Dragusha Revenge ✓Completed✓

ALEKSIO

YURI'S GOT us moving at top speed in that old Caddy with its shitty shocks the Russians have been driving around. Every bump sends starbursts of pain through my ankle and jars my vision, because yeah, I hit my head on something in that fall, and focusing isn't that easy. Viktor wants to stop at an office supply store. He prefers the paper cutter to the cleaver. "No," I say. "The paper cutter is cleaner, brat. More leveraged. I have seen it both ways. The butcher knife leaves room for error. It's good in a pinch"

"We can't"
You would let Kiro die?" I'm feeling dizzy, having trouble focusing. "We'll cut up the old man-" "Until he passes out from pain?" Viktor says. That's the intel on the old man. Pain doesn't crack him. People have gone at him before.

"She shouldn't have erased it," he says, like she brought it on herself. "Fuck you," I growl, head spinning to find another way to show the old man we're serious. The car takes a corner, and my ankle fires like shards of glass. Suddenly Viktor's in my face, pinning me to the inside of the car door.

He has my arms trapped up to my chest, panting with the exertion of it. He calls up front to Yuri-a stream of Russian. "What are you doing? What did you say to him?" Yuri is talking back. The car is slowing. Yuri's pulling over. It's Yuri and Mischa up there. Both of them Viktor's guys. Fuck. I lash out at Viktor, going for him with everything I have, going for every blow I can think of, even a head butt. He's ready for them all.

The car stops. Mischa's out. I struggle harder, get an elbow into Viktor's jaw. The door I'm backed up against opens. I freefall against a tank-like chest and feel an arm loop around my neck, muscles like iron. Precise pressure. Mischa. I kick out. "This we do for you, brat," Viktor says, suppressing my legs as Mischa puts the choke on me. A perfect triangle hitting the veins that feed the blood to my brain. The edges of my vision dim. Fuck! I wake up curled on my side, enclosed in darkness.

The vibration below me tells me I'm in the Caddy trunk and that we're back on the road. My head is woozy. My ankle screams. I pound like a madman. My good leg and two fists. Nothing. I check my pockets for my phone, thinking to call Tito and have him put a stop to this. I can't let them hurt Mira. I have to protect her. No phone. I go crazy on the trunk top in the darkness..

MIRA PONIT OF VIEW

THE TWO GUYS who stayed back to watch me think it's hilarious to hang around by the pool and help me get my gun spin down while I say the Sergei Kazan phrase. They told me it means, "You go ahead and try it, baby, and I'll fill you so full of lead it'll be coming out of your ass." A really tough movie star apparently says it. The better I get at it, the more they laugh. I don't see what's so funny, but then again, American movie lines don't seem like much out of context, either. I monitor them for signs that they've heard something from the Worland raid.

Have they gotten there yet? What if something goes wrong? Will they know? They don't seem worried, but I am. If things get dangerous, Aleksio will be front and center. It's how he is. If there's trouble, he's at the center. The Russians have their suit jackets off, shirtsleeves rolled up. They're lounging around like disreputable waiters from a thug café, smoking and drinking Beluga vodka like there's no tomorrow. Petitioning me again and again to do the gangster character impression. It's taken a while to get the double gun spin down. I dropped them a lot at first. Obviously they're not loaded. I keep practicing, though, the amusing trained monkey.

I even try to say the line with the intonation they prefer. It's not that I want to amuse them. I have to believe that one of these times, one of the guns they'll give me will be loaded. Or somehow they'll drop their guard. So I practice the line. I adjust it for maximum shock. I get good.