I went through the exit Mitnick had taken, deeper into the house. A bloody and confused thug nearly collided with me and I emptied Oleg’s pistol into him, dropping it there as a keepsake.
The house was a maze, feeling bigger and more confined the farther I went, dodging between random rooms. Blaring fire alarms urged me to move faster.
I pushed through a door into a large bright room, flat light bouncing off stainless steel counters and white tiles. As I realized it was a kitchen a shot echoed throughout the space. The bullet landed in the wall next to me, spraying bits of ceramic. From behind one of the counters, another shaven-headed vory leveled a pistol at me. I dove for cover, but there wasn’t a second shot.
Instead there was only an all-too-human groan. I poked out to see Sophie standing over the shooter, pulling her Opinel knife from between his ribs.
I ran across the room, suppressing the urge to embrace her. Her hands and coat covered in the blood of others, she wore the same expression she had walking out of Verdicchios’, a kind of terrible absence, the focused eyes a farmer scything wheat.
I asked, “Where’s Nika?”
Sophie shook her head. I looked down at the man drowning in his own blood. “I guess we can’t ask him.”
I grabbed the gangster’s pistol, but when I straightened up Sophie screamed bloody murder and pushed me away with enough force that I went back down. She cried for help and ran out of my field of vision. A moment later another gurgling expiration, some unfortunate Russian expelling gases.
Pulling myself up from behind the counter I saw her standing over one of Mitnick’s men, his blood spreading over the white tile. Sophie tip-toed around it as she came back to me.
“We must move quickly,” she said.
A second passed before I thought to ask, “Where’s Lanzo?” Sophie shook her head again. I guess he couldn’t keep up.
“Where did you come from?” She pointed to one of the room’s four doors. I subtracted that and the one I had come from. That left two.
I pointed to one. “You go that way, I’ll head upstairs. Meet me out by the pool.” It was the best plan I could come up with in the terrible situation we had created.
Sophie kissed me then, with all the heat of the house fire. She let go of me to rush deeper into the mansion to rescue a lost girl whose father I had murdered.
I moved up the stairs.
The rooms looked the same, dancing lights painting their interiors from the outside, punctuated by shouting, screaming, shots, fire. I was almost relieved when I found Nika. But she wasn’t alone.
Whip was wrestling her out of one of the more distant bedrooms, both too busy screaming and pulling at each other to notice my rushed entrance. Over his shoulder, Nika saw me and pushed Whip away, giving me a clear shot. I took it, putting a bullet through his center mass. He collapsed to the floor like the footnote he was.
I was surprised Nika recognized me through the soot and the blood and the bruises, but she did. I reached out my hand she took it, leading us out of the hallway, out of the house, out of the country. Anywhere but where we were, in a mansion burning at the end of an empire.
When we turned the corner, we strode into a wide, round room with a grand piano on a white marble dais, chairs arranged facing it. A chandelier glittered with hanging crystal rods spinning reflections.
Mitnick, a bulging suitcase in hand, walked into the room, calling for Whip. He stopped dead at seeing me with Nika, my lies to Oleg falling into place.
I pointed the pistol at him and squeezed the trigger. To his credit, Mitnick hardly flinched when the hammer clicked and nothing happened. As the realization he hadn’t died flourished between us his wide, toothy smile appeared.
He set down the case, rising up to his full height, squaring his feet and lifting his Soviet-trained fists. “You have caused me a great deal of trouble. I am going to enjoy this.”
To start at the beginning of the story, go here.
Photo courtesy of Hert Niks.
To read the previous chapter, go here.
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