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Finding nothing, Yasha and I go in.
“I feel like a recruit again,” he says, checking the gun at his hip. “I haven’t been out on a run like this in years.”
“We’re just here tonight to make sure things go smoothly. Once I trust the Sokolovs are going to uphold their end of the deal, we’ll pull back and let the rank-and-file handle the transfer.”
Yasha snorts. “You say that like you’ll ever actually let yourself trust those slimy fucks. I’m going to be handling the weapons trafficking until I’m dead. Or until the Sokolovs are dead. Whichever comes first.”
“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen tonight,” I mutter out of the side of my mouth. “I’d hate to get blood on this shirt.”
We step through the door to see Konstantin’s men waiting in front of pallets of boxed firearms. I approve everything, then they get to work. Half an hour later, the Sokolov soldiers are done repackaging the weapons shipments and have started taking their cut of the supplies.
“Look at this,” Yasha proclaims, his voice echoing off the metal walls. “Who would’ve thought we’d all be here like one big, happy family?”
There are a few too many suspicious glances being tossed around for me to feel like we’re a family. But this whole arrangement has gone a lot more smoothly than I thought it would.
No weapons have been fired and no one is dead. If the Sokolov gunrunners are pissed about the deal I made with their boss, they don’t show it. They toil in grim silence.
“Cats and dogs,” Yasha continues. “Oil and water. Yet here we are, working together. I’m inspired. Someone put me on the cabinet of foreign affairs. I think I’m ready to create world peace.”
Everyone has been letting Yasha ramble for a few minutes uninterrupted, but suddenly, a voice cuts through the nonsense. “You really love to hear yourself talk, don’t you?”
My gun is in my hand before I even turn around. Because I don’t need to see who it is. I already know.
I turn to face Mikhail Sokolov.
“I told your father to keep you far, far away from me.”
He’s standing in the doorway, flanked on either side by guards who don’t stand a chance in hell of saving him from me.
“My father is my don, but he isn’t my keeper. I can go where I like.” Mikhail walks slowly into the warehouse, arms extended like he’s a fucking circus ringmaster.
Yasha groans. “Well, so much for peace on earth.”
The Sokolov men have finished loading the weapons, but they’re all standing around watching their future leader question me. It’s not the end to the evening I imagined.
But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about where this might end.
Mikhail running his mouth and showing up where he doesn’t belong… If that isn’t a reason to put thismudakdown, then what is?
“If you or your boss were going to kill me, you would have done it already. You know what I think it is?” He smiles. “I think Ivan’s little wifey asked for mercy for me.” Mikhail isn’t talking to Yasha or to me anymore. He’s giving a speech to the gathered men. He’s trying to rewrite history. “Cordelia plays the sweet and innocent part well, but no one bags men like the two of us without some ambition.”
“The fact that you think you and Ivan are in the same category is hilarious,” Yasha interjects. “The funniest thing you’ve said all night. But I suspect whatever you’re about to say is going to be even more asinine. Please. Keep going.”
Yes. Please.Every word out of his mouth is yet another reason to pull the trigger.
Mikhail clears his throat. “Let me be blunt then: your wife is a gold-digging bitch who jumps to gobble up whatever opportunity lines her pockets the best. When you drive your Bratva into the ground, she’ll come crawling back to me.” He lifts his chin, looking down his crooked nose at me. “She’ll beg for me to forgive her, and I will—for one night. But when I’m done fucking her senseless, I’ll snap her neck and throw her away like the trash she—”
The guard to Mikhail’s right goes down with one shot to the shoulder.
Mikhail ducks down, arms over his head, while Yasha takes down the man to his left. The guards are only wounded, not dead, but they don’t rush back to their feet to sacrifice themselves in front of Mikhail. Neither do any of the other Sokolov soldiers lining the room.
I have a feeling they’ll thank me once he’s dead.
Mikhail is still cowering when I grab him by the front of his shirt and throw him back against the wall. His head bounces off the metal, the vibration shuddering up the wall.
“How is this for ‘face-to-face’?” I growl. “Am I close enough for you, Mikhail?”
His eyes are wide, searching the room for anyone willing to step forward and help him. He comes up empty.
