67. Mikhail

Agostino hasn't even hit the ground when I grab Viviana.

"Are you okay?"

She pulls her eyes away from her father's body and nods. "I'm okay."

I run my hands across her shoulders and down her arms. I trace the shadows under her eyes and the quiver in her chin. She's pale and shaking, but she's okay. Not a scratch on her.

I turn to lay eyes on Dante.

They were both out of my sight for too long. I should have gotten them away from the fight, but there wasn't time. I wouldn't have even had time to save Dante, if it hadn't been for?—

I cut the thought off at the root. I need to compartmentalize. One thing at a time.

Anatoly is standing on the other side of the smoking car with Dante latched onto his side. They're looming over Trofim, who is still unconscious on the ground.

"Is Dante hurt?" I ask.

Dante shakes his head at the same time Anatoly answers, "No. He's a little hero. Saved himself over there."

Anatoly sounds chipper for Dante's sake, but I know he's compartmentalizing, too. It's the way we were trained.

I scan the garage, but it's empty. There's no one else standing. No one else to check in on.

They're okay.

Everyone else is okay.

So I drop to my knees next to the only person who isn't.

Raoul hasn't moved since he dropped. He's soaked in an angry red puddle of his own blood. When I roll him onto his back, there's no resistance. No groaning.

Nothing.

I know it's not good, but I roll him over anyway. I lift his shirt and examine the wound the way I have a hundred times before in a hundred different shootouts. But this time, my hands are shaking as I apply pressure to the gaping hole over his heart.

Fluid spurts out of the wound when I first press on it, but it quickly slows.

He has no blood pressure. His veins are stagnant and his heart has stopped and my brother-in-arms is dead on the ground in front of me. I know that, but I check for a pulse anyway.

Nothing.

Viviana kneels on Raoul's other side. Gently, she takes his blood-crusted hands and folds them over his chest. Her voice wobbles as she whispers, "Thank you."

The reality that he's gone crashes down on me all at once. I hang my head. "He saved our son."

This day will play in my head on a loop for the rest of my life. I'll always wonder what I should have done differently.

Viviana reaches over Raoul's body and squeezes my arm. "Tell me what you need, Mikhail. Let me help."

My head is a fucking mess, but I blow out a breath. I've always worked best under pressure. This shouldn't be any different. "Dante shouldn't see any of this. He's been through enough. And I don't want him to remember Raoul like this."

"I'll take him back inside," she offers. "We can wait for you and Anatoly in the hospital."

I don't like the idea of her being out of my sight, but with Agostino and Trofim dead or incapacitated here, she's as safe as she's been in months.

I nod. "Stay close to the guard stationed at the back exit. Call me if anything changes. I'll come find you when we're done."

Viviana moves to stand, but hesitates. She sinks back to her knees and takes my face in her hands. "You are not responsible for this, Mikhail. You did everything you could."

The words are nice, even if they don't do anything to make me feel better right now. I kiss her palm and watch her leave, Dante tucked in her arms.

"Does Raoul still have zip-ties in his jacket pocket?" Anatoly calls over the still-smoking car between us.

I hate snooping through his pockets, but I slide my hand inside his jacket and pull out thick black zip-ties. Now that I've burned through my adrenaline, it takes every ounce of energy left in my body to propel me to my feet and around the car.

Anatoly spots the ties in my hand and his face splits into a sad smile. "I always told him it was pointless to bother with zip-ties when we could take no prisoners instead. If he was here, he'd give me shit for using them now."

If he was here.

He is here. He's less than ten feet away.

But we both know that isn't true. Raoul isn't here in any way that counts, but there's still work to be done and bodies to dispose of. The world doesn't stop spinning, even if it feels like ours has.

Trofim is still prone on the cement, a thin stream of watery blood pouring out of his open mouth. "Do the zip-ties mean you're taking Trofim prisoner?"

Anatoly bends down and zip ties our brother's wrists tightly enough that his fingers look like red, swollen sausages.

"I would love to drag out his punishment, but we have a funeral to plan thanks to this fucking—" He blows out a sharp breath. "Believe it or not, I'm ready to be done with Trofim. Aren't you?"

I study the emotion in my chest. I sort through the tangled web and search for anything having to do with Trofim, but… there's nothing. Somewhere along the way, all the rage I carried for him disappeared.

I just want him gone.

The car is leaking a steady stream of gas and oil and the smell is becoming distracting. Something under the hood is sputtering like it could catch any second.

I tip my head towards the crash. "What do you say we make sure Trofim can't come back from the dead a second time?"

"Music to my ears." Anatoly grins viciously. "Do you have a lighter?"

I toss him the one from my pocket and Anatoly's eyes dance as if he's staring into the flames already.

Silently, we get to work. We'll have witnesses soon enough; we need to move fast. He heaves Trofim's unconscious body over his shoulder and drops him back in the driver's seat. While I'm dragging Agostino's corpse into the passenger seat, I notice Anatoly securing Trofim's hands to the steering wheel.

Together, we carefully move Raoul's body into the backseat of Anatoly's car, far out of reach of the flames.

"What are we going to do with him now?" he asks quietly.

I drape a blanket over him and close the door. "We're going to give him a proper funeral."

"A big blowout," Anatoly agrees. "The kind Raoul would have hated."

I laugh, but it's bitter. I imagine it will be for a long, long time.

"What is the plan if Christos pops up to finish the job these two couldn't?"

"Christos is Ruben Falcao's problem now." I thought that would taste bitter, too, but it doesn't. Handing off this lifestyle to someone else feels like a gift. "In honor of Raoul, I'm ready to put this shit behind me and do whatever the fuck I want."

Anatoly clasps his hand with mine and pulls me in for a quick hug. "Let's start with arson, shall we?"

I usher Anatoly towards the wreck with a wave of my hand. "You do the honors."

He gives me a ridiculously deep bow. Then he turns towards the crash. Faintly, I hear him whisper, "This is for my mom."

Anatoly tosses the lighter into the driver's seat.

The car catches instantly. The heat from the initial explosion sizzles like a sunburn across my skin. Anatoly jogs back to me and watches the fire spread. Flames lick across the interior until the windows shatter from the heat. The paint peels and rolls back like sizzling flesh as the car is entirely engulfed.

"He's not making it out of there," Anatoly mutters.

"I thought you wanted him to know it was you."

He shrugs. "I'll tell him when I see him next."

"In hell?" I roll my eyes. "I hate to break it to you, brother, but you aren't half as bad as you think you are. I don't think hell will take you."

"I guess time will tell. With the deal you just made this morning, it looks like I'm about to start living a reformed life. Maybe we'll both change our ways and earn our wings."

The Bratva signet ring on my pointer finger burns in the residual heat. The hot metal bites into my skin. Frowning, I twist it off for the first time in years. For the first time since I claimed it from Trofim in that hotel bridal suite six years ago.

Sirens wail far off in the distance.

There are still security tapes to be scrubbed and officers to be bribed. The usual clean-up will take even longer without Raoul—just the first of many, many times I'll feel his loss over what's left of my lifetime, I'm sure.

The flames grow and soot spreads across the concrete ceiling. The sirens are getting closer every second.

It all feels like goodbye. A funeral pyre to the life I used to lead.

I turn the ring over in my palm once and then again. Then I hurl it into the flames.

"Time will tell," I repeat.

I clap Anatoly on the back and we walk out of the parking garage together.