Page 86 of Kingmakers, Year Four

Marko’s men throw the kids down on the floor—a boy and a girl, six and four years old at the most. The children are bawling, messy-haired, and dressed in matching pajamas.

Dom throws me a quick, wide-eyed look. His hands tighten on his rifle.

I can see Maks, recognizable even in his balaclava because of the patch over his eye, shifting position behind Marko’s lieutenant.

“Who the fuck are they?” I snarl to Marko.

I already know the answer—the woman is screaming and begging, trying to pull away from Marko’s soldiers to get to her children.

She’s not Taras’s mistress—she’s his wife. And these are his kids.

“This is not what we discussed,” I tell Marko.

He ignores me.

Turning to Taras, he says, “You shot my wife right in front of me. I held her in my arms on the steps of the operetta. I watched her drown in her own blood from the holes in her lungs. Could you possibly imagine how that feels, Taras? No, of course not. A man could never imagine such a thing. He can only experience it.”

Marko turns, pointing his gun at the young boy who sits frozen on the weathered wooden boards of the farmhouse floor. He stares up at Marko, tears and mucus running down his face.

Marko says to Taras, his voice soft with anticipation, “I’m going to shoot your son twice in the leg, where you shot me. And then I’llshoot your daughter right below the heart, where you hit Daryah. Finally, I’ll strangle your wife with my bare hands, till the light leaves her eyes, so you know, you’ll truly know, the bitter agony of watching helpless, unable to save the ones you love. And all the while, I want you to beg for mercy. Beg and howl, like I did. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll let one of you live.”

“PLEASE!” Taras cries. “Let them go, they have nothing to do with this!”

“That’s good.” Marko nods. “Keep begging, just like that.”

His index finger curls around the trigger, the barrel of the gun aimed at the boy almost the same age as my own son.

As Marko’s finger squeezes tight, I ram into his arm, knocking the gun askew. The bullet smashes into a vase a foot above the boy’s head, and the Glock goes skittering across the floor.

Marko roars with rage, turning directly into the barrel of the AK-47 Dom points at his face.

My men are faster than Marko’s, and in better position. While the Malina were subduing Taras’ wife and children, my Bratva were already angling around them, ready to draw. They knew I would not allow this to pass.

“Drop your rifles,” Dom orders Marko’s men. “Or I’ll shoot your boss in the face.”

Marko stands still, looking at me, not at Dom.

“You made a promise to me, Ivan,” he says.

“And I kept my promise. You’re welcome to kill Taras. But not his wife, and definitely not his children.”

“He has to suffer,” Marko hisses. “As I suffer.”

“We’re not killing his kids,” I growl back at him. “I’m not fucking doing that.”

“You don’t have to do it?—”

“No oneis doing it.”

Marko’s men have lowered their rifles but not dropped them. They’re watching their boss for instructions.

“FUCKING DROP THEM!” Dom shouts at them. “We’ll kill every one of you.”

Slowly, resentfully, the Malina lay their rifles on the floor.

Now Marko is truly angry. His whole frame trembles with enough force to shake this ancient floor. His teeth are bared in a snarl, his fingers twitching and those blazing eyes fixed on my face.

He wants to charge at me. Maybe even more than he wants to kill Taras.

---