Yes, flashlights. Good idea. I grope my way toward the drawers in the back, where they’re supposed to be, when I hear Chloe call out, “Slava? Slava, come here!”
Did she find him? I turn and blink at the faint light coming from the other side of the room. Chloe is already heading for it, shouting Slava’s name, and to my horror, I realize where the light is coming from.
The ladder leading up to the garage.
The ceiling hatch must be propped open.
Chloe is already scrambling up the ladder. I run after her. “Chloe, wait!”
Lyudmila materializes in front of me, blocking my way just as a sharp, acrid smell reaches my nostrils.
Smoke.
It’s coming in from above.
Either the garage or the house is burning.
“Wait,” Lyudmila hisses. “We need to—”
I shove her aside. “Let me through! Slava is—”
“We can’t just run out there!” She grips my arm. “We need a plan.”
I have a plan, but it’s not one she’s going to like. I’m shaking all over, my skin so icy it might as well be a winter day instead of an unseasonably warm September night. “Stay here,” I say, my words tumbling over one another. “I know exactly what to do.”
I twist out of her hold before she can reply and dash toward the ladder. The gun is still in my hand, its cold weight both sickening and reassuring. Gripping my long skirt in my free hand, I hike it up to my thighs and climb up the ladder, ignoring the way my high heels catch on each rung.
The higher up I go, the stronger the smell of smoke gets, and by the time I emerge into the garage, my eyes and throat burn. I drop to my knees and suck in a lungful of relatively clean air, then hold my breath as I stand up and take in the scene in front of me.
It’s like something out of a war zone: smoke and flickering flames, cars covered with a white layer of broken plaster, their windows shattered by the force of the blast. The explosion tore a giant hole in the big metal door of the garage, leaving nothing but mangled edges and fire in its wake.
That fire provides enough illumination for me to see Chloe’s white dress out on the driveway, her posture screaming of tension as she stops abruptly.
I duck down to suck in another semi-clean breath, and then I run after her, my heels crunching on broken glass and plaster. My throat burns, my eyes water, and my head throbs with agony, but I keep going, keep moving toward the scene that I know will devastate me—one way or another.
Time seems to slow, each step requiring an inordinate amount of effort, each second stretching out into an eternity as the deadly standoff out on the driveway comes into view.
My brother and Alexei, their guns aimed at each other.
And in the middle, Slava, his eyes wide with fear and incomprehension.
Something cold and clear inside my mind sifts through the implications. No gunfire is audible now, so Alexei’s forces must’ve neutralized Nikolai’s guards out on the perimeter of the compound. What about Pavel? He’s supposed to protect the house itself. Is he alive?Please let him be alive.
I lengthen my strides, but I might as well be moving through molasses. The entrance seems impossibly far as Chloe brings up her gun, pointing it at Alexei. “Drop your weapon and back away!” Her voice is a trembling, smoke-hoarsened croak.
No, foolish girl! He’ll kill you!I want to scream the words at her, but my lungs are already howling with the need for air, and I need every bit of oxygen I have left to make it there and stop the nightmare that’s about to unfold.
Alexei’s gaze flicks toward her.Don’t. Please don’t.To my relief, he doesn’t move. “Come here, Slavchik,” he says in Russian. His deep, disconcertingly calm voice sends hot and cold chills down my spine. “Quickly.”
My brother’s snarled reply is in English. “My son isn’t going anywhere with you. Slavochka, get behind me. Go now.”
The words barely reach me over the roar of my heartbeat. The flames by the entrance are growing closer, dancing in my vision. Out on the driveway, my nephew is the very picture of confusion, his gaze bouncing between the two men he knows. “Uncle Lyosha? Papa?”
Like the brave idiot she is, Chloe edges forward. “Slavochka… Please come to me. Mama Chloe needs you here.”
My nephew hesitates, as if he knows what will happen once he’s no longer between the two lethally armed men, but then he makes his choice. As Chloe takes another cautious half-step forward, he dashes toward her, his short legs pumping hard, and she grabs him by the arm and shoves him behind her.
Rat-tat-tat!