30. Yuri

I left her alone, under Maxim’s protection and headed two towns over to one of the other safe houses where we spread rumors Katya was being kept. It was attacked but repelled and we had one of Petya’s men alive. Anton had called and told me that the guy wouldn’t talk unless it was to me, personally.

Not over the phone, not on zoom, in person. And only to me.

It felt like a trap but what choice did I have but go? Maxim was plenty of protection from Petya since all his men were dead by now. So, I went to find out what this guy had to say to me.

Leaving Katya was not easy after that show she put on. She was fierce and tough but so goddamned vulnerable at the same time it made me ache. There went the hope I had been cultivating that she would understand and accept things as they were. As they had to be. I had told her what happened that night Dmitry died and hoped she understood that it wasn’t her fault, it was mine. I took my eyes off the ball that night. I saw the fight Dmitry and Katya had and I chose her. I felt I needed to look after her, the little girl crushed and crying because … because I was in love with her even then.

There’s never been anyone else, only her.

And that’s what killed Dmitry.

My inattention to my job.

My love for Katya.

I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. I couldn’t let myself until the job was done, until she was safe, Petya was gone, and I was in control of the bratva.

Then … but it was no use thinking about that until it actually happened. Not before, no matter what heartache it causes her.

Or me.

If I let myself love her and stop trying to protect her the same thing could happen. I promised myself a long time ago I wouldn’t let that happen.

But she was right that letting it go didn’t have to mean disaster.

It could mean happiness for us too.

She had to give up her survival guilt just like I did and then maybe we could figure out the rest.

But that was for later. I felt too light at the possibility of this decision. I had to bring myself back down to earth and steel myself to get through this afternoon and questioning the last of Petya’s men.

Hope was for later, now I had to abandon it to do my job.

It was dark as I arrived at the alternate safe house. As I drove towards it, I saw it all lit up, every light in every room must be on. And it was all the light for miles around, this desolate lonely farmhouse surrounded by gently sloping, furrowed fields. A place where no one would hear anyone scream, where even gun shots went unheard.

The cleanup team was already at work when I was driving up. Cleaning up the bodies and disposing of them in deep pits, covered in lime, calcium hydroxide to help decomposition and keep the smell down.

Anton met me at the first floor, with Nikita, the man Anton trusted too much. “He’s waiting for you, won’t talk to us despite … encouragement. Nikita here did all the work, really saved my ass.”

“I trust Anton’s judgement about you,” I tell him, not completely honest, and shake his hand. He says nothing. I like that.

“This way, Yuri,” Anton says, leading me to the kitchen where a man was strapped to a chair and signs of his ‘encouragement’ were all over his face and body.

I knew how to make men talk. All men have weaknesses. Many of these weaknesses are acceptable because other men condone them—they have the same weaknesses after all. But some weaknesses are so shameful they must be hidden from other men, never discussed, hidden from all except a man like me, who can see his secret shame and make him confess it.

My skill at knowing these weaknesses—sniffing them out of those dark places was unparalleled. My talent for finding the jugular of a man’s weakness was so exceptional that sometimes I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror.

I wouldn’t need to hate myself this time.

It would be easy on us both.

“Dead man, you have something to say to me?” I ask him.

“Sigereta?” he asks.

I nod to Anton, and he finds one and lights it for the dead man, sticks it between what’s left of his lips.

After a long, deep inhale, the man smiles and looks at me, a slight smile, careful to keep hold of the cigarette, “Mudak! The plan worked. Petya is waiting for you. He has Katya. This was just a feint, and you fell for it. Mudak. Kozyol.”

I took my phone from my pocket and call Maxim. No answer. I call Katya. “Call Maxim until he answers,” I tell Anton. Katya’s phone rings and rings but no one answers.

Panic grabs me by the throat but I need to stay calm. “Get together as many men as possible and come after me to the lake house,” I tell Anton.

“Wait for me, Yuri, don’t go alone.”

“Do as I say,” I tell him, adding: “Surround the house from the road, I’m going in through the lake. We’ll surround it, wait for my signal.”

“What signal?”

“You’ll know it,” I say and walk out to my car.

I drove in a rage, my knuckles white on the steering wheel until I arrived at the lake and calmed myself down.

I looked across the lake and saw 10 houses, all lit up, one of them was mine, but I wouldn’t really know which until I was closer. Damn I wish I had more time. I was parked near an empty house and walked down to the shoreline and untied a small dinghy with two oars and pushed off in it.

The lake was like glass, black and silvery from the moonlight, the only ripples were mine, pulsing from the nose of the boat. I waited until a cloud covered the moon, bathing me in inky black and rowed closer to the opposing shore, narrowing my house—where Katya was— to two or three lights on the opposite shore. I hoped my bedroom lights were on— the sliding glass doors leading to the deck would be the giveaway as I got closer.

A slight headwind knocked me back as I got closer, so I had to bear down on the oars and my arms were screaming at me until I saw the lights on, shining through sliding glass doors peeking through the deck.

Katya was right over there.

Petya too, I recalled, patting my machine gun in my lap.

All the rooms were lit up in the lake house. I preferred that to all dark. Neither of us would have much of a surprise this way.

I tied the dinghy up to the dock, so the wind blew it away from the wood pilings. I didn’t want the aluminum boat clanging against the dock or the shore as I crept up to the house.

Was that something moving on the deck? I crouched and waited for the silhouette to move either against the house light or moonlight. There were movements inside the house, casting shadows outside on the deck, at least two, more bodies moving inside the house, moving from one room to another before settling in the bedroom.

I crept up closer to the house, deciding the bedroom was the place for me to enter and make my stand.

As I approached, the deck lights snapped on and the night erupted with the sounds of a scream—Katya! — then gun fire and crashing glass.