“If Zane and Maya are somehow still alive in there,” my father says, “we will do everything in our power to save them.”
I nod once, looking up at him. This much, this shred of humanity, it can redeem my father and uncle to me. It has to. Because if it doesn’t, I don’t know how I can ever fight alongside them again. I don’t know if I can ever hold a gun for them again.
Soldier.
No. I’m not just a soldier. I’m not just a hitman. I’m a person. A man, with a family, and a future. A man with a wife. A woman I love who is good and bold and courageous and selfless and doesn’t know the most important person in her life has been taken from her, despite all she’s done to save him.
Not just him.Because it’s clear Zane did this, woke and left in the dead of night and went to give herself to Lebedev, not just to free her father, but to freemeof her. She probably thought that if she died, my life would be easier. I could return to going through the motions as I always have. I could work for my father and one day inherit his empire.
But she was wrong. I can’t go back to living the way I was. She’s given me a glimpse of what we could be. What we could become and what we could have.
I am not just a soldier anymore.
But this last fight—I’ll fight it. To save them. And after this, when it’s all said and done, if we get out of here alive, my decision is made. We are leaving this world forever, and we are not going to look back.
“But,” my father says, jerking me back to the cold, rainy storage lot. His grip on my shoulder tightens. “If they get in the way of this mission, we have no choice.”
“No… choice?” I don’t understand. I frown at my father, trying to read in his face what exactly he means.
He pins me with a cold, vacant stare. “If your cousin or wife get in our way, we’ll have no choice but to remove them. If they slow us down, we’ll have no choice but to leave them. It’s not a pretty reality, but reality it is. You understand, don’t you, Nikolai?”
My world cracks right down the middle. He can’t be this inhuman. Can he? “Is that what Mom did?”
His expression betrays a flicker of grief, then rage, then nothing. “Don’t speak of your mother.”
“Did she get in the way, Dad? Did she slow you down? Was her memory too much to handle, so you forgot about her?”
Crack!The back of his hand strikes me so hard the sound echoes off the corrugated steel storage containers. I touch my tender jaw and look up at my father, smiling coldly.
“So,” I say softly, “there’s some feeling left in you yet.”
“We aren’t afforded the same luxuries as most. When it comes down to the wire, Nikolai, we aren’t human. We’re soldiers. Just like you will be in there, if you want to leave with your life.”
A cold, hateful dread settles in my bones. It dawns on me that he means what he says. He will kill me before surrendering his power. He will let Maya and Zane die before surrendering his power. He and my uncle are the same. Vacant, ghosts of the men they once were. Maybe that’s the real reason they killed Zane’s father. He was the only one among them who could still be human. Who could still love his daughter and put her above everything—even the mafia. Maybe they killed him because they couldn’t bear to see what they’d become.
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“Good.” My father turns without another word, and strides toward the warehouse. He seems unshaken by the fact that he just threatened his only son’s life for revenge.
But I will never forget. I touch the gun at my hip, and follow him into war.
20
Zane
Yvan Lebedev is not what I expected.
I’d always pictured someone massive; broad-shouldered with black, shadowed eyes and a grim mouth. But the man who enters the room, flanked by a half-dozen tank-like armed guards, is none of these things.
He’s tall and narrow, with thick dark hair oiled elegantly back and shot through with silver. His eyes are ice blue, and his mouth is bracketed by laugh lines. He wears a fine suit though we must be going on dawn at this point, and his hands gleam with what could be dozens of crisp gold rings.
Maya smiles when she sees him. It’s not a kind, friendly smile, but one full of malice and vengeance. She says something sharp in Russian that makes Yvan laugh—a surprisingly genuine, almost merry sound.
“How I’ve missed you,” he says. His Russian accent is almost gone, fully Americanized, and his voice gravelly and pleasant. “Ah, my little Maya. And who is your friend?”
“Zane,” I say, to protect Maya from having to decide whether or not she wants to give me up. She shoots me a jolted look that confirms she would have tried not to, and endured whatever Lebedev might have thrown at her in punishment. “Zane Elin. Only daughter of Vadim Elin.”
Lebedev’s pleasant smile falls unceremoniously. He strokes his chin, observing me as though unsure how to proceed with this information. “Yes,” is all he says in the end. “Though to volunteer such information easily, you must know and care little for its value.”
