Page 69 of The Pakhan's Bride
She grins, sharp as glass. "Would you have listened?"
She sighs. "We could do it, you know. The two of us. We could burn down the Albanis, the Riccis, the whole rotten world. You'd have to kill your darlingPakhan, but I don't think that would be as hard as you pretend."
I shake my head. "I'm not like you."
She shrugs. "No one ever is. Until they have to be."
She leans back, waiting for the verdict.
The attic is silent except for the whine of the lamp.
I lower the gun but don't put it away.
She says, "So, what's it going to be? Am I your sister or your next body?"
I think about Lev, about Konstantin, about the house and the guards and the endless cycle of blood.
I think about my name.
I say, "He's mine. You don't touch what's mine again."
Her mouth curves, triumphant and sad.
"That's my girl," she says.
The moment shatters when the bullets start. At first it's just a pop, far off, like someone dropped a metal tray in the barn. But then the next round slaps the house and the window explodes inward, showering both of us in glass and cold.
Ekaterina hits the floor first, and for a split second I'm twelve again, huddling behind the radiator while Papa and his men turn the front yard into a shooting gallery. My ears ring, but I hear the shouts below—Sokolov barking orders, the guards returning fire, Lev's thin wail somewhere in the mix.
Ekaterina's mouth is to my ear before I even realize she's crawled to me. "You want him out, you get him now. The Syndicate is coming."
"Who?" I hiss.
She shakes her head. "Doesn't matter."
I see it—the orchard, the open field, nowhere to run. This is a cage match, and the only rule is survival. She drags herself upright, blood beading at her temple where a shard of glass clipped her. She doesn't feel it, or if she does, she's too proud to show it.
"Get the boy," she says. "I'll cover you."
I almost laugh. After all this, she expects me to believe she's on my side? A guard is at the foot of the attic ladder, yelling my name. The gunfire is so close now, it rattles the whole house.
"Little dove." Ekaterina pulls me into a fierce embrace. "When the time comes, watch me."
I want to say a thousand things, but all I manage is, "Why?"
She touches my face, so gentle it undoes me. "Because you were always stronger than me," she says, and then she shoves me, hard. "Go!" I stumble down the stairs, knees almost giving, and find Lev hiding in the crook of Konstantin's arm. He is bleeding from the hand, but his grip on him is white-hot. "Out the back," he says. "We have to move."
I grab Lev, tuck him against my side, and head for the service stairs. Konstantin stays on my flank, limping but unbreakable. The rear door is blown off its hinges, snow piled against the threshold. I see the convoy in the driveway, two of our cars already on fire, the men fanned out behind the third. Sokolov is on the ground, shoulder hit, but he's still firing. Orlov is beside him. The guards are dying, but they're buying time. I push Lev toward the car. "Run," I whisper. "Don't stop for anything."
He goes, little feet digging trenches in the snow, tears streaking his face but not slowing him down. A figure breaks from the trees—Ekaterina, firing a machine pistol in tight, efficient bursts. She moves like a dancer, picking off men in the orchard, clearing a path. I want to hate her, but I can't.
Konstantin and I follow, crawling low. The bullets chase us, biting into the ground, the house, the car. We make it to theconvoy. Lev is sobbing but alive. Konstantin drags us behind the armored door, wraps us in both arms, breath shuddering. Then comes a voice.
"You are surrounded," it booms over the orchard, echoing once. "We have no quarrel with the child. Or with the VetrovPakhan, provided he lays down arms. We are here for the Baranov sisters."
I taste the metal as I bite down on fear. Konstantin's bulk braces behind me, every inch of him taut and leaking blood, the pressure of his forearm across my back like a brace. Lev shivers beneath Konstantin's arm, clinging to his coat lining. "Stall," Konstantin rasps in Russian, lips right at my ear, and the sound is iron. "They're not certain."
I flinch as the next bullet hits the hood, ricochets with a shriek. Silence balloons out after, thick as syrup. The orchard is lit in hospital-glare blue and orange, emergency blinkers painting corpses in shifting color. Bodies litter the gravel, cooling in heaps. Every face of Baranov or Vetrov muscle left in the open is set in death.
