A CEO's Child

The Ultimate Choice

Venyamin was exhausted hauling his ass up and down endless flights of stairs and through long corridors. Helsing was no help behind him. There had to be a shortcut, but through all the commotion and shifting of guards, and orders being called, it was a mess. 

"Brother," Helsing finally hissed, grabbing him by the elbow. "This door for fucks sake. You have worse coordination than I thought."

"I'm about to kill someone."

"No you're not." Helsing snarled. "Agent 1228 above all else won't die today, nor will the soldier beside him."

"I don't have a choice." 

"You do. We do. This ends today."

"How?"

There was a look in his brother's eyes he'd never seen. Such malicious intent and hatred. He flicked the cord near his helmet. Their comms were off,  or so they were told. Clearly him pleading Ven not to kill his target was less confidential than how he was going to end it. 

He pushed the door open wider, bright light streaming in. Venyamin squinted, feeling flushed and awkward. The gear was bad enough and now he had to leave air conditioning to deal with a muggy outer world, as if his task before him wasn't bad enough. The scoped rifle on his back suddenly felt like a constricting snake. He refused to move anymore. 

"How?" he asked, not taking another step forward. 

"Get into position on that railing and watch for the marked agent, he should be clearing sometime soon. You'll recognize whose beside him. Don't do anything. Don't shoot. Wait for my signal."

"What's the signal?"

"You'll see."

"Meet me back up top then."

"This plan is simple stupid, and weird."

"And still, it might not work. Now move." Helsing was fast, as he hauled his body over a set of railings, and began racing down the deck to the other side of the ship. He noticed there was a commotion on the deck then. The crew was acting concerned, and the ship downwind of them, the fake cargo, was on fire. The coast guard was racing in with firefighters, helicopters were flying about, and the noise was suddenly too, and yet somehow his sister thought, in broad daylight, under surveillance, he was going to kill a man. 

Her words sunk in then, how he'd be staying behind to have his baby. Of course, he would, she was going to leave him, leave him to fend for himself against the justice system. Leave him, control her stolen, wrongly appointed throne, unite the gangs with Viorica, against all their wills, and usher in new chaos of drugs and guns. 

He put a hand to his head. He couldn't do shit. She'd kill him if he didn't kill the agent. That agent was his one-way ticket to prison, but his ticket to life too. Whatever Helsing had planned, he prayed it worked. 

He unslung the gun, sure there were other eyes on him, and focused on the deck of the other ship, not sure what in the hell he was looking for.  The scope was uncannily good for how small it was. It must have been a new prototype. 

He sucked in a breath as he heard footsteps behind him. "Move out of the way." Someone snarled in Russian. "And fucking hide yourself better. Who trained you? You looked like a blood spatter on white linens."

He glanced over his shoulder, about ready to take the mans' head off, when he stopped short. It wasn't just one of Risona's goons or at this point coordinators,  for their unform indicated they were from the Black Spikes, it was also Braxis in tow, and he looked horribly pale and terrified.