Pietr was gone, a mound of men punching, slicing, and kicking weighing him down. I heard his strangled cry and reached for the gun, my eyes on Dmitri, fear a distant memory. This was suicide. I didn’t have the ammunition to kill them all. Maybe not even enough to save Pietr.
But if I could get some of them off him—scatter them so he had a second chance … a chance to run … a way to know I hadn’t just mutely watched him die.…
It would be worth death. My hand closed around the gun’s cool grip.
Then, as fast as Pietr had fallen, men began flying back.
And Pietr, furred in his wolfskin, clambered to his hind legs, flinging men back with the best of his inhuman strength and all of his uninhibited animal rage. Mobsters screamed as they flew. And as each of them crashed into the rubble of the junkyard with sickening crunches, Pietr stood taller.
Fought fiercer.
Dmitri smiled as my gut twisted and I released the gun again.
Suddenly it was just Pietr, bathed in blood with glowing red eyes under the spotlight like some beast from the most brutal of Russia’s ancient myths. His furred hand, half-turned, clutched his remaining attacker, twisting his head at such an angle.… One stroke of Pietr’s claws and the man’s neck would open, spilling blood; one snap of Pietr’s wrist and his neck would break.
Dmitri clapped, thrilled to see his soldier so close to a sudden end.
Pietr, his face far more wolf than man, growled at Dmitri, his lips pulled back to reveal his massive line of teeth.
“Bravo, Pietr!” Dmitri commended. “Now release him.”
Pietr tossed his head and howled his defiance.
“Release him.”
I nodded at Pietr, but high on the adrenaline rush that came from surviving—and, I shuddered, realizing, high on the bloodlust—he growled at me, too, muscles quivering with something between rage and thrill.
Pietr released the man, letting him slide limply in to the dust and dirt at his feet. Muscles and tendons yanking at bone and jerking his limbs, his body spasmed as Pietr resettled into his more familiar human form.
Covered in grime and bleeding from dozens of knife wounds, Pietr crouched, his eyes still glowing hot and red.
“You have potential,” Dmitri admitted as Pietr panted before him. “Your fighting is sloppy. You have trouble committing to action. You overthink.” He shook his head. “You’d need time to be trained for what we want.” He looked at his own bedraggled and beaten soldiers. “And from what I understand, time is a commodity you do not have.”
“What?” Pietr popped to his feet, his muscles still quivering from stress and exertion. “Are you—are you rejecting my offer?”
“Da, bratàn. I am,” Dmitri said, reaching a hand out to shake Pietr’s.
“I almost kill your men—because you want me to prove something—and then you say no? Do not call me bratàn if you reject what I am willing to give. We are certainly not brothers.” Pietr smacked Dmitri’s hand away and the older man bristled. “I offer you my services and you turn me down because I’m raw? Untrained?”
“Pietr,” I warned.
“Stop now, boy, before you say something you’ll regret.” Again Dmitri stuck out his hand.
Pietr looked at me.
My jaw stiffened. I nodded.
Reluctantly Pietr took Dmitri’s hand. Something subtle about the light in his eyes changed. His fingers stayed curled as his hand dropped back to his side. He held something Dmitri wanted him to have.
Something I shouldn’t know about.
I looked away.
“Come, Pietr,” I said, clipping my tone. “There might yet be another way.”
“Alexi,” Dmitri said as I turned to the car and was blinded briefly when all the other headlights flared back on. “Remember what I said.”
Nodding, I opened the car’s door and climbed in, starting the engine and wondering if he meant I should remember what he said about Nadezhda or finding a home with the mob.
With my bleeding brother nearby, I thought it didn’t matter either way. Some bridges needed to be burned.
“Here.” I tossed Pietr a pair of jeans.
He looked at me—in that moment realizing I’d known they’d force him to change into the very thing he regretted being, that they’d make him a monster, tear him down bit by bit until that was all he could be.
He knew I’d held back from telling him everything.
Again.
He winced, getting into the jeans, and fell into the seat beside me. He seemed not to notice he was bleeding all over the car’s expensive leather interior.
Or perhaps he longer cared.
Alexi
The weekend’s arrival meant very little in a household consumed with thoughts of betrayal and impending battle. I wanted guns and ammunition far more than the fluffy pancakes—the American version of our Russian blini—and bacon Amy served up and Max greedily devoured. I poked at my food, still sickened by what I’d allowed the night before.
I needed to make a shopping list.
Feeling eyes drilling into me, I peered across the table at Cat. She too merely moved the things on her plate around, only pensively nibbling a bit here and there. Her eyes darted from Amy to me and back again. She needed to talk, but it concerned something Amy should not hear.
Even in our own house we were liars. Cat trailed me into the kitchen and when she was sure Amy was nowhere to overhear, she asked me about Pietr’s whereabouts.
“He’s not sleeping in?”
“Nyet. His bed’s still made up.”
I was more astonished by the fact that at his age he made his bed every morning than hearing what I’d feared was inevitable. “Bags?”
“One’s gone—and a lot of clothing—a mix of things.”
A mix of things. Da. It took more than a tracksuit to be a member of the modern Mafia.
“Shhh. Shhh,” I soothed, running my hand slowly across her back. “He is not stupid.” Perhaps not stupid, but dangerously ignorant. “He is probably taking time to think.” More likely taking time to have his ass handed to him by the Mafia. “He’ll be in contact soon.”
“You are lying.” Tears trembled at the edges of her thick eyelashes. “Alexi,” she wheezed, pushing herself into the shelter of my arms, “where has my brother gone?”
I gave her a squeeze, my lips brushing her forehead. “Where has our brother gone?” I corrected her, shaking her gently. “I am not sure, Ekaterina. But we will know soon—of that, I am certain.”