Kingmakers, Graduation

44. Adrik

44

ADRIK

T he news of an explosion at Krystiyan’s lab makes me sick with dread.

I race over there, even though Jasper is sure it’s a trap.

The fire was definitely real. It destroyed the lab, the laundromat, and half of Yakim Dimka’s restaurant before the trucks arrived.

I won’t stop harassing the paramedics until they tell me the only two bodies carried out were male.

The relief that sweeps over me is more enervating than reassuring. It takes the strength out of my legs, I have to sit down.

“More of Sabrina’s work?” Jasper mutters, surveying the wreckage of the buildings.

“Why would she burn the lab? Krystiyan was already dead. And who were the men in there with her?”

Jasper shrugs .

“Assistants?” he guesses.

The explanation comes the next day when we’re summoned to the Bolshoi Theater.

This is where the High Table meets, or where they used to meet with regularity when they were at the height of their power. Now Ivan has abdicated, Abram Balakin retired, Danyl Kuznetsov is dead, and Savely Kika is in prison.

I’m not stupid enough to think that means they’re impotent now.

Animals are most vicious when wounded.

Jasper accompanies me through the long tunnels beneath the theater in which the many ballerinas scurry back and forth, skinny to the point of emaciation in their tights and battered shoes, their hair scraped up into excruciating buns atop their heads. The air smells of wax and sweat, and fresh paint from the stage sets.

Jasper is on edge, even though Yuri is meeting us here. He keeps reaching inside his jacket to touch the handle of his gun.

“Don’t do that once we’re upstairs,” I warn him.

We take the elevator to the top floor.

The private suites have a view down to the stage—not that there’s any performances this early in the afternoon. Perhaps a rehearsal. I doubt the pakhans pay attention either way. None of them are patrons of the arts, unless you count fucking the ballerinas.

Yuri Koslov is already inside the suite, spearing shrimp from a seafood tower with Foma Kushnir. Foma gives me a cold nod, which I return with even less enthusiasm. In the Petrovs’ worst and lowest moment, Foma stormed our monastery and tried to kill my father. I’d like to take that shrimp prong and put it through his eye .

Yuri’s lieutenant Rafail Wasyl sits against the window, watching the door. I don’t acknowledge him at all.

Yakim Dimka is here, and Serafim Isidor. Also Nikolai Markov.

Markov is tall and dark-haired like his daughters. We eye each other warily. My deal with Neve fell through once Ilsa and Sabrina defected. No doubt Nikolai is aware his youngest daughter stole a king’s ransom in raw materials from me. I’m curious to see what he’ll say about it.

Serafim Isidor begins the meeting. Though there’s no head of the Bratva, Serafim is the senior member of the High Table, both in age and tenure. He’s bald and barrel-chested, with a beak of a nose, cheekbones like hatchet strikes, and a mouth that turns down at the corners. Having sat with him in a sauna once, I know he’s covered in tattoos from wrist to neck beneath his starched white shirt.

Without preamble, he fixes me with his dark, beady eyes, saying, “Are you sheltering Sabrina Gallo?”

This is not what I expected. I look at all the stony faces staring back at me before replying, “No.”

“Were you aware that she destroyed Dimka’s restaurant?”

“I heard there was a fire. How do you know it was Sabrina?”

“Employees saw her leaving through the restaurant after the explosion,” Dimka says.

“Where is she now?” I demand, eagerly.

“That’s what we’re asking you,” Isidor scowls .

“Last I knew, she was with Ilsa Markov.” I throw a look at Nikolai, who has remained silent and impassive.

“Ilsa returned home,” Nikolai says. “She doesn’t know where Sabrina Gallo has gone.”

I don’t like that at all.

While I felt a certain level of jealousy knowing Sabrina and Ilsa were together, at least I thought Ilsa would keep Sabrina safe. I’m irrationally angry hearing that she abandoned her instead.

Even though I was the one who lost Sabrina first.

Jasper is lurking around the buffet, listening to everything we say. He throws me a quizzical look. We’re both wondering the same thing:

If Sabrina’s not with Ilsa, where is she?

“Were you aware of the Gallo’s history with the Bratva when you brought Sabrina here?” Foma Kushnir sneers.

“If Dean Yenin doesn’t hold a grudge against them, I don’t see why you would,” I say to Foma, coldly.

“Because they took our greatest prize,” he hisses.

“Alexei Yenin made them pay.”

“Not enough.”

Serafim Isidor nods slowly, his expression pained. “There is no forgiving the loss of the Winter Diamond.”

“That this girl even dares to show her face in our city is an outrage!” Foma cries. “She’s disrupted our finest families,” he gives Nikolai Markov an obsequious nod. “Stolen from the High Table and destroyed our property!”

The fact that none of the wrongs in question were done to Foma himself doesn’t lessen his vitriol. It’s me he’s here to attack, by proxy through Sabrina.

“You brought her here,” he accuses me. “She’s your responsibility.”

“Yes she is. And I’ll deal with her.”

“We’re past that,” Isidor says. “The High Table has issued a bounty on her head. She left the restaurant injured. The kachki are searching the clinics and hospitals. They’ll find her soon enough.”

Jasper winces, partly for me and partly for Sabrina.

My hands are cold and sweating. I clench them into fists.

“Cujo was killed in the blast,” Dimka says, eyeing me. “Lev Zakharov, too. Do you still claim you weren’t involved?”

“I didn’t know any of this!” I snarl, almost angrier at that fact than anything else.

My stomach churns. If Cujo got his hands on Sabrina, I can only imagine the state she’s in.

Isidor fixes me with his dark stare. “Don’t test our patience any further, Adrik. Our decision is final: Sabrina Gallo is to be shot on sight. We’ll send her head back to her father in a box, to remind him that the Bratva never forget.”

I can feel Jasper’s eyes on my back, begging me not to react, not to respond. It takes everything I have not to put my hands around the old man’s throat.

Foma smirks. “Next time, choose your partners more carefully. ”

The shame that flushes through me at the word partners has nothing to do with Foma’s sneer.

It’s the opposite—I’m not deserving of the word. I never treated Sabrina as a partner. Not really.

The meeting breaks up. I join Jasper by the buffet. He searches my face with his pale gaze.

Speaking low and quiet so we won’t be overheard, he asks, “What are you going to do?”

“What the fuck can I do? If I try to protect her, I’ll get us all killed. She doesn’t want my help anyway. I told her to come home, she refused.”

Jasper knows I’m stating the facts, while everything within me revolts against them.

On the one hand there’s logic and necessity, and the duty I owe to my men … on the other, my desperate need for Sabrina.

Jasper leans in close, his skeletal jaw clenched.

“When things look grim … be the grim reaper.”

My guts go cold, wondering if he means what I think he means.

We’re interrupted by my new partner.

“Better get going,” Yuri smiles. “It’s time for the pick-up.”

I stare at him blankly. In all the madness, I forgot we had a shipment coming in. One we desperately need after Sabrina robbed the last one.

“I’m on it,” I say.

“We can drive together,” Yuri replies. “I’m coming, too.”