Poor Dasha Sarkissian. All those constant doctor appointments. Week after week, image after image, all to make sure her child is still safe and healthy. Poor, poor girl, what a mess, and all of them so stressed, what with the Irish war going on all around them.
That’s the rumor, anyway. Everyone’s been talking about it mostly because Sona’s been making sure they do. Poor, poor Dasha. I smile to myself as my truck follows after the SUV with the extremely dark tinted windows. The same SUV that drives from my house to the private hospital every single Thursday morning at ten and returns on the same roads exactly one hour later. We’re six minutes into the trip, and I’m just starting to relax.
Six weeks of this. The same thing, over and over again. A trip to the hospital, a trip back home. And all the while, the rumors keep swirling. Poor, darling Dasha, so brave and strong, holding it all together for her baby and her husband. I am miserable with worry, of course.
Sona is many things, but she’s good at her job most of all.
I’m beginning to let myself relax. We’re seven minutes from my house and in a decent neighborhood now. Grigor is driving conservatively, following all the rules, going nice and slow. That’s part of the plan too, but it still drives me crazy.
I’m halfway ready to say this was another failure when Grigor pulls up next to a parked van and an explosion rips into the day.
I’m two cars back, and I still have to slam on my brakes. Slag and flaming chunks of plastic rain all around us. The van just went up like there were ten tons of dynamite inside. Grigor’s SUV is lying on its side, and all the car alarms in the area are screaming.
“Fuck,” I growl and kick open my door. The drivers ahead of me are doing the same: a young woman in shock, an old man looking like he wants to help. “Get back in your vehicles,” I snarl at them, brandishing my gun.
The girl’s mouth drops open, and she screams.
The guy just runs.
Fine, good enough, as long as they aren’t in the way. I head forward as a car comes screaming down the street, heading the wrong way, and slams on its brakes.
I throw myself to the side. The flames from the van are sending huge plumes of thick black smoke over the area. I cough, hiding behind a beat-up sedan, its front bumper missing from the explosion. My teeth grind, and I want to check to make sure Grigor survived the blast, but I can’t, not yet.
A good fisherman knows when to be patient.
Figures surround the SUV. I’m guessing they came from the nearby houses and from the car that pulled up. I stay low, heart racing in my chest. My hands are steady, and I’m prepared. We’ve gone over this scenario a dozen times over the last six weeks to the point that it’s almost routine.
Only I wasn’t expecting another fucking car bomb.
I peer out and watch men in combat fatigues try to pry the SUV’s door open. It’s locked and partially melted shut, which is what’s giving them trouble. I count to five, making sure they’re all focused away from me, before I step out of my hiding spot.
The man closest to me takes a bullet in the back of his head. It’s an easy shot. His skull cracks, and blood and flecks of brain-splattered bone explode around the entry wound. Two soldiers turn toward me, and I kill another before rushing the third.
He gets his hands up, rifle raising to blow a big gaping red hole in my chest, but he’s too slow.
My shoulder rams into him, knocking him back into the smoking SUV. He shouts in surprise and pain, and I put two bullets in his chest. A soldier to my left attacks, swinging a baton at my head, and I manage to duck just in time. His blow smacks against his former comrade’s corpse, jarring his grip, and I come up with a vicious knee and break his elbow.
He screams in agony as the bone splinters through flesh like the jagged stump of a burned-out tree.
I smash my forehead into his nose, reveling in the blood and pain, before shooting him point-blank in the face.
His skull explodes in a lovely pink mist.
“Kill him!” Seamus McGrath stands at the top of the SUV, lips pulled back in a snarl, as eight well-armed men converge on me.
Bad odds. Really fucking bad odds. A smart man would turn and run.
I’ve never been all that clever.
Instead, I drop to a knee and shoot Seamus in the thigh.
He screams and topples, and suddenly two dozen men come barreling down the block carrying assault rifles and screaming in Russian. Evan is at their head, looking like he’s enjoying himself.
All hell breaks loose.
The Irish try to fight back, but they’re surrounded. Evan and his troops move in, killing the Irish one by one. I get into cover and help where I can, picking off several stragglers until the SUV’s wreckage is a flaming bloodbath. Corpses are scattered everywhere, their flesh torn to shreds by high-caliber rifle shots.
I hurry to the car door. It’s not easy to open, but I pull with all my strength. It starts to bend outward, and it finally cracks and swings wide when Evan adds his strength to mine.
“Grigor!” I shout, reaching inside.
The old guard is alive. He’s bleeding from a wound in his forehead and holding his ribs, but he’s breathing. “About fucking time,” he mutters at me as Evan hauls him out. “Did you get them?”
“That’s a good fucking question,” Evan says, looking at the bodies. “Is he one of these?”
“No,” I say, leaving the injured guard with my brother-in-law. I hop down off the SUV and stroll toward the far sidewalk, following a bloody trail. “He went this way.”
It isn’t hard to find Seamus. He’s trying to escape, but he’s not moving very fast with that hole in his leg. I catch up to him half a block later, whistling as I slowly get closer and closer, savoring the terror in his eyes as he struggles to escape.
“Fuck you,” he snarls, grabbing a chair from outside a café. He throws it at me, but it weakly clatters off the ground. “Get the fuck away from me.”
“Oh, Seamus,” I say and raise my gun. I shoot him in the other leg, and this time, he goes down. “You never should’ve come back for her, but you couldn’t help yourself.”
“Fuck you,” he groans, trying to stem the bleeding, but I must’ve hit an artery.
Poor bastard doesn’t have long.
I crouch down beside him, dimly aware of several bystanders. Cops are coming soon. I’d better finish this.
“You know how I got you?” I ask, savoring the moment. “I realized I was never going to catch you on my terms. I had to offer you something you couldn’t resist to lure you out.” I kick him in the leg. “She was never in the car, Seamus. Not after the first time. You don’t think I can afford a doctor that makes house calls?”
“The ultrasounds. I fucking saw you two—”
“No, you saw my guard drive to the hospital and back. You never saw someone get out. You never saw me.” I tap my gun against his head. “Think, Seamus. Why do you think we used that private hospital?”
“The entrance is blocked by that fucking fence.”
“Exactly. Every week I dangled the bait. I made sure it was so easy for you to get to it. We spread the rumors and waited, nice and patient, for you to make your move.”
“You fucker,” he says with a groan.
“Killed by your own sick obsession. It’s almost funny, if it weren’t so fucking disgusting.”
“It doesn’t have to go down this way,” he hisses, looking scared. “I don’t care about Dasha. I’ll leave her alone.”
“Don’t start begging now. That’s just pathetic.”
I put the barrel of my gun against the bloody wound in his leg and lean into it. He lets out a strangled scream of agony.
“Please,” he whispers, going weak now. A lot of blood has spread out in the cracks of the concrete, filling up the holes like little rivers of death.
“Someone should’ve put you down a long time ago. You got lucky. You got more years than you deserved. But now you’ll never come near my wife ever again.”
“My brother… he’ll kill you…”
“I hope he tries.” I stand, plant my heel on the wound, and grind hard. Seamus screams, back arched, and when I think he’s at the peak of his misery, I shoot him in the head.
He goes slack. The people around me scream.
I take a deep breath and smell the stink of dying. It’s a lovely perfume.
A car pulls up, and the back door pops open. “Tigran, we need to go.” Evan gestures for me to get in.
I look down at Seamus one more time, satisfaction ringing in my core.
Then I join my brother-in-law.
“That went well,” I say happily as the car pulls out, driving fast away from the crime scene.
“You called it,” Evan says, shaking his head with amazement, a big grin on his face. “The fucker really couldn’t help himself.”
“There’s a lesson for you somewhere in all this.” I lean back and close my eyes, thinking about all the dead in my wake. I’d kill a thousand more if it means keeping Dasha safe.
I suspect I just might have to in the weeks to come.
“Yeah? What lesson’s that?”
“Don’t fuck with my family.”
Evan laughs, and I shoot him a big, wolfish grin.
