We screech out of the parking lot and past a flurry of red and blue lights as the police surround the club. In all the confusion, they just miss us. Ares drives the truck down the road and into the nearest alley just in case.
“Get down,” he says, pushing my head down. We hide as sirens get closer, then speed past us. After a few moments, we both look up and out the back window.
“Shit, that was close,” Ares says.
“Too close.”
“What do we do now? The crates?—”
“We need to get this truck and the crates off the fucking road. They’ll be canvassing the neighborhood within the hour.”
I pull out my phone. Most of my guys were at the club tonight. Any of them who didn’t get shot are probably being arrested as we speak. We need to start the contingencies for just this problem. I dial Ivan’s number.
“Hello?” he says groggily.
“Ivan, I need you to meet us at the warehouse in an hour.”
A slight pause, then movement. “Okay. I take it things did not go as planned.”
“They did not. One hour, Ivan.”
I hang up and lean back in my seat. “The warehouse by the docks. Let’s go.”
Ares puts the car in drive and we’re off.
Thanks to Aresknowing the back alleys and side streets, we manage to evade the police all the way here. We pull up to the warehouse encased in darkness and looming over us. Out here, there’s nothing but the sound of the water lapping at the shore of the lake about a mile or so away. We get out of the car as another car pulls into the lot behind us. As I watch Ivan park next to us, I start to wish I could have told him to bring a few more people with him.
He gets out of the car. He’s thrown on a track suit and his usually well coiffed hair is mussed. “What the hell happened tonight?” he asks. “It’s all over the news that the FBI just raided the club?”
“Yeah,” Ares says. “It was fucked up. Abate might’ve bought it. I didn’t see him when the bullets started flying.”
“We can compare notes later,” I say, walking to the back. “Let’s get all this back in the warehouse.”
I open the hatch and the two of them grab one of the crates from end to end and carry it across the lot to the warehouse’s front door. I watch them until they disappear in the darkness, then I pull out my phone. If what happened is all over the radio, I should call Sasha and Ember?—
The sound of a gun clicks in my ear and cold steel presses against the back of my head. “Don’t fucking move,” somebody says in Fenya.
I don’t need this right now. “You picked the wrong guy to rob tonight,” I answer back in turn. “If you step away now, I’ll let you live.”
“I don’t think so, Orlov. Tonight is your reckoning.”
The time and space between the moment I realize that this isn’t a normal robbery goes by like the blink of an eye. I’ve only got a breath to make a choice before he pulls that trigger.
I make that choice and move fast, ducking under the gun and turning as it goes off. I bring my arm up and around, crashing into his and slamming it into the truck’s bumper. He yells out as the sound of the gun clatters behind me. I don’t even give him time to react. I punch him squarely in the nose. His head jerks back and he stumbles, holding his arm as blood pours from his rapidly swelling nostrils.
“Fuck!” he curses. He looks up at me in a scowl and I instantly recognize him.
The last time I saw him, he was a shitty little twelve-year-old holding a gun bigger than he was. Back then, I disarmed him and gave him that cut over his eye as a thank you. I also let him walk away. If I had known then who he was, I would have shot him in the head then.
Now it all makes sense.
“You must be Sergei,” I say.
He stands up. He’s about the same height as me with a little less muscle mass. His blond hair is cut short on the sides and a little too long on top. It’s falling into his face now as he regards me.
“And you’re a dead man,” he says. He reaches for a knife in his belt and swings it at me in one smooth movement. I only havetime to block and he slices my forearm. I manage to hit him in the side of his face with the back of my fist. Again he stumbles back. I catch him in the chest with a palm punch.
He’s on the ground for just a moment, but he scrambles to his feet, ready for more.
