37. Kristof

The doorman's body hits the floor with a sickening thud, dead from a single, clean shot to the head.

No one reacts. Nastja's shot is silent enough that no one inside the hotel is alerted.

It didn't take long to confirm that this was where Aleksander was staying and even less time to confirm that he was on the fourth floor. With the element of surprise on our side, we use silencers to keep our arrival a surprise for as long as possible.

Ivan and Nastja enter ahead of me, parting the double doors with their shoulders as they raise their pistols. I stride in between them, lift my gun, and send two bullets silently into the chest of the man at the desk. He falls against the desk, spilling a half-filled coffee cup across his keyboard and desk. The resulting clatter draws the attention of a guard armed with an assault rifle. As soon as he turns his head, Ivan shoots him dead.

Nastja darts up to the desk and leaps over, setting her gun down and accessing the computer. Ivan and I sweep the rest of the lobby as Nastja works her magic, and then she lifts her head with a smirk.

"Stairwell is the only way in or out," she says.

"Excellent." I tighten my grip on my gun and head toward the door marked STAIRS in gold lettering. The luxury of this place will do nothing to hide the carnage I leave in my wake.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Ivan dips through the door of the first floor. Nastja takes the second floor, and I continue until the third-floor door comes into view. That's my cue. I slip through the door, gun raised, and hit the hallway light switch which plunges the entire area into darkness.

On cue, the several Orlova guards posted on this floor melt out from the walls and turn on their flashlights. They might as well have shot themselves for how easy they've just made this for me.

I break into a sprint down the length of the hallway, and men fall at my feet. Each bullet finds its mark in the chest and head of each guard I pass. Light after light topples to the ground, slipping from the lax hands of dead men. I shoot and run, swiftly killing six men. The seventh man has enough time to react to his fallen comrades and he's ready for me. He drops and rolls on the floor, taking his flashlight with him, and when he gets back on his feet, we collide with a crack of thunder.

He grunts against me as I wind one arm around his neck and tighten him into a chokehold. He drives an elbow back into my ribs, and then I press the barrel of my gun to his spine and fire twice.

He drops like a sack of rocks and silence falls, broken only by my own panting.

Smooth as butter.

Back out in the stairwell, I'm joined by Ivan. Nastja arrives a minute later, reloading her gun as she reaches me and flashes me a smile.

"Ready for this big fish?" she asks.

"As I'll ever be."

Unlike the others, the fourth-floor hallway is deserted. I don't pull the light trick here as, knowing Aleksander, he'll have kept the best men closest to him, and they won't be dumb enough to turn on their lights.

We take the formation of an arrow, with me leading, and move down the hallway to the suite at the end. Ivan and Nastja check each door on their respective sides of the hall, but they're all locked. Makes sense. Aleksander would buy out the entire floor.

We keep our ears peeled, though, ready for any guard who slips out behind us.

"Nothing," Ivan murmurs, checking the last door. That just leaves the last one in front of me.

On the other side is Aleksander. The man who has taken and spread my loyalty so thin that I almost lost myself. Who didn't care when Russian blood washed the streets and drowned the docks, who held back when our own people sought feeding elsewhere. The man who was prepared to send Alena to the dogs for his own benefit.

He never should have come here.

Stealth leaves me in the last few steps, and I stride forward, lift one leg, and savagely kick the door open in one move. The lock clatters, useless as wood splinters and the door crashes open.

Nastja, Ivan, and I sprint inside and come to a stop in the middle of the room, facing down the man I laid years of loyalty at the feet of.

Aleksander Orlova stands slowly, surrounded by several guards who stand strong with their rifles trained on me and my siblings. Men I used to call my own. Amid the sea faces, near the front left, stands Alexei.

I wondered when we would meet again.

"Kristof," Aleksander barks, barely concealing the surprise on his face. "I'm impressed. I purposefully avoided all of the Family hotels."

"Well." I smirk, tilting my gun slightly. "You're not the only one good at uncovering secrets."

And I had a little help.

"I didn't come here for chit-chat or even to negotiate." I know where I stand. Alena is mine, and soon, the title of Pakhan will be as well. I will bring the Russian Mafia into a new era of prosperity and peace with Alena at my side. As it should be.

"Really?" Aleksander's eyes narrow. "Not even to beg for your life?"

"It's not me who's going to beg." I scoff. "Have you not seen the full picture yet? You came here with a handful of men and think you are on safe soil? You should have stayed in America. Your time is up, Aleksander."

"Me?" A deep chuckle erupts from him. "Don't you know that you have already lost? This is just a formality."

My confidence wavers ever so slightly.

"It took no time at all to work out that you had scurried back to your home as if being here would protect you at all." Aleksander steps forward, a movement mirrored by his guards. "Did you really think I would let you get away with kidnapping my daughter?"

"You would have found her if you retracted your head from the Kuznetsovs' assholes," I spit. "Your efforts to get her back? Pitiful, and I know because I was fucking in charge of it. So many of our enemies could have snuck in and swooped her away, but instead of even considering that, you took Mara's word and wasted so much time searching your own people. It was almost too easy to keep her from you."

"Enough!" Aleksander snaps. "I will be getting her back once we are done here."

"She doesn't want to come back," I growl. "She wants to stay here with me. With someone who cares for her. Not that you would know a thing about what she wants if you'd ever spent an ounce of time with her."

"Don't tell me what I know about my own daughter!" Aleksander roars, pointing at me.

"You know nothing! You've always cared about her worth as a deal, as someone to be wed off to increase your own power," I snarl back. "Treating her like some kind of object rather than someone you care about."

Given my sexual desires, the irony isn't lost on me.

"You were right there with me!" Aleksander's face is almost purple. "By my side, making those decisions!"

"No! That was all you and Mara and that fucking wedding. I saw her for what she really was, what she really needed. Just like I see the countless men we've lost because of you, because you clung to the wrong opportunities. I mean" —I spread my arms wide— "you're in Russia, and blind to the struggles of your own Family here, of your own people who rely on exports. Instead, you want to secure weapons from Mexico without a care!"

"Don't you dare tell me what I know or don't know! I have kept this family afloat for decades and you won't stop that!" Aleksander snarks, erupting in his anger. "I know what is best!"

"Did the Irish tell you that?" I scoff lightly. I don't know the extent of Irish involvement yet, but I know Aleksander wouldn't be here without them. I have no doubt that Seamus betrayed me at that meeting.

"Fuck the Irish," Aleksander snarls. "You try to deflect, but you, I trusted you. I trusted you with the Family, with my own daughter. You were her godfather, for fuck's sake! But no, you're like a fucking dog, Kristof, and that's all you will be. A dog that can't let go of a bone once he has it. Not the Petrovs with your incessant pushing to have them taken care of, to our talk of Family here. Here is not where the power is, and now?"

Aleksander is seething, and my anger rises to meet him as each insult spews from his fat mouth. The small, quiet part of me that might have let him walk away alive shrivels up in an instant.

"You overstepped," Aleksander roars, spitting saliva as well as words. "What's your plan, huh? You turn up here, the three of you, and think you can kill me?"

"Yes." I shrug, tightening my grip on my gun.

"And the men loyal to me?"

"They've all seen your leadership," I bark out, clenching my teeth together. "It's a wonder they don't shoot you themselves."

Aleksander roars and pulls a handgun from his belt and opens fire within half a second, giving me no time to react.

A terrible, deafening silence falls as Ivan, on my left, suddenly crumples to the ground like a rock. He folds as if there's nothing but air inside his body, and when he lands, blood begins pooling around his head from a gunshot clean between his eyes.

Out of the corner of my eye, Nastja's lips part wide, but no sound reaches my ears. I can only stare down at the dead body of my brother. It happened so fast, barely half a second, and he was gone.

My brother is dead.

Something cracks open in my chest and spreads through my entire body like dark smoke. It fills my chest and clogs my lungs, making breathing almost impossible. My anger ignites like the flick of a lighter and red pours across my vision.

Nastja drags me behind a tipped-over table, saving me from a hail of bullets, and suddenly, I can hear again. Gunfire is erupting behind us and bullets thunk into our wooden shield. Nastja is on her knees, and she returns fire, then leans down and grabs my shirt. Tears cling to her dark lashes as she shakes me.

"Kristof!" she scolds. "Get it together! For Alena!"

For Alena.

Energy surges through me, and I clamber up, opening fire as soon as I lock eyes with the guards advancing on us. Two drop from my bullets and one from Nastja as she screams out her rage, firing without pause. I follow suit, blind to the body of my brother. The only man I see clearly is Aleksander, and I want him.

I want to crush his bones beneath my fists and watch the light slowly fade from his eyes.

I shoot, taking out more men until my gun clicks. Darting back behind cover, I reload with a spare mag from my pocket and then I'm back up, shooting wildly, yet I hit my targets. Men go down like bowling pins. I've always been the better shot.

Aleksander is pulled back by one of his guards toward the door at the far end, and they start to close in around him, blocking him from view. I shoot two more men, sending one body crashing into another, and then my gun clicks again.

I'm out of ammo. Throwing myself back behind the table, Nastja pants next to me and tosses her own empty weapon out of the way.

"We have to go," she yells. "Now!"

I nod in agreement.

Suddenly, there's a lull in the gunfire. I twist around and peek through a crack in the table formed from impact.

It's Alexei, Katja's brother. He looks hungry for the kill, hurrying forward to secure us and blocking the shots of others.

I know differently.

Not long before I left for Russia, Alexei contacted me. He revealed that he had been the one to get Katja and Alena their fake IDs. The kid was sick with guilt, going insane that Aleksander would kill him and sell his sister, or worse. I soothed those worries and took him under my wing.

Without him, we never would have known Aleksander was here.

And his current advancement isn't to secure the kill but to give me a window. A small opportunity to get the fuck out of here.

"Hall?" Nastja asks, and we glance through the door I kicked in. The hall floods with men who had to run up four flights of stairs to help their boss.

"Window," I decide. I grab Nastja's hand, and we leap up from behind cover, sprinting as fast as we can across the room. Alexei opens fire, a few bad shots, and out of the corner of my eye, Aleksander fights against his guards and raises his gun.

He fires as Nastja, and I crash through the window and fall with a hundred shards of glass down onto the broken fire escape below. The impact sends an audible crack through my chest as my ribs break, and I cough painfully, gasping for air. Then I push up and grab Nastja's hand to run.

Only Nastja doesn't move. Her grip is weak.

I turn on my knee, and my pounding heart seizes in my throat.

"No…"

Glass rains down slowly around us like snowflakes, clattering down onto the broken metal. Distant voices yell two floors above us, and Nastja, my darling sister, gurgles in front of me.

Aleksander's wayward shot struck her in the neck. She took that bullet for me.

Blood pools in the hollow of her throat, and she gurgles, drowning in her own blood. She clutches at me weakly, and I drag her into my arms.

"Nastja, no, no—fuck, no, no! Not you too, please, not you too, please!"

Blood pours from her lips, rolling down the side of her face and soaking into my hands. It spurts like a fountain from the wound in her throat, and she desperately grips at me, her eyes fluttering.

"Goin'—to Ivan—please…"

"No." The word punches from me like a wound, and I hold her close, petting her hair and trying to stem the blood flow as if my touch will soothe her.

"P–Please," she gurgles again, and I instantly know what she's asking.

She doesn't want to suffer. She doesn't want to drown.

What remains of my heart tears itself to shreds as I pull my knife from my belt. It slips in my blood-soaked fingers and the world around me blurs. She nods, slowly dying in my arms, and a coldness sweeps through my entire soul.

I press the blade to her chest.

Nastja nods jerkily.

The blade slides deep into her chest far too easily. Her eyes widen with just one blink.

Then her hand falls away from my shirt, her body limp.