Page 64 of The Pakhan’s Heir

I pull my gun without thinking and open fire, shooting him in his head… then again twice in the chest.

I’m standing here with a smoking gun in my hand, looking down at this son of a bitch…

“Alex?” I hear behind me. “You good?”

“No.” I don’t know how to reconcile these feelings. Being a father is something I never expected to happen. Not now at this point in my life. I always thought it had passed me by.

But now that it’s here… I understand. A cold dread fills my bones.

Rikki, Me, and Yeva are secondary targets. Nona is in real danger.

I holster my gun and I yank at Rikki’s sleeve as I pass him by. “We gotta move. Now.” As soon as we’re outside, my phone chirps. It’s Kostya.

I need you at Grand Central Station, ASAP. It’s about Nona.

23

NONA

Yeva finally went to bed after the next episode of her reality show. As I watched her stumble back to her room, all I could think was that I won’t be her. All the worst things come to mind when I think of this situation and my future with this baby.

I don’t know what kind of life I’m going to have outside of this world, but in the end, this is the best route for me. I keep thinking about how I grew up and how Yeva must have grown up and… and…

This baby deserves a better shot than this. That’s all I know.

I’ve been packing my bags since then, trying to consolidate down to one suitcase so it doesn’t look too conspicuous when I leave. I step back and look at the half-full suitcase on the bed. Oh, who am I kidding?

I might as well walk out in broad daylight with my head held high. I hear a soft knock at the door and I turn. Kostya’s standing there. He looks past me to the suitcase, then back at me.

“Hey,” he says. “What’s going on, Nona?”

I sigh. I don’t have it in me to explain it all. All I can say is, “I think it’s best if I leave. Now instead of later.”

“Why on earth would you think that would be best?”

“Lots of reasons,” I say, closing my suitcase. “Lots of big, big reasons.” I pull it off the bed and onto the floor and I turn to him. “I’m headed to the train station. You can try to stop me, but I’ll just sneak out later.”

He takes a step into the room and says in a very measured tone, “There are people looking to kill members of this family. You can’t go out there alone.”

I stiffen. “I know. But I have to go. So, step aside, please.”

He seems to be analyzing the situation. His eyes dart to my suitcase and back to me. Then he says, “Let me come with you.”

“No.”

“You’re going to need protection,” he says. “And someone to drive you. You’ll never make it dragging that suitcase around on the subway. Come on.”

I sigh and say, “Okay.” I don’t really have it in me to fight him too hard. I mean, he’s got a point. If someone’s accompanying me, then at least I’ll have a chance out there.

“But take me to the train station,” I say to him. “I’m serious. No funny business.”

He puts his hands up in surrender. “You have my word.”

Never let it be said that Kostya’s not a man of his word. The only resistance he put up was suggesting Grand Central instead of Penn. And I didn’t argue too hard. I guess it doesn’t make too much difference to me which station we go to, as long as we take the train that gets me to the subway that will get me closest to the airport and…

I don’t know. I suppose I’ll decide where I’m going when I get there. I’ve got money—Alex’s money, but it’s still money. Hope he doesn’t get pissed at me for using some of it.

The station itself is a kinetic nightmare. People coming and going in droves everywhere around us, moving like molecules in a heated up dish. I know that this station has some kind of history in New York. I seem to recall learning about it in school, but now that I’m here, I realize that of all the places I have been, I’ve actually never set foot in this station.