping it around my blood spattered dress as Nikki emerges from the room, looking skittish and scared.
“It’s all over now,” I assure her.
Alicia
Three Years Later
It’s the anniversary of the night that Mikhail and I met, three years ago now. We never really celebrate it, it’d feel crass to do so, but we always take note of it and do something a little special. I’m not sure what Mikhail has in mind for me this year, though. He’s been so busy after taking over for Gregorovich as Avtoritet. But then, I’ve been busy too.
Leon bops in my lap, our oldest son, named after Mikhail’s brother. Already two and growing like a weed. Having two kids makes it a bit hard to concentrate on managing all of Mikhail’s financial records, but I like being involved in his business. And out of danger. Besides, he says I’m the one person he can trust.
I glance out over at Central Park, spread out before me from our beautiful condo. It’s a place bigger than I ever could have dreamed I’d live in, but with the two kids, plus mom and Hernando, it’s just perfect. Plenty of privacy and space, and the best location, right in the center of everything. It’s a commute for Mikhail, of course, but he wanted to keep his growing family somewhere safe. And in New York, safe means ritzy.
“Mommy, walk,” Leon says, squirming down from my lap and rushing to Eva’s playpen. He’s a bright kid, and I blame that on his dad. Mikhail has been reading to him every night since before he was even born, I guess trying to be the father he never had. Regardless of his reasons, I couldn’t be more proud of our little family.
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