Page 139 of Emerald Vices
The dog has proven himself to be a force of nature in the battle. His teeth are stained with the remains of Nikolai’s men, fur stuck out in stiff, red peaks where they bled on him as he tore out their throats.
“I saw him,” Leonty pants, raising his gun and firing as several more Rostov men run towards us. “He was here just a minute ago.”
“Until he wasn’t,” Shura growls. “I saw him run.”
I squint into the distance. I can just about make out a rickety, bronze gate through the smoke. It separates the front of the compound from the back.
“That has to be where they’re keeping Grigory.” I shoot two men in the head before racing forward with Shura and Leonty flanking me. “We have to breach those gates.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Shura coughs, wiping soot and ash off his face with his forearm. “All his forces are preoccupied?—”
He cuts off suddenly, his body going rigid, his face narrowing into a furious scowl as he stares at one of the watchtowers along the front perimeter of the compound.
“What is it?” I squint, trying to follow his gaze.
“I thought I saw…”
“Vladimir,” I growl, finally seeing the man I’ve known since I was a child. I don’t expect a warm greeting since I just killed his son, Efrem, for wavering loyalties.
Wordlessly, we close in around the tower. Leonty raises his gun to blindly light it up from below, but I grab his wrist to stop him.
“I have an easier way of weeding out rats. Shura,” I say without ever taking my eyes off the tower, “smoke them out.”
Nodding, Shura kindles a fire at the base of the watchtower. The beautiful, orange flames rise, consuming the aged wood hungrily.
Vladimir emerges on the upper platform, his face contorted with rage and drenched in sweat as he attempts to take us out from above.
We duck, avoiding his bullets as a few desperate men leap from the tower. Their bones snap as they hit the ground, but they aren’t in pain long. We slaughter them where they land.
“Mudak!” Vladimir bellows, ignoring the flames licking his boots. “I will have my vengeance for Efrem!”
“Your son was a traitor,” I spit back, twisting around to take aim at the legs of the tower.
A few strategically placed shots are all it takes for one of the tower’s supports to give way. Leonty, Shura, and I scramble out of range as it collapses in a pile of fiery ash, taking Vladimir out with it.
Good fucking riddance.
As the smoke clears, though, I notice two figures on the other side of the wreckage. The taller of the two men is staring right at me. Before I even see his face, I know who it is.
“SLAVIK!” I thunder, raising my gun.
My father flees like the coward he is, weaving in and out of the fiery remnants of the watchtower. He scrabbles out of sight as my bullets bury themselves in burning wood instead of in his beating heart.
I don’t think—I just take off after him.
But I don’t get far before a blur of motion pops up in my peripherals half a second before it barrels straight into me.
I crash to the ground in a tangle of limbs, the breath driven from my lungs. Against all odds, I keep hold of my gun. I’m a millisecond away from unloading a clip into this bastard’s stomach when I hear something that freezes my trigger finger.
“Dad?”
“Misha?” I choke.
His teeth are chattering hard as he scrambles backwards on all fours, blinking furiously against the swirling smoke. “It’s me! Don’t shoot.”
Rage I’ve never felt before rises up in me. I grab his arm and drag him behind a sheet of twisted metal so we’re somewhat shielded from the fighting. My hands are shaking as badly as his. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Natalia is here,” he blurts. “I came with her.”