Kingmakers, Graduation

38. Adrik

38

ADRIK

A round midnight I got a text from Mykah that Sabrina carried Ilsa Markov out of Apothecary, both of them smashed and stumbling, disappearing into a cab.

I sped over—of course they were long gone. Sabrina’s bike wasn’t even there.

My first reaction was relief that Sabrina was still in Moscow, with someone who—while not exactly benign—would at least probably keep her safe.

The next news I receive is Hakim’s frantic phone call that our lab is on fire.

I drive over with Jasper, Vlad, and Andrei, all of us strapped in case this is Zakharov and Cujo’s doing.

By the time we arrive, the firefighters have put out most of the blaze, the red and white trucks clustered out front spraying down the la st of the smoking embers on the roof. I have to pay the firemen a hefty bribe to leave without making a report.

Once they’re gone, I step through the hole that once was the door, surveying the wreckage of the brewery.

The interior space is a hollow, blackened hole—charred beams dangling from the ceiling, windows smashed outward, the floor piled with smoking rubble.

I’m surrounded by the slow drip, drip, drip of ink-dark water from the roof. The stench is overwhelming, smoke and chemical-drenched wood burning my lungs.

Some of the damage is from the fire itself—the rest of the equipment was vandalized intentionally. Pipes ripped off the boilers, tables smashed up, sinks bashed and dented. I see black rivers where accelerant was poured and then set ablaze.

Jasper picks through the ruin on the other side of the room. His shirt is pulled up over his face—he hates the smell of smoke.

Hakim leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, not bothering to look through the mess. He knows there’s nothing salvageable here.

The fire swallowed everything, chewed it up, and spit it out in scorched splinters. A storm of heat and wrath and ma dness.

Jasper comes to stand by me, lowering his shirt, his eyes pale and fierce, the teeth and bone tattooed along his jaw making him look particularly grim.

“Sabrina did this,” he says.

“I know.”

Vlad whips his head around, lip curled in a snarl. “That filthy fucking bi?—”

I turn a look on him that shuts him up mid-shout, the words dying in his throat.

“ Don’t ,” I hiss. “When she comes back, you don’t want to have said anything you’ll regret.”

“Comes back?” Vlad stares at me, blinking slowly. “She destroyed our fucking lab! We should kill her for this—we’d kill anyone else.”

“She’s not anyone else,” Hakim says, from the doorway. “She built this lab in the first place.”

“And then fucking burned it down!” Vlad scoffs.

“She’s angry,” I say.

“You think?” Andrei laughs.

I shoot him a look almost as mean as the one I gave Vlad, making him duck his head and scuttle away from me like a crab.

“She took some of the equipment,” Hakim says.

Jasper side-eyes me. We can both guess what that means.

“She’s setting up her own shop?” Jasper says.

“Possibly. ”

“With who?”

“Maybe Ilsa …”

“You think the Markovs are cutting us out? Poaching our chef?”

“I don’t know.”

I don’t know if Neve Markov is a part of this, or only Ilsa. It’s no secret there’s been friction between the sisters since the wedding—Ilsa might be disgruntled enough to strike out on her own.

Sabrina and Ilsa won’t get far alone. They’ll need money and assistance.

“We’re so fucked,” Andrei says, looking around the wreckage with a level of awe bordering on amusement. Sabrina has put us in a hell of a jam.

We owe drugs to Avenir Veniamin for his nightclubs, to Eban Franko for his strip clubs, to the half dozen brothels we promised Eliksir, and to our street-dealers. To the Markovs as well, though they just dropped to the bottom of my priority list.

“What are we gonna do?” Jasper murmurs.

“Can you make it yourself?” I ask Hakim. “If we get you another lab …”

“I can make Molniya. We hadn’t finalized the recipes for Eliksir and Opus .”

He means Sabrina hadn’t finalized them. I don’t know if Hakim can do it on his own.

Molniya is our bread-and-butter—it’s the one that matters most. But we still need somewhere to make it, and a new supplier for raw materials .

It’s going to cost me dearly to rebuy all this equipment. Sabrina’s doing this on purpose—putting the squeeze on me. Turning the screws to prove her point that I should have kept a larger cash reserve. She knows exactly where I’m scraped thin. She knows everything about our business.

I can’t stop staring around at the damage. This is Sabrina’s rage, directed at me. Destroying everything we built.

The inside of the brewery looks like the interior chambers of a heart—burned, blackened, ruined …

This is how much I hurt her.

Now she’s hurting me in return.

Back at the house, Chief, Andrei, Hakim, Vlad, and Jasper argue in the kitchen, a babble of conflicting ideas and warnings.

“We need a supplier?—”

“We could go back to Kovalenko?—”

“Fuck no?—”

“The Chechens could sell to us, temporarily?—”

“It’s a month at least until we’re up and running again?—”

“Not if we?—”

“That’s not possible?—”

“But what if?—”

I push past all of them, heading upstai rs.

“Where are you going?” Jasper calls.

“Gonna lay down for a minute.”

I hear the silence as they stare at my back, then the shuffle as they all cast looks at each other. Confused. Wondering what’s wrong with me.

I head up the stairs alone.

It’s pointless to talk this over with them—I already know what needs to be done. We’ll have to take on a new partner. The options are few and I hate all of them, but there’s no other choice—we’ll burn every bridge we’ve built if we can’t get our product out on time.

I lay down on my bed, hands clasped behind my head, looking up at the ceiling.

I wonder what Sabrina’s doing right now, at this moment?

I don’t believe for a second that she’s satisfied with burning the lab. She took that equipment because she’s going to start cooking drugs again.

“If we went head-to-head you’d learn a thing or two about what I can do …”

That’s what she shouted at me right before she left.

We were both yelling, both angry. I lost my mind for a minute, I didn’t mean any of it.

But Sabrina did.

She’s always been more honest than me .

I thought she’d cool off and come right back again. Now I realize this is only the beginning. She sees me as her enemy, her rival. Her betrayer.

I asked her to jump, I promised that I’d catch her … then I let her slip through my arms and fall …

She’s been gone twenty-four hours. Every minute that passes is a spoon scooping into my guts, digging out another piece of me. There’s a hole in my chest, a deep hollow … if I lose anymore, I might collapse.

I miss her. I fucking miss her.

I can smell her shampoo in the shower, the hand soap she bought in Danilovsky market, the last spritz of her perfume she pressed from wrist to throat before setting the bottle back on the shelf.

I roll off the bed and retrieve the bottle from the bathroom. It fits in my palm like a purple glass grenade, the lid missing or lost. I spray the perfume into the air. The mist settles on my outstretched palm. I cover my face with my hand, inhaling deeply.

Sabrina.

Sabrina …

The ache in my chest is too much.

I lay down on the bed once more, pulling out my phone. Starting at the beginning, I scroll through at every photo I have o f her.

The very first is the one she sent me after Dubrovnik, crouching at the wheel of her bike, working the wrench. Looking back over her shoulder, eyebrow raised in mild surprise, a smile breaking out as she catches sight of whoever stood there holding the camera—probably her mom, or maybe her dad or brother or grandpa. Grease streaked under her eye like a baseball player, hair tied back by a filthy bandanna, little curls coming down. Her upraised palm gripping the wrench, bicep tensed like Rosie the Riveter, cheeky and fierce.

Next the photo of us in Cannon Beach, her arms wrapped around the waist of the ridiculously oversized teddy-bear I won for her, head thrown back, mouth open in laughter. I can hear that laugh, I can see the color in her cheeks, hot from all our battles. She was still egging me on, trying to get me to play her in Halo again. I was determined to win her that bear—I aimed for those targets with a clarity of mind I’ve never known before or since, like it was the most important task in the world. Goddamn if I didn’t hit every one, even with that shitty rigged rifle.

Next is a video of her running on the beach with Nix, racing each other across the sand. Nix looks like Artemis, thighs flashing in the sun, barefoot and fleet, red hair streaming behind. Sabrina sprints with all her might, then flings herself into a cartwheel, whirling head over heels, before eating shit into a tidal pool, saltwater splashing everywhere, soaked to the waist, laughing and rubbing sand out of her eyes.

“Who put that there?” she cries.

Her voice is so distinct, it’s like she’s in the room with me.

I close out of the video, pressing the heel of my palm against my eye. Pushing hard until I see sparks .

I swipe through the images faster and faster—a selfie of the two of us on Arbat Street, Sabrina modeling her hazmat suit, a picture of her half-asleep at the kitchen table, chin on her palm, nodding off during dinner after one too many late nights at the lab. Then Sabrina in the diamond collar and heels, standing by the window, fireworks bursting into bloom over her shoulder, her naked body bathed in colored sparks. So beautiful that I never would have believed my own memory if I hadn’t taken a picture, if I weren’t looking at the image right now …

I had everything in that moment—everything I’d ever dreamed of and more.

How did I lose it so fast?

I swipe again, finding one of our last pictures together, taken at Neve Markov’s wedding: Sabrina’s looking at the camera, unsmiling, wearing the black dress that was only her second choice. Her eyes are dark, full of unhappiness.

I stand next to her, grinning, holding her tight against my side. Totally oblivious to the look on her face.

It’s good for YOU! You don’t care what I want, you don’t care what I feel …

Sabrina’s voice echoes in my head—furious, indignant, pained …

I switch folders, scrolling through our sex videos.

I find my favorite, the very first she ever made for me.

The camera jostles as she adjusts my phone on the bookshelf, angling it toward the bed. Then Sabrina crosses the frame, naked and bronze, hair a wild mane down her back.

I slip my hand down the front of my jeans, resting it on my cock .

Sabrina climbs atop my prone figure, straddling my face. Her thighs are strong and shapely, her hands grip the headboard.

She settles her pussy down on my mouth, arching her back, sliding her clit across my tongue.

I remember her scent and her taste. I lift my hand to my mouth, inhaling her perfume …

The Sabrina on my phone moans softly. She presses her bare breasts against the headboard, palms flat, fingers spread on the wood as if I were standing behind her, pushing her up against the wall …

Her head turns toward the camera, cheek against the plaster, eyes closed. Her lips part. She lets out a long breath that I feel in my own lungs, my soul coming out in that sigh …

My hand grips my cock, painfully tight.

She’s riding my face, slow at first, then faster. Her body rolls like a wave, breasts thrusting forward, ass arching back. She lets go of the headboard to push her hair back with both hands, her palms sliding down her cheeks, down her neck, down her chest, lifting her breasts, grasping them, holding them tight …

I’m stroking my own cock in time with her movement, building and building …

I look at her proportions, sleek and feline … the curve of her waist, the full globes of her ass …

Sabrina is my standard of perfection now, the only thing I’m attracted to. Anyone taller than her is too tall, thinner than her is too thin, paler than her is too pale … I want whatever she is, and nothing else. She is beauty and sensuality. She’s made for me .

I hear Sabrina cry out—my favorite sound, soft and plaintive, almost begging …

She’s cumming on my tongue, panting with each roll of her hips, moaning every time she presses against me …

I pump my cock harder, aching to cum along with her, desperate for relief …

But the Sabrina on the screen can’t fill the emptiness of the room. I need to turn my face against her neck and smell her scent where it’s strongest, right against her hairline. That’s what I need to cum.

The Sabrina on my phone collapses, shivering with pleasure.

My hand grips my cock, the head purple, my knuckles white.

I can’t fucking get there. I can’t fill the hole inside of me, I can’t wash away the sickness in my guts.

I stand up from the bed, pent up and shaking, clenching my phone. My cock throbs, but I’m already losing my erection, the little pleasure I could grasp slipping away in a moment.

I close the video, staring at the home screen.

No messages. No missed calls.

In despair, I hurl my phone against the wall, smashing it to pieces.