Page 68 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
Some of them succeeded. Most didn’t.
Bullets hit the rear window, safety glass holding, but webbing with cracks that turned the world behind me into abstract art. I ducked low, one hand on the wheel, the other reaching for the modified .45 that rode passenger seat like a faithful companion.
The warehouse district opened up ahead of me—acres of abandoned industrial dreams and rusted infrastructure. This was where Chicago’s manufacturing heart used to beat, back when Americans made things with their hands instead of their keyboards.
Now it was a graveyard of concrete and steel, perfect for the kind of conversation Petro and I needed to have.
I veered onto an old Bratva access road, one of the forgotten arteries that connected our legitimate businesses toour less legitimate ones. The surface was cracked and potholed, designed to discourage casual exploration. My pursuers’ vehicles bounced and struggled, their urban assault configurations poorly suited for this kind of terrain.
Perfect.
I killed the lights and slammed the brakes, letting the Charger slide sideways into position behind a concrete barrier that had been weathered by decades of Chicago winters. The engine ticked as it cooled, and for a moment, the world fell into a silence so complete I could hear my own heartbeat.
Then the sound of tires crunching over broken glass and debris. Car doors slamming with the solid thunk of armored vehicles. Footsteps on gravel, coordinated and purposeful.
Petro Kozak stepped out from behind a black Escalade, and the moonlight turned him into something from a medieval painting. All shadow and menace, broad shoulders wrapped in a coat that probably cost more than most people’s cars. The Saint Michael pendant at his throat swung like a pendulum, marking time until judgment, catching silver light and throwing it back like a challenge.
“You chose well for our final meeting, Antonov.” His accent turned my name into something ugly, a curse spoken in a language that remembered blood feuds and generational hatred. “This place was built to worship industry, to honor the work of men’s hands. Now it will witness judgment.”
I laughed, the sound echoing off concrete walls and rusted machinery. “You mean murder dressed up in prayer.”
He looked up at the skeletal remains of a crane that had once lifted steel beams toward the sky, now reaching into darkness like a supplicant’s arms. “Saint Michael slays the beast wherever he finds it. I am his sword, and every Antonov I strike down, I do in his name.”
“You’re a butcher who thinks God takes orders from you.”
The words hit exactly where I intended them to. His face darkened, righteous fury replacing calculated menace. This was the crack in his armor—the pride that made him need to be right, need to be holy, need to transform his bloodlust into divine mandate.
Petro reached into his coat and pulled out a blade that looked like it had been forged in some medieval armory. The steel gleamed with oil, its edges having tasted blood, hungering for more.
“Let’s see which one of us Saint Michael claims tonight.”
I drew my own knife—seven inches of carbon steel that had been my companion through more fights than I cared to remember. It wasn’t blessed or consecrated or touched by anything more divine than human skill and the will to survive.
But it had killed more holy warriors than Petro had probably prayed for.
“You want to know the difference between us?” I circled left, watching his footwork, cataloging the way he held his weapon. “You think God cares about your war. I know he stopped paying attention to men like us a long time ago.”
“Blasphemer.” He lunged forward, blade seeking the soft space between my ribs where life lived closest to the surface.
I slipped aside, letting his momentum carry him past me, and opened a thin line across his forearm with the kind of casual precision that came from years of practice. First blood to me, but this dance was just getting started.
“Your daughter prayed while she tortured innocent people,” I said, resetting my stance, watching him reassess my capabilities. “Thought Saint Michael was guiding her hands while she planned to poison my pregnant wife.”
His eyes widened slightly. Pregnant. He hadn’t known about the baby, hadn’t factored that into his calculations of divine justice.
“Even better,” he snarled, coming at me again with renewed fury. “The bloodline dies with the whelp.”
That was when I stopped playing games.
The blade that had been meant for my throat found only air as I dropped low and came up inside his guard. My knife found the space just below his sternum, angled upward toward his heart with surgical precision.
But Petro was faster than his bulk suggested. He twisted, taking the blade in his side instead of his chest, and brought his own weapon down in a vicious arc that would have opened my skull if I hadn’t rolled backward.
We separated, both bleeding now, both understanding that this ended with death.
“Your God isn’t coming to save you,” I told him, tasting copper and adrenaline.
“He already has,” Petro whispered, and I saw the detonator in his left hand just as his thumb found the trigger.
