"Get the car," I order, and I'm already pulling Tatiana toward the street. "We're leaving now."
Kirill runs, racing up the block, and less than a minute later, he brings the vehicle around. I push Tatiana into the back seat before climbing in beside her.
She's pressed against my side in the back seat, still shaking but alive. It's a small miracle yet again, and I make a mental note to pray for God's mercy on my despicable soul for all the grace I've encountered for the past few weeks. I put my arm around her shoulders and pull her closer.
"You're safe now." I say it more to myself than to her. "I've got you."
"Oh, God," she whimpers, burying her face in the side of my chest as I squeeze her tighter and count my blessings.
"Shh, hey, I'm here. It's over, for good this time. We got them." I can't promise her this for real, but I can make it so that she never knows how intense the war gets if our men scattered across town fail.
When we pull into Yuri's driveway, the entire place is lit up like a party is going on. We climb out of the car, and I notice several others already parked here, along with the two who were following behind me on the way back from the police station.
Yuri is waiting in his office with a bottle of vodka already open on his desk. He looks up when we enter, and he narrows his eyes in concern when he sees Tatiana shaking beside me.
"Does she need a doctor?" he asks, already reaching for his phone, but I wave him off.
"It's just a cut. She's fine." I guide her to a chair, and she sinks into it gratefully as I turn toward my brother to find out howthings across town have gone. "What's the status on the other operations?"
"Complete success across the board." Yuri pours three glasses and hands one to each of us, and I've never seen a wider grin on his face. "Lev's team hit the Kozlov warehouse on the east side and burned it to the ground. Fyodor took out their main stash house in the north district. Vadim destroyed their weapons cache near the docks."
"Casualties?" I ask as I take a drink. My concern for Tatiana isn't gone yet, but it's good to hear that the alliance is falling.
"None on our side." Yuri's smile is predatory. "Can't say the same for them. Current estimate is thirty-seven enemy dead with at least a dozen more wounded."
The office door opens and Lev walks in with Fyodor right behind him. They're both covered in soot and one of Fyodor's sleeves is torn, but they're grinning like they just won the lottery.
"Uncle." Lev nods at Yuri before looking at me. "The east side is completely clear. Nothing left but ashes."
"North district is the same." Fyodor accepts a glass of vodka from Yuri. "We made sure nothing could be salvaged."
More of my men filter into and out of the office over the next thirty minutes. Vadim reports that the dock warehouse burned for an hour before the fire department could even get close to it. Lazar confirms that the Veche family's safe house in the suburbs is gone. And Oleg brings word that their secondary headquarters near the airport has been reduced to rubble.
Every target we identified has been hit and destroyed. And every cache of weapons or drugs or money has been seized or burned.The Kozlov and Veche operations in St. Petersburg have been effectively dismantled in a single coordinated strike.
"Not a single casualty on our side." Yuri raises his glass. "That's what I call a successful operation."
The men gathered in the office raise their glasses in response, drinking to their victory. Tatiana sits quietly in her chair watching everything with wide eyes, still processing what she's been through tonight.
I move to stand beside her chair and put my hand on her shoulder. She reaches up and covers my hand with hers to let me know she's alright. All of this is because of her too. Without her bravery and her willingness to put herself on the line for us, we would never have known there was a mole in our organization or followed them back to the source. The data from Linda's phone was the key to all of this.
"To the Gravitch family," Yuri says, lifting his glass, "and to eliminating our enemies."
After all the drinking and recollecting of war stories fades and men trickle out one by one, I help Tatiana out of her vest and help her relax in Yuri's comfortable recliner in the corner with a bottle of vodka and a cigarette. I don't want her to fall into a bad habit, but she's earned it tonight. When she's settled, I meander back to the liquor cabinet to look for a fresh bottle and find none.
"You did well tonight." Yuri appears beside me with the vodka bottle. "All of you did."
"It's not over." I accept another drink, but I know there's still more work to be done. "Malcom is still out there."
"But his power base is destroyed." Yuri gestures at the men leaving his office. "He has no safe houses, no weapons caches, no money, no soldiers. He's just one man running for his life."
"A single man can still do a lot of damage." I look down at Tatiana. "Especially if he's desperate."
"Then we'll hunt him down and finish this properly." Yuri grips my shoulder and squeezes hard. "But tonight, we celebrate our victory."
When the others file out and it's just Yuri, me, Lev, and Vadim, we settle from boisterous celebration to a calm conversation seated across the room from each other.
Tatiana eventually falls asleep in the chair with her head lolled to the side, exhausted from the ordeal and the adrenaline crash. I let her sleep while I accept congratulations from my brother and feel fatigue starting to settle in on me too.
