Kingmakers, Graduation

43. Sabrina

43

SAbrINA

K rystiyan’s lab is located in Nemchinovka, Yakim Dimka’s restaurant on one side, and a laundromat on the other.

From the front, it looks like an office space—simple and nondescript. The hours are posted on the door, though that door is always locked. I enter through the back, leaving my bike parked in the alleyway.

The lab looks as pristine and organized as ever, lights off, drawers tightly closed. I don’t think anyone’s been in here.

Even though this place is professionally outfitted with proper vent hoods, double sinks, and a six-burner stove, plus an industrial-sized refrigerator for all the perishable ingredients, I never really liked it. The lights have an ugly greenish cast, and all the stainless steel reflects bits and pieces of my face back at me.

I miss the raw brick of the brewery, the high windows that sent shafts of light down like a church, and the smell of hops. The whistl e that would blow when the shift changed at the purse factory next door, and the way Hakim would perk up, saying, “Almost time for Shake Burger …” his voice muffled behind his respirator.

I wish I hadn’t burned it all.

I drop my backpack on the counter and unzip it, planning to stuff it with as much product as I can carry.

I take the flat packs of Molniya from the cabinet, already pressed into lightning bolt pills and vacuumed-sealed in packs of a hundred. These were supposed to go to Krystiyan’s dealers, but they’re mine now.

I’ve been making the product in batches. There’s no Eliksir or Opus at the moment. What I have here is still worth a small fortune.

I pull open the fridge, wondering if I should take any of the raw materials along with me—at least the ones that are hardest to source. The refrigerator is double normal size, with one of those hefty metal handles that clicks and unlocks like an old appliance from the ’50s. The pale fluorescent light bathes my face as I rummage through the various bins and jars within, each labeled with Sharpie in my own writing, messy but easy for me to read.

My head is deep in the fridge, the containers clinking and clattering as I shove aside what I don’t need. No Ilsa keeps watch for me. So I have no warning of my unwanted visitors until I stand upright and realize I’m no longer alone.

Two men stand on the opposite side of the room, firmly situated between me and the exit. One is tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a royal blue tracksuit with a gold medallion around his beefy neck. His tr aps are so thick that his head hunches forward, his small eyes looking up from under a heavy shelf of brow. His swollen fists hang at the end of gorilla-like arms, the nose of a Beretta poking out from the right hand. This is the former boxer, the Olympian-turned-enforcer they call Cujo.

Which means the older man next to him is Zakharov.

Zakharov doesn’t resemble his son. He’s smaller, leaner, as brown and wizened as an apple core left to dry in the sun. His eyes are almost colorless behind the round lenses of his rimless spectacles. He’s wearing a plain brown suit that looks thirty years out of date, though well preserved. His shoes are likewise old, carefully brushed and polished.

When he speaks, his voice rasps from some place deep in his chest.

“Where is Krystiyan?”

Slowly, I step back from the fridge, leaving the door open.

I look from Zakharov to Cujo to the doorway behind them.

The lab is long and narrow, like a bowling alley. Cujo fills almost the entire width of the room. I’m as trapped as a ship in a bottle—no way past.

The distance between us seems to stretch and deform, the light fading as if it only exists at the end of a very long tunnel. I’m halfway to fainting, realizing how completely and utterly fucked I am in this moment.

“Who are you?” I say, striving for the lightest, most innocent of tones, while my blood turns to lead in my veins, and my knees wobble beneath me .

“Adrik tried to insult my intelligence,” Zakharov says, quietly. “I hoped you’d be smarter, Sabrina.”

Fuuuuuuuck me.

I try to think of a way past them, my brain firing madly, while I stare at the impossible barrier of Cujo and the gun in his hand.

Cujo knows what I’m thinking. He tracks my movement, a smile playing at the edges of his thick lips.

“Krystiyan is dead,” I say, inching back from the men, toward my backpack, the cabinets, and the gas range.

“That seems to happen to your partners with surprising frequency.”

“I guess I’m unlucky. I’d prefer if they stayed alive.”

I’m back at the stove. No more room to retreat. Through the solid plaster behind me, I hear the clinking of plates, the shouts of the expediter, and the sizzle of steaks. I could scream and bang on the wall, but I doubt anyone would come running.

Zakharov tilts his head, the light flashing across the lenses of his glasses so they become opaque and then clear again. His breath rattles in his lungs.

“You’re going to tell me everything I want to know.”

My back is against the wall. My gun is in my backpack, my knife in my pocket. If I reach for either, Cujo will shoot me.

“I don’t know anything.” I rest my hand lightly on the stove top. “I’m just the chef.”

“I think we both know that’s not true. ”

Zakharov nods to Cujo.

Cujo barrels toward me like a bull, head lowered.

Instead of diving for my backpack, I reach behind the stove and yank the metal coil out of the wall. The light hiss of escaping gas is drowned by my shout as Cujo grabs my ponytail and wrenches me backward. My tailbone connects with the floor, sending a sharp jolt all the way up my spine, immediately dwarfed by shrieking, tearing pain as he drags me across the tiles by my hair.

He flings me down in front of Zakharov.

Zakharov looks down on me dispassionately, his face as blank as the flat lenses of his spectacles.

“Where is Krystiyan?” he repeats.

“I told you, he’s dead.”

Cujo backhands me across the face. The force of that slap is like a bomb detonating in my brain. My body flies sideways, my skull slamming against the cabinets.

I come to when Cujo grabs my hair and sets me upright once more. The whole side of my face is on fire, buzzing like I’ve been stung by a swarm of bees.

“Where is he?” Zakharov repeats.

“In his house, dead on the floor, I told you!”

“Since when?”

“Last night. ”

Zakharov glances at Cujo. Some silent confirmation passes between them. Possibly they visited Krystiyan’s house with no answer, or they’ve been calling him.

“Where is Adrik Petrov?” Zakharov demands.

“How should I know?” I lie. “I haven’t seen him in weeks.”

Cujo hits me again, closed fist this time. If I thought the slap hurt, it was a fucking kiss on the cheek compared to his punch. A fist with the size and mass of a chunk of cement comes crashing into my mouth, my lip splitting instantly against the knuckles, my mouth filling with blood.

Little black dots fall across my vision like snow. My head lolls forward.

Cujo slaps me again, brisk and sharp, on the swollen side of my face.

“Wake up,” he grunts.

The room comes clear again in painful focus. My blood is on the tiles in bright spatters. I spit a little more, surprised how much comes out of my mouth. I tongue the left side of my teeth. One of the lower molars is loose.

“You’re worth every penny, aren’t you, big boy?” I mutter.

I swear Cujo smiles just a little. He enjoys his work.

Zakharov takes his phone out of his pocket, thrusting it at me.

“Call Adrik,” he orders. “Tell him to meet you here.”

I give a low laugh that sprays more blood across my lap .

“Adrik wouldn’t answer my call, let alone come here to save me. I burned down his lab, stole his product, and I’ve been doing my damndest to run his business into the ground. You’re doing him a favor beating the shit out of me.”

Another look passes between Zakharov and Cujo, as Zakharov tries to ascertain the validity of what I’m saying.

He’s been in Moscow for months, digging for the details of what happened to his son. I can see the tension in his face, the built-up frustration of dead end after dead end. He can’t guess why Zigor was killed—the truth is too bizarre. All his rage is pointed at Adrik, but Adrik is surrounded by the Wolfpack at all times, and now Yuri Koslov and his men as well.

Zakharov crouches in front of me, looking intently into my face. His breath is unpleasantly warm and intimate.

“I had a deal with Krystiyan Kovalenko. He knew the locations of Adrik’s next three shipments. Tell me where Adrik will be, and I’ll let you live.”

I know where the shipments are going. In fact, the next one arrives tomorrow night.

I could tell Zakharov where to find Adrik. I could even draw him a map.

“I’ll make you a better deal,” I say, squinting at Zakharov as my left eye begins to swell shut. “You tell me how old that suit is, and I’ll tell you where you can buy a new one.”

Zakharov’s upper lip draws up, showing long, gray teeth.

“Very amusing,” he says. “Let’s see how long you keep laughing.”

He stands .

Cujo hauls me to my feet by my hair, driving his fist into my stomach. I double over, retching. When I try to draw breath it’s impossible, he’s pummeled the air out of me, and the muscles are too torn to breathe in. My mouth is open, eyes bulging, no air coming in for an agonizing amount of time. Until finally, with a horrid gasp, and a pain like a knife in my ribs, my lungs slowly inflate.

“Where’s the next shipment?” Zakharov demands.

I hold up a finger, still trying to breathe.

Cujo slaps me again, knocking me back down to the floor.

I cough, shaking my head at Cujo.

“Not as good, big boy. I’ve been slapped by cheerleaders harder than that.”

Cujo seizes the front of my shirt, lifting me up and flinging me into the open refrigerator. The shelves collapse around me, sending containers of product tumbling down on my head, glass jars shattering on the tiles.

Blood runs down into my eye from a cut on my scalp. I blink it away, slipping my hand in my pocket, gripping the handle of my knife.

When Cujo stoops to grab me again, massive hands grasping either side of my shirt, I flick out the blade and stab it down into the side of his neck.

There’s no boxer like an old boxer. Cujo slipped and ducked thousands of punches in his prime. He sees the flash of metal in his peripheral and twists, the blade embedding in that thick band of muscle running from neck to shoulder instead of in the jugular.

He roars and stumbles back .

I kick out at his knee, buckling it, then I try to punch him as hard as I can in the balls. He turns and my fist meets hipbone instead. I howl, cradling my hand. He backhands me across the face, knocking me back into the refrigerator.

His face is the color of brick, right hand shaking as he reaches across his broad body to pull out the knife.

It looks pathetically small in his hand. Cujo tosses it aside, the knife spinning away across the tiles.

His eyes are bloodshot beneath the heavy shelf of his brow. He snarls and lunges for me once more.

“Wait wait wait!” I cry, holding up my hands. “I’ll tell you what you want to know!”

Zakharov makes a hissing sound, snapping Cujo out of his rage, stopping him short.

“Where will Adrik be?” he demands.

“I’ll tell you. I just want a smoke first.”

Zakharov’s eyes narrow, studying my face.

We both know he’s not letting me walk out of here alive—especially not if he plans to ambush Adrik.

Even prisoners get one last cigarette before the firing squad.

Zakharov nods to Cujo. Cujo reaches in the pocket of his track pants, pulling out a crumpled packet of cigarettes. He shakes one out and passes it to me.

“Lighter?” I croak.

Less of a gentleman than Jasper, Cujo tosses me his zippo .

I put the cigarette between my lips, on the side not split and bleeding.

Leaning back against the broken shelves, I gaze at Zakharov. Spilled product soaks through my jeans, bits of glass digging into my thighs. The chemical stench mingles with the scent of propane.

My right hand is all fucked up from punching Cujo. I hold the zippo in my left, giving a few experimental flicks at the wheel with my thumb.

Zakharov watches, impatient, his tongue darting out to moisten his lips.

Cujo glowers at me, blood soaking down the arm of his tracksuit, dripping from his fingertips.

If this is my last view, I wish it were prettier.

“I’m sorry about Zigor,” I say to Zakharov. “But you have to admit … he was obnoxious as hell.”

I flick the wheel, spark the flame, and toss the lighter toward the gas range.

Before I can draw up my legs and pull the fridge door closed, before the zippo has even landed, the propane ignites in a surging storm of liquid fire. It roars toward us with deafening noise and heat, swallowing up all the air in the room, incinerating everything in its path.

The force of the explosion helps slam the fridge door. I’m closed up in the cold, dark coffin, the refrigerator rocking against the wall as it’s blasted backward. I can feel the heat leaking in through the seams. My right arm burns where I reached out to yank the door shut .

The fire rushes past like a freight train.

In its wake I hear shouts and the distant sound of alarms, and sprinklers going off in the restaurant next door. There’s chaos and clattering, dishes smashing, people running.

I kick at the inside of the refrigerator door, breaking the latch, forcing it open again.

Now I see why the noise from the restaurant was so loud—the explosion blew a hole in our shared wall. The teenaged dishwasher peers through the gap, his face covered in soot, his apron singed.

His eyes widen when he sees me stumble out of the refrigerator, into the still-burning remains of the lab. The cabinets are on fire and the stove is a smoking ruin. Cujo’s body was blasted back against the base of the sink. Zakharov lays facedown by the doorway—he tried to run.

“ Syuda!” the dishwasher calls to me, sticking his arm through the gap. This way!

I limp over to him, acrid black smoke filling my lungs, blinding me so all I can see is his pale hand reaching through the hole.

He hauls me through. I cry out, my ribs in agony, my right arm screaming at the heat of the burning plaster.

I’m reeling, barely able to stand. He has to half-carry me through the soaking spray of the sprinklers, out to the back alley of the restaurant between the overflowing dumpsters.

“ Pozhaluysta, bol’nitsu.” I rasp. Please, hospital.

He throws a look back toward the restaurant, his anxious expression telling me that he knows exactly who he works for, and the inhere nt danger of getting involved in whatever the fuck is going on next door.

“ Pozhaluysta …” I say again. Please …

Lips pressed together, he gives a quick nod. With my arm slung around his shoulders, he hustles me out to his car, a tiny, battered Lada Niva, more rust than paint.

“ Ne samuyu blizkuyu,” I beg him, curled up against the car door, my face throbbing, my arm feeling like it was dipped in gasoline and set ablaze. Not the closest one.

He nods, understanding.

He’s young, maybe only sixteen or seventeen. Skinny, with curly dark hair and permanently wrinkled fingers from long shifts plunged in hot, soapy water.

He drives me to a small hospital in the Mitino district, dropping me off at the side entrance.

“ Skazhite im, chto eto blya avtomobil’naya avariya,” he says. Tell them it was a car accident.

“Spasibo.” I push a wad of bills into his hand, almost everything I had left in my pocket.

He tries to refuse, but I close his fingers around the money and hold tight.

“ Pozhaluysta, nikomu ne govorite,” I say. Please don’t tell anyone.

The hospital hallway seems a hundred miles long. It’s hard for me to draw a full breath.

I think, This is how Houdini died, punched in the stomach by a boxer. Probably a boxer less mean than that motherfucker Cujo .

I lean against the wall, arms clutching my sides, emptying the contents of my stomach on the freshly washed floors. The vomit is bright red.

He got me good, alright.

And I got him even better …

I hear a nurse shout something in Russian, but I don’t understand it. All I see is the floor rushing toward me at lightning speed.