Page 60 of Den of Thieves

“I can handle Vlad—”

Aksana moaned out in pain from the bedroom, ending their bickering. Karina hoped she did enough to save Aksana’s leg. If not, she was sure her sister would give a new meaning to the phrase, ‘hell on wheels’.

She gave Nikolai a brief rundown of what had happened. The color drained from his face as she recanted her tale. Conveniently leaving out how they tricked the guards into letting them escape. Although he seemed to put the pieces together easy enough.

“Shit.” Nikolai walked towards the windows and combed a hand through his hair. It came back covered in soot and blood.

“Are you okay, Nikolai? No offense, but you look like hell.”

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, dodging her question.

“How Nikolai? We can’t leave AK. You don’t have transportation and our chopper was shot down.”

“Well, we’ve got to figure something out. We’re sitting ducks here!”

Karina couldn’t even appreciate the colloquialism; she was that stressed out.

“I believe we can help.”

Karina and Nikolai aimed their weapons at the door. A tall Asian man and a short black woman with long French braids walked into the penthouse.

“Who the fuck are you?” Karina’s voice was steady despite her confusion.

“Kida Dragon. How the hell did you find us?” Nikolai grunted, slowly lowering his weapon.

Kida chuckled. “Russians aren’t the only ones that know how to use a satellite.”

“You know this man?” Karina looked between Nikolai’s annoyed face and Kida’s amused one.

She didn’t know what was going on, but Aksana was passed out in the next room. If they wanted to get to her sister, they had to go through her and her many bullets, and the machete strapped to her back.

She didn’t lower her weapon, and she kept her good eye on the woman. Though small, she didn’t trust the eager look in her eye. The woman’s hands flexed like she had a weapon of her own nearby. Her stance told Karina that she likely fought for fun.

“Yes.” Nikolai rolled his eyes. “Kida fancies himself Vladimir’s best friend or some shit.”

“We are best friends, whether the grumpy Russian likes it or not.” Kida crossed his arms.

“Whatever. Keep your weapon steady, Karina. He’s the head of the Yakuza and she’s the Levinan heiress.”

“Heiress? Wait, Levinan as in the badass, things nightmares are made of, knife-wielding female assassin Levinans?!” Karina’s voice rose until she squealed.

She did the opposite of what Nikolai advised and lowered her gun. “I’ve heard about the Korrin, but I had no idea you were black! Is that an appropriate term for someone of African descent that’s not American?”

The woman laughed, dropping her stance, and closing the distance between them. “Black is fine, although my family has been in London since the 14th century,” she said in a heavy English accent.

“Woah, that’s a long time. I think English is more appropriate. Oh, where are my manners? Karina Kovalyova.” She held out her hand, which the other woman readily shook.

“Renee Levinan.”

“This isn’t a social call, Karina!” Nikolai sucked his teeth. “In case you forgot, we are in the middle of a fucking war zone!”

Karina’s mouth twisted to the side. “Ignore him. I can tell we will be great friends. Seriously though, how did you get past Bogdan and Khruschev? We didn’t hear a thing.”

“Erm, they’ll be just fine. They are just taking a quick nap,” Kida said with a guilty expression.

Nikolai stuck his head out the door. “What the hell did you do to them?!”

When he whirled around, Nikolai looked like he was half a second away from having a stroke. Karina knew he was having one hell of a day, and this did not help.

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