As the car rolled down the road toward the gates, I stared frantically out the window at Nikolai fighting for his life.
“Don’t worry, cousin, those are my best men. They won’t let him get away this time.” Silvio laughed. “Though I am sorry not to kill him myself. Just imagine what my father and yours will think. They’ll call me a hero for stopping the violent criminal supposed to be serving his time here who decided instead to go on a killing spree.”
I turned and stared at Silvio, hatred pouring from me. He’d lowered his gun, and without thinking for my safety, I flew at him. Landing half across him, I tore at his face as he tried to beat me off with one hand. The pistol whipped my cheek, but I didn’t give up. I sank a finger into one of his eyes, and he let out a vicious command to his driver to stop.
As his driver scrambled out of the car, there was an odd, suppressed shake, and suddenly, all the alarms on the property blared.
“What the fuck was that?” Silvio muttered as his driver pulled me out of the car, trying to rip me off his pathetic boss.
I knew exactly what it was. Nikolai’s little homemade bomb finally blowing beneath the ground. It didn’t sound as small as he’d made out.
Silvio followed me out of the car as I spun out of the driver’s arms and staggered back. I was cut and bruised, worried and at the end of my sanity. I had nothing to lose.
“Sofia, you need to calm down, or I’ll shoot you right here and tell your father it was Chernov,” Silvio warned me.
I shook my head, hysteria bubbling up my throat. “No. I won’t. I won’t go quietly with a man like you.”
“A man like me? And yet, you’d let that Moscow gutter rat fuck you? You have some twisted standards.”
“Nikolai is ten times the man you are.”
“If you mean he’s killed ten times the men that I have, I agree. The man is one body short of a serial killer.”
“I don’t care. To me, he’s better than you. He’s better than Antonio and Franco, and all of them. He’s a man in a way you’ll never be.”
Silvio raised his eyebrows at the statement, anger working up his neck to his face. “Now, come on, Sofia. Surely it’s only fair to compare after you’ve had both.” His lip curled with satisfaction as he nodded to his driver. “Hold her.”
The driver jumped me from behind, grabbing my arms before I got away, and then Silvio was on me. He pushed me to the ground and followed, settling his heavy weight on top of me.
“Let both of us fuck you, and then we’ll see who’s more of a man.” Silvio grunted.
His driver held my hands over my head, giving Silvio the chance to work his belt loose with his one hand. I bucked and writhed and screamed, trying to claw my way forward, but it was impossible. I couldn’t take both of them. I couldn’t even reach Silvio with the way the driver was holding my arms.
“Hold still!” Silvio roared in my face, leaning so close his rank spit flicked against my lips. “Hold still, or I’ll cut parts off while I fuck you and leave you here for dead.”
I stilled, not because of the threat, but because I had to be smart. Fighting him like this wasn’t smart. I already knew he was stronger, despite being one-handed. He had help. Silvio went back to his belt as I frantically searched through my options.
Would Nikolai come for me? Was he too hurt to move? Was he dead? The thought threatened to scatter all the others in my head. I couldn’t afford to dwell on it. What had he told me, that night at prom, the last time I’d seen him before he’d gone to jail in Russia, and I’d thought he’d forgotten me?
I’ll always find you, Sofia. Wherever you go, I will always come for you.
Like my very thoughts and wildest hopes had summoned him, a roar sounded to the left, toward the houses, and a blur of bloodied flesh and dark jeans hit us side-on. Silvio rolled, and the driver let go of my hands as he tried to protect himself from the whirling fury of Nikolai Chernov.
I sat up, casting about for a weapon. Silvio had dropped his gun somewhere, I had no idea where, when he’d been trying to strip. Now he stood slowly, pushing himself to his feet. Genuine fear filled his face as he took in Niko, still unharmed enough to fight.
“What’s wrong, cousin? What about your best men?” I asked as I stepped closer.
Nikolai was fighting the driver, the two of them rolling about on the ground, grunting and swearing. Niko was hurt, while the driver was fresh to the fight. It evened the ground between them.
As I walked past Niko, I saw it lying on the ground like a gift. It must have fallen from Niko’s pocket. It felt like the universe had conspired to bring it to me, here at this perfect poetic moment.
I dropped and swiped the long, thin knife off the ground and rose into a fighting stance.
Silvio watched me with a sneer. “You think you can take me? I know you and Renato played with knives when you were kids, but, Sofia, you’re embarrassing yourself,” he said, but the strain in his voice revealed his fear. Sure, it probably wasn’t fear of me. He was afraid of Nikolai and for good reason. Still, that didn’t mean Niko was the only threat here.
Silvio dismissed me with a grunt and went looking for his gun. It was only a matter of time until he found it. I wasted no more time holding back and went for him. He grunted as I landed a shallow cut to his arm and danced away from his heavy hand, swiping through the air where I had been standing.
In paranza corta, the silent and lethal first blow is the strongest. I didn’t know why I hadn’t gone for a more vital area, only that my hand was stayed. Maybe it was because I’d never killed anyone before, or I was distracted with worry for Nikolai. I didn’t know. All I was painfully aware of was losing the advantage by holding back.
Silvio kept looking for his gun as I attacked from left and right. He was quick to turn whenever I attempted to sink my knife between his ribs. He hit me again, just as the sound of approaching sirens filled the air.
“Great, the fucking cops,” Silvio muttered, his eyes glinting with excitement as he looked at Nikolai. He’d just twisted the driver’s head like he’d been trying to take it off. The man fell, lifeless, to the ground. “So, what’ll it be, Chernov? Death or jail?” Silvio’s voice was triumphant.
He raised the gun and pointed it at Nikolai. He’d fucking found it.
Time seemed to stop.
“What do you think, Silvio? I’ve been to jail before. I didn’t care for it. I’m certain American jail is like a Moscow five-star hotel, but still, I need to see the stars at night,” Nikolai said.
His neck and half his face gleamed with blood, his or someone else’s, I had no idea, but I suspected it was other people’s. He’d single-handedly cut a swath through Silvio’s best men to get to me.
“So, does that mean you choose death?” Silvio laughed, flushed with victory. “I guess if you’re dead, you don’t have to worry about all the dirty, depraved things I’m going to do to your little girlfriend here once you’re gone. I wish you could have seen it, but if you want to die before the cops arrive, we’ve no time to waste.”
The words and the look in Nikolai’s eyes when he met mine calmed the raging storm in my soul. Resolve filled me. Silvio was so wrapped up in his posturing that he’d forgotten I was even there. I’d always been an irritation to my family, well, everyone except my brother. I’d been inconsequential, an asset to be polished and put away. Not a real person, not even once.
Now, I darted behind Silvio, using the same moves that my instructor had taught Ren and me when we were young.
My knife went through his skin far easier than I could have imagined it would. I slashed downward from the back of his ear to his collarbone, the knife hitting the bone with a jarring impact.
Silvio turned to me, his face frozen in a look of comical surprise as blood jetted out of the long slice down his jugular.
His eyes locked on me, disbelieving until the end. His blood was hot as it splashed across my neck. He slumped to the ground, gripping the hole in his skin as if that could stop the frantic fountain of red that was escaping. My eyes were stuck on his dying ones. I could see it, the exact moment the light left them, the soul escaping into the ether. I felt that yawning darkness then that I’d always sensed in Nikolai. A black hole in the fabric of this world into another.
I’d stepped outside the rules. I was on the other side.
“Sofia,” Niko’s voice broke me from my stupor.
I realized with a shock that I was crying, hot, urgent sobs forcing up my throat, and my hands were shaking too hard to stop. “I-I killed someone,” I forced out, feeling dizzy, like I could sleep for a week.
Nikolai approached, wrapping his arms around me. His hand soothed over my back in a comforting circle. “You protected yourself.”
“I k-killed someone,” I repeated like a skipping record. I couldn’t process that simple fact. The darkness beckoned.
“Sofia, it was him or us,” Nikolai said, leaning down to cup my face.
The wailing in the background was growing closer, and my overwhelmed brain couldn’t process it.
“It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. You were just surviving… you saved us.”
I blinked up at him, suddenly realizing that I wasn’t alone in that dark place, that space between worlds. Nikolai was there.
I’ll always find you, Sofia. Wherever you go, I will always come for you.
“Now, you need to let me save you, lastochka,” he whispered and pulled me in for a fierce kiss. “Wait for me, prom queen.”
“We need to run.” I stumbled to the side, my legs unsteady. My world was crashing down, and I was losing grip on which way was up.
“There’s no time. We wouldn’t make it.”
Then he pushed me away from him. I stumbled back as the first cop car came into view. Four cars followed, pulling to quick stops on the winding drive as they took in the scene.
Nikolai was looking at me, his handsome face more devilish than I’d ever seen it, painted red with blood. The reflection of the cop car’s lights displayed the perfect hollows of his resolved expression.
Then I saw his hand, and the knife in it. I blinked down at my now-empty fist. When had he taken it?
“Wait for me. I’ll come for you,” he said again.
A new terror seized me. “Nikolai—no!”
He didn’t listen, simply turning toward the flashing lights and holding his hands, bloodstained, still clutching the knife, over his head.
“Put the weapon down and get on your knees!” A cop spoke over a loudspeaker. There had to be at least eight guns trained on him.
Nikolai slowly sank to his knees, right next to Silvio’s dead body.
“Miss, are you all right? What happened here?” A female officer approached me, looking concerned.
“This is all wrong. He didn’t kill him, I—” I stumbled as Niko’s head turned toward me.
He shook his head slowly, as if telling me off. A wicked look played over his face. He was the man who laughed in the face of death, prison, and anything else that usually terrified people.
“What happened here, Officer, was a gang fight, and I’m the victor. I was going to take her hostage to get out of here. She doesn’t know what’s going on.” Nikolai laughed. “And this man lying beside me? I killed him.” His smile was unhinged as he shrugged, wiping the blood off his face with a red-stained hand. “I’ve wanted to kill him for five years.”
The cops standing over Niko exchanged looks, and then one moved to cuff him.
“In that case, I’m placing you under arrest.”
