Page 119 of The Lazarov Bratva

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.

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