Page 284 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘When?’

‘When it’s safe.’

Recognition moves through Danya’s expression, followed by something colder. ‘And will you be there when it is safe? To explain?’

‘Danya,’ Lachlan warns, glancing at the door.

‘Five minutes of wraparound, do not avoid my question.’

‘When they’re safe, all three of them, then—’

‘You do not expect to survive it.’

‘I’m not planning to die.’

‘You make Charlie Foxtrot hate you so grief will hurt less when you are gone.’ Danya steps closer. ‘What have I missed?’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘No, I understand that you made me part of this without asking,’ he says. ‘I understand that you used my name to break his heart!’

‘It’s for the best.’

In Russian, Danya tells him, ‘It is nothing but cowardice.’

Lachlan’s temper flashes, switching to Russian as well. ‘Be careful.’

‘Or what? Will you hit me? Shoot me? Fire me?’

‘I have to be pragmatic. Obviously I want to make it out with all of you, but in the event that something goes wrong—’

Danya punches him.

It’s barely a love-tap compared to what Lachlan knows he’s capable of, but it’s so unexpected that Lachlan almost loses his balance.

‘Oh look,’ Danya says, cocking his head. ‘Something went wrong and yet you are still alive. Miracle of miracles.’

‘Don’t fucking push for something you can’t finish, Yashin.’

‘Oh, big words, Tanner. Yeah, you wanna go? You wanna show me who’s the best at killing? What do you think happens when you die? Blaire tells Mimi you were brave? I teach her to shoot? She sleeps with your shirt until it stops smelling like you? Fuck you! I will tell that child that her Daddy was a coward till his last breath and that he broke her brother’s heart using my name because he couldn’t face—’

Lachlan punches him back way harder than Danya hit him.

Danya crashes into the prep table, rebounds instantly and drives shoulder-first into Lachlan’s middle. They hit the counter hard enough to buckle a cupboard door. Crockery jumps, falls and explodes across the tiles. Lachlan buries an elbow in Danya’s ribs. Danya answers with a hook that splits his lip, then catches him behind the neck and smashes him face-first across the steel worktop.

Fists, knees, elbows.

Danya’s skull clips Lachlan’s cheek.

Lachlan drives him backwards through a rack of copper pans. Metal crashes around them as Danya catches his shirt, pivots and hurls him across the central island. Lachlan rolls over it, taking bowls, knives and half the Christmas leftovers down with him.

Danya comes across after him.

Lachlan meets him mid-air.

They go through the kitchen table together.

Wood cracks beneath their combined weight. Danya lands on top, Lachlan reverses him, and then neither has enough leverage for anything but close, brutal damage. Short punches driven into ribs and kidneys. Forearms grinding across throats. Blood smeared over white tile, steel and the leftovers from Christmas dinner.