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“Uh-huh.” I’m listening, but not intently. I can’t help it.
One of those chat logs has a final message ofMission Complete.
And it’s the same day as the school shooting.
Ice fills my veins. I’m not even looking at the actual computer screen, but I don’t need to. I’ll place a solid wager that I know exactly what Oleg’s been up to.
“Keep him busy,” I say to Tolya as I pocket the paper. “Let me handle the tech.”
42
DEMYEN
“You’re in high spirits,” Oleg remarks in the car.
I flash him a forced smile. “It’s going to be a good day. I can feel it.”
In true Oleg fashion, we’re driving through Sochi in a hired limousine and enjoying the vials of home-brewed vodka and imported stogies.
Well,heis enjoying them.
I’m enjoying the calm before the storm.
Tolya downs his third serving of vodka and smacks his lips. “I’ll take that bet. House always wins, right, Dem?”
Again, I smile and nod. There’s no use expounding on our private joke—all will be revealed in due time.
Like, say… around fifteen minutes or so from now.
The car slows into a turn, signaling our approach to the Zakrevsky head seat. The pavement becomes much smootherand the foliage around us more manicured, shifting from trimmed bushes to sculpted works of art.
When we come to a complete stop, a butler wearing white gloves promptly opens the passenger door for us. He says nothing. I’m happy to return the silence in kind.
Part of me wishes Clara and Willow could be here to see this place. They would have loved the gilded lion statues guarding the wide marble steps, which in turn lead to massive double doors hand carved from mahogany. Half the windows are painted glass, the other half crystalline testaments to the forgotten days of ancient Russia.
“The grandpakhanis waiting inside,” Oleg grumbles to me as he lumbers past.
Tolya and I fall in line after him. It’s a show of respect for the Old World. A father leads his sons, and the sons file in after him in order of birth. We’re here to support him in his cause he’s about to bring to the grandpakhan’sattention.
Or so he thinks.
We follow a pair of silent, grim-facedvorsthrough the foyer, down a wide hall decorated with oil paintings and marble busts, and through another set of double doors. We step into a luxurious receiving room where the grandpakhanand the rest of hisvorsare seated in velvet chairs.
There are no chairs or seats offered to us. We are expected to remain standing until we’ve proven that our business here is worth their time.
The shit-eating smile I woke up with only broadens.
My business is definitely worth their time.
The Bratva is a many-limbed creature. For all intents and purposes, I run my own kingdom. But there are roots to the motherland—and if someone fucks up bad enough, like my father has done, those roots can tighten around a man’s neck like a noose. The grandpakhan,head of the oldest Bratva organization on the face of the planet, is the man who gives the order to execute.
Soon enough, he’ll do exactly that.
My eyes land on him. An old man, but not feeble in the least. Thick and bearded and gray and strong, with a face that betrays nothing and eyes as ice-blue as the snow piled high on the eaves of the mansion overhead.
The door shuts behind us with a thunderous clang. No one breathes as the echoes fade out.
Then it begins.
