Kingmakers, Graduation

46. Adrik

46

ADRIK

T he pickup is in Nekrasovka, not far from where Sabrina and I built our lab. We pass by the purse factory. It’s too dark to see the blackened brick of the old brewery, but I spot the silver glimmer of the bullet-shaped trailer where Sabrina loved to eat. My stomach clenches as if I were hungry, though I know I’m not.

Jasper is driving. I’m in the passenger seat, Yuri and his lieutenant behind us.

Rafail Wasyl is former Kadyrovtsy, the paramilitary operatives who protect the head of the Chechen Republic. He kept the buzz cut and the cargo pants when he left service, was well as his extensive training in kidnapping, torture, and murder.

I’m surprised he doesn’t work for his countryman Ismaal Elbrus. Maybe the rest of the Chechens hate him as much as the civilians he terrorized in his homeland .

He’s nothing more than a mercenary, though an extremely effective one. I don’t particularly like him sitting directly behind me. I keep an eye on him via the rear-view mirror.

Rafail lounges in the backseat, the window lowered despite the clouds rolling in, so he can hang his arm over the sill. A rose gold AP glints on his wrist. It looks genuine. Even with how generously Yuri pays, that’s an expensive toy.

Rafail sees me watching and gives me a smug smile.

“Glad to see the High Table only gave you a slap on the wrist, Adrik,” he says. “I’d hate to see you get in any serious trouble … especially over a woman.”

Rafail’s voice is higher and softer than you’d expect from someone so aggressively masculine.

“I wonder who slapped that new watch on your wrist?” I inquire.

My comment is for Yuri. Telling him to open his fucking eyes.

Rafail doesn’t even blink.

“I’m well taken care of. If you didn’t run your business with your dick, you could buy one for yourself.”

Innocently, I ask, “Is that the one Serena Williams wears?”

Yuri doesn’t like his lieutenant enough not to laugh.

“Excellent choice,” Jasper says, pulling into the back lot of the warehouse. “People say she’s the greatest living athlete.”

That worked. Rafail fumes in the backseat, unable to deny that Serena Williams does indeed wear his same watch.

Male ego is our greatest weakness .

Jasper brings the SUV up the ramp, all the way inside the warehouse. We’ll be packing the product in the trunk so Jasper can take it to the new lab.

The atmosphere in the warehouse is tense. There’s ten men here in total, much more than you’d usually need for a delivery.

Soon we’ll be thirteen, when Vlad and Andrei arrive with the driver. They rode their bikes out an hour along the route to bring the truck in safe, in case any more unwanted visitors were waiting.

The Wolfpack are armed to the teeth, wearing bulletproof vests despite their complaints of how uncomfortable they’d be. Yuri’s men are likewise strapped. If any of Krystiyan’s goons had the bright idea to rob us again, they’re going to meet a whole lot more firepower than last time.

My men and Yuri’s have separated into opposing camps, close enough for conversation, but mostly talking to their own brothers in low tones. A few suspicious glances pass back and forth, and hands are close to triggers.

Each of us suspects the others of leaking the information about the first delivery. Yuri’s men mistrust me because the supplies were stolen by my ex-girlfriend. I know it was one of them because my confidence in the Wolfpack is complete.

I really do think it was Rafail. He seems like the type of asshole who would have Krystiyan Kovalenko for a friend. While he’s worked for Yuri a long time, I suspect his number one client is always himself.

Not that I’m so squeaky clean these days. Everyone knows my last supplier ended up dead, and I just murdered Krystiyan. I’m not to be trusted, either .

The warehouse is dilapidated and freezing cold. Thunder rumbles through the holes in the roof.

“The driver better be on time,” I mutter to Chief.

“He is,” he assures me. “Andrei just texted. They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

That ten minutes feels like an hour. Rafail keeps roaming around the warehouse, which means I have to watch him constantly. I despise working with people I can’t trust.

I came to Moscow for freedom and independence. Instead I’m partnered with one of the last people I would have chosen, saddled with his even worse soldiers. All without making a dime in profit, because Sabrina has managed to royally fuck me again and again.

She was right—going head-to-head against her fucking sucks.

I always want you on my team …

Every word we spoke to each other haunts me. Her voice echoes in my head all day long.

I’m hollow and empty inside. Even if I start making money hand over fist, I already know I won’t enjoy it. I haven’t enjoyed anything since she left. I haven’t been happy for one single minute.

That’s not going to change. Sabrina will go home to Chicago, or she’ll die here in Moscow. No matter how clever she is, how resourceful, she can’t survive long with a price on her head.

I hope she goes home. No matter how much it would pain me, the alternative is so much worse.

Lightning flashes, illuminating the interior of the warehouse in garish brightness, highlighting the jumble of old crates and broken-down m achinery piled around the room. The smell of ozone fills the air.

This place once took shipments of windows and doors. Dusty plates of glass are still stacked against one wall, sending ghostly reflections back at us whenever anyone walks past.

“They’re almost here,” Chief reports, having received another text.

Rafail slaps the large red button on the wall, raising the bay doors once more.

The wind whistles into the warehouse.

Headlights sweep the room ahead of the truck. It rumbles up the ramp, rocking side to side.

Vlad and Andrei leave their bikes outside, following the truck on foot.

“Safe and sound,” Andrei says, pulling off his helmet, running a hand through his blond hair.

“I rode your bike over,” Vlad tells me.

I asked him to because I wanted to go for a ride after this—before I knew how miserable the weather would turn.

Tough shit for me, I guess. I’m not sending Vlad home in the rain.

“That thing’s a beast,” he says. “I could barely hold on to it.”

Pain stabs my chest, like it does a hundred times a day.

“Yeah. I know.”

We’ve barely begun unloading the truck when lightning cracks, apparently opening a rip in the clouds. Freezing rain pours down, leaking through the roof onto our heads .

“Couldn’t have found a warehouse with shingles?” Vlad grouses.

Yuri hears him.

“How many warehouses do you own?” he sneers.

His organization is hierarchal—he dislikes when the Wolfpack even speak in his presence.

I clap Vlad on the shoulder. “We’ll be done soon, brother, you’re working fast.”

This is as much for Yuri as for Vlad—a subtle fuck off.

Yuri rolls his eyes and walks away. He hasn’t unloaded shit, or done anything else useful. He’s the worst kind of boss, barely present. Allowing a slimeball like Rafail to speak and act in his name.

Vlad doubles his pace.

We’ve unloaded almost all the product when I hear the sound of tires in the back lot. I straighten up, motioning for Vlad and Andrei to flank the bay door. They obey at once, grabbing their rifles and taking up a position on either side of the opening.

A car door slams, followed by a spray of gravel as a second vehicle speeds in the lot. Rapid footsteps crunch against the rock as someone sprints toward the warehouse.

I pull my gun, barrel trained at the ramp.

I’m expecting Krystiyan’s men, or maybe the cops.

Instead, a girl bursts into the warehouse.

She looks around, wild-eyed, sweating and panting.

For a moment, I almost don’t recognize Sabrina. The entire side of her face is a bruise so swollen and dark that I can barely see the slit of tha t eye. Her lower lip is double its normal size, with a nasty gash that’s barely scabbed over. Her right arm is wrapped in bandages, the fingers splinted. Some of her hair is singed, the rest of it a matted mane around her head. Her clothes are filthy and burned—I can smell the smoke from here.

The sight of her injuries fills me with a rage so all-encompassing that the muzzle of my gun shakes.

If Cujo were still alive, I’d rip the flesh off his bones with pliers, piece by tiny piece.

Sabrina catches sight of me and goes still. She stands there, unmoving, hands limp at her sides.

No one quite understands what’s happening, until Boris Kominsky and Ippolit Moisey run up the ramp behind her.

Then Yuri hisses, “That’s Sabrina Gallo …”

Boris and Ippolit are equally surprised to meet a dozen guns pointed at their face in what they must have hoped was an abandoned warehouse. They pause on the ramp, feet from their quarry, but unable to take a step further.

Rafail Wasyl waggles the barrel of his gun at the kachki like a ticking finger , saying in his high, thin voice, “Ah, ah, ah … this is our catch, boys.”

He wants the bounty.

Boris and Ippolit are panting, red-faced, furious. They have guns of their own, but they’re more than outnumbered.

“We found her first!” Boris snarls.

Rafail thumbs the safety off his Glock .

“You can leave now, or you can join Cujo in hell,” he says, softly.

Ippolit is already backing down the ramp. It’s the realization that his friend is no longer behind him, as much as the bevy of weaponry, that convinces Boris to do the same.

We wait in silence until the engine growls to life and their car pulls away again.

Before anyone can act, I bellow, “Nobody fucking move!”

I step between Sabrina and all the men behind me, arms spread, trying to cover as much of her as I can.

Yuri’s men are on my left, the Wolfpack on my right. I can feel them shifting and creeping around on both sides, Yuri’s men so they can get behind Sabrina and trap her in the warehouse, mine so they can triangulate and cover me from as many angles as possible.

The tension is so high I’m afraid a single bolt of lightning will startle us all into firing. The rain pounds against the roof, leaking down in a dozen places. My fingers freeze around the handle of my gun.

“What are you doing?” Yuri hisses at me. “Shoot her.”

Sabrina’s eyes widen, even the one horribly swollen and bruised. Her lips part, but no sound comes out.

“NOBODY MOVE!” I repeat, throwing a swift and furious glance at Rafail, who’s trying to creep up on my left side.

Vlad has his rifle pointed at Rafail’s chest.

Still, Rafail smirks at me.

“You can’t be serious … ”

I take another step forward, until Sabrina and I are barely an arms-length apart. She looks up into my face, terrified and shaking.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper.

Her eyes dart around the room, to all the guns pointed directly at her.

So soft I can barely hear her, she says, “I just wanted to tell you … that I’m sorry.”

Her eyes are huge and wet in her battered face. She blinks. Tears run down both cheeks, cold and silvery like the rain. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her cry.

I stare at her, mouth open, unable to believe what I’m seeing, what I’m hearing. Every sense is keyed to the highest pitch, my nerves so tight they feel like they’ll snap. Any moment I expect to catch a storm of bullets from both sides.

“I fucked up,” she sobs. “And you don’t love me anymore.”

I’ve lied to Sabrina, mislead her. But this is the one point on which I could never deceive her: “There is nothing you could do to make me stop loving you.”

She closes her eyes, tears running down her face in a steady flow.

I’d give anything to pull her into my arms, but I can’t move. If I even blink, someone could fire.

She looks up at me again, lips pressed together so tight that the split opens, red and raw. It doesn’t matter how fucked up her face is—nothing in this world can take away her beauty. It shines out from within, a fire that can’t be extinguished. Not even now.

“It’s not enough, though,” Sabrina says, her voice cracking. “If love was enough then we would have made it.”

Rafail stands directly to my left, halted by Vlad’s rifle. Spider-like in his dark suit, Yuri creeps around behind Sabrina instead. All of Yuri’s men have their guns trained on my closest friends.

I point my Beretta at Sabrina’s forehead, the barrel an inch from her skin. Her lips tremble, but she doesn’t beg, she doesn’t even flinch.

“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” I say.

“I’m sorry, too,” she says. “For everything.”

Yuri is behind her now, raising his gun.

I glance at Jasper on my right.

Jaw tight, he gives me the smallest of nods.

I take a deep breath and pull the trigger.