75. Radimir

75

RADIMIR

I ducked back behind the bar again, panting, as more bullets took chunks out of the bar top. Spartak and his men were coming, creeping towards us through the smoke, and we couldn’t hold them, not with just two of us. I exchanged a look with Alexei. It’s over.

And then suddenly there was shouting from the other end of the club, behind Spartak. Clouds of smoke were billowing from behind the DJ booth and then...people started emerging from up out of the floor. People dressed in laboratory coveralls. What the hell?

I had no idea what was going on. All that mattered was that they were coming up from some sort of basement. I was betting that was where Bronwyn was. And it was definitely where the fire was: the smoke was getting thicker and thicker, lit up by orange flames. Chyort , I have to get down there.

But between us and the hole were Spartak and his men. They were distracted, trying to grab the people and corral them back downstairs... maybe we can take them. We had to, or Bronwyn was going to die down there. I nodded to Alexei, and we ran.

For the first few seconds, it looked like we had a chance. Some of the guards were looking the other way, focused on the escaping lab workers. But then they looked around and saw us and the bullets started flying, catching us out in the open. I felt one tug at the fabric of my jacket, inches from my chest. Alexei stumbled as a bullet clipped his leg. We couldn’t fire back, not without hitting all the panicked people running back and forth. One of the guards lifted his gun and aimed right at me and I grimaced, bracing myself…

The guard suddenly flew sideways as a man in a suit rammed into him. Gennadiy!

Another guard fell, the handle of a knife sticking from his chest, and I saw Valentin standing in the shadows. A third doubled over as Mikhail swung a baseball bat into his stomach. And Mikhail’s dogs were there, too, two of them latching on to a guard’s arms and pulling him down while a third put his jaws warningly around his throat. I blinked: daylight was flooding into the club through the front door: my brothers must have fought their way in past the bouncers. And now the door was being held open by a flood of panicked people trying to get outside. For the first time since Gabriella killed the power, I could see beyond the reach of my flashlight. Where’s Spartak? I’d lost sight of him.

I ran over to the fight and staggered to a stop. “What are you doing here?” I yelled at Gennadiy. “I told you to stay away!”

Gennadiy punched the guard in the face. “And I told you, you’re my brother.” Another guard ran towards us. “Go and find your wife!” Gennadiy told me. “We’ve got this!”

Alexei nodded to me and joined my brothers. I ran to where the people were emerging from behind the DJ booth. As I got closer, I saw a square hatch had opened in the floor. A stream of people, all women, were emerging. But Bronwyn wasn’t among them. And I could see tongues of orange flickering down there. I raced forward?—

A bottle shattered against the back of my head, and I went down hard in a shower of glittering glass fragments. My neck and back were soaked and I smelled vodka. Pain detonated in the center of my brain and throbbed outwards like a nuclear blast cloud, pushing out everything else. I couldn’t think, couldn’t function. I lay there for a few seconds and then tried to stand, but my feet just scrabbled at the floor uselessly. It slowly sank in that I was hurt. Hurt bad.

Spartak’s shoes appeared in front of my face, glass crunching under his shoes like a fresh winter frost. “Oh Radimir,” he chided. “Look what’s become of you.”

I knew I needed to get up, but my brain wouldn’t issue any orders. The pain was so bad it vaporized all thought.

“I’m going to kill you,” Spartak told me coldly. “Then I’ll deal with your brothers and your uncle. When Konstantin hears the Aristovs are gone, he’ll pull his men out.” He placed his shoe on my cheek and pressed. The side of my face started to press into the broken glass on the floor, but I couldn’t move: every time I tried to do something, the pain annihilated the thought, a blast cloud turning houses to matchwood. I was done.

“You make me sick,” said Spartak, pushing a little harder. “You used to be one of us. No one was more ruthless than Radimir Aristov. And now you give yourself up for a woman!”

I’d had to close one eye because it was millimeters away from touching the glass. Through the other, I could see my brothers, Mikhail and Alexei still fighting the guards. I was on my own.

I looked at the hatch. It was blurry...in fact, everything was blurry. I must have a concussion. But I could see that women had stopped coming out of the hole, and flames were leaping up into the club, spreading the fire.

Spartak saw me looking. “Oh, she’s down there,” he confirmed. “I left her down there.”

Fear clawed at my throat. I stared at the hatch, unable to take my eyes off it.

“Look at me!” roared Spartak, and he kicked me in the kidneys, rolling me onto my back. That’s when I heard it in his voice: the same anger that I’d felt all those years ago, when I’d cut Alexei out of my life. When I’d been angry with him for falling in love.

“You’re pathetic!” yelled Spartak, kicking me again. “You die for a woman! ”

Except it wasn’t anger in his voice: it was fear. He had Liliya but she was a possession, not someone who loved him. He feared, he knew, that he’d never have what I had.

I still had it. I still had her.

I just had to... get the fuck up.

The pain in my head didn’t diminish. But now there was something in the firestorm, something made of diamond, indestructible. I focused on it.

Spartak yelled and swung back his foot for another kick, this one aimed at my head. But at the last second, I reached up and caught his ankle, the tip of his polished shoe an inch from my face.

She needs me .

I rolled onto my side and braced my hands on the floor. As I pushed, I felt shards of glass lancing into my palms, but I ignored it. I groaned. Grunted.

And got the fuck up.

Spartak stared at me in disbelief as I slowly rose to my feet. I could feel something warm dripping down my neck and wondered how badly my head was bleeding. One side of my face was bleeding, too, and my hands were a chewed-up mess.

I gripped my waistcoat, leaving bloody handprints, and tugged it straight.

Spartak ran at me, swinging wildly. I stepped forward and punched him in the jaw, ignoring the pain from the glass in my hands. The blow took him right off his feet and he went crashing down on his back. I followed him down, hitting him again and again, until finally he lay still.

Then I heaved myself to my feet again and stumbled down the stairs into the fire. My vodka-soaked jacket caught fire immediately and I ripped it off me just before the flames reached my face. I couldn’t see anything but smoke. “Bronwyn!” I yelled. My voice sounded slurred and slow. There was no reply, and I yelled again, fear crushing my heart. “ Bronwyn! ”

The flames were roaring so loud I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hear her even if she answered. I pushed on down the hallway, skirting around fires that seared my face. Something crunched under my feet and I looked down to see pills: thousands of pills, strewn across the floor. Blood was dripping down onto them...God, I was leaving a trail , and I was lightheaded, too. How badly was I bleeding?!

It didn’t matter. I’d search every inch of this place if I had to. “Bronwyn! Bron—” The smoke got in my throat, and I started coughing, then couldn’t stop. I doubled over and went down on my knees.

“ Radimir!”

Her voice, somewhere over to my left. I crawled through the smoke, still coughing. And then I saw her, and it was like my heart started beating again. She was on her knees next to Liliya, pressing on a wound in the woman’s stomach. “I’m pressing on it!” she told me, tears running down her cheeks. “That’s what you have to do, right?”

I threw my arms around her and hugged her tight, nodding weakly, still coughing. Liliya opened her eyes and looked up at me, her face deathly white.

“She can’t walk,” Bronwyn told me desperately. “I tried but I couldn’t get her up the stairs.”

An explosion shook the hallway and a fresh, choking cloud of black smoke swallowed us up, burning our eyes and forcing its way down into our lungs. I laid a bloody hand on Bronwyn’s shoulder. She glared at me. “I’m not leaving her! I promised!”

My chest went tight. My little librarian was so brave...but the flames were spreading fast. We couldn’t stay, and I couldn’t carry Liliya, not in the state I was in. My jaw set and I gripped Bronwyn’s shoulders: I’d drag her away, if I had to.

And then out of the smoke came a big, gloriously familiar figure. Alexei scowled down at me: what have you gotten yourself into now? Then he bent down, scooped Liliya up into his arms and turned towards the hatch. “We go now,” he told me.

I didn’t argue. I clambered to my feet and Bronwyn and I supported each other as we staggered down the hallway and back to the stairs.

When we got back up to the club, we found things had gotten worse, fast. The fire had really taken hold, spreading across carpets and up walls that Spartak had been too cheap to fireproof. The entire place was ablaze. But at least with the door open, the people had finally been able to get out. The club was empty.

Almost empty. My brothers intercepted us as we moved across the dance floor. “ Chyort , brother,” said Gennadiy, staring at my wounds, my singed, bloody shirt and my missing jacket.

“I’m okay,” I wheezed. And I pulled Bronwyn tighter to my side. Better than okay. Together, we all headed for the door.

“Wait,” croaked Bronwyn. “Spartak.”

Everyone looked at her in confusion. “He’s back there, out cold,” I told her, pointing.

“Let him burn,” said Gennadiy viciously.

Bronwyn shook her head. “He’s the one who faked the phone call! If we get him out, he can tell The Eight what he did!”

I stared at her. She’s right. I would have left him there and lost our only chance at clearing our name. Whatever did I do without her?

I showed Valentin and Gennadiy where I’d left Spartak’s unconscious body—none of his men had tried to save him, they must have all fled when the club caught fire. My brothers picked up Spartak and a few moments later we emerged into blissfully cold, clean night air. We were coughing, our lungs raw from the smoke, our skin was singed, and I was bleeding everywhere and couldn’t really see straight. But we were alive.

The street was filling up with fire trucks and paramedics and I could hear police sirens approaching, too. We took Liliya straight to one of the ambulances. Gennadiy, Valentin and Mikhail quickly put Spartak in their car so that they could spirit him away before the cops got him. A rental car came screeching around the corner and Gabriella stuck her head out of the window. “Get in!”

Alexei, Bronwyn and I climbed into the back. As the first police cars turned into the street, Gabriella roared away. She twisted around to look at us. “Hospital?”

I looked around. Spartak was gone. Everyone was okay. And I had my wife back.

“Hospital,” I agreed. And passed out.