Page 47

The pull goes through my left side, along the seam of the scar, sharp as a hook. It holds. Even if it had blown wide, I’d have kept him down somehow.

Then Anton’s men have his arms, his face is in the gravel, and there’s a zip tie on his wrists. I straighten with blood running warm down my sleeve.

Across the yard, the two road guards are down against the mesh, and it vaguely registers that one is wearing a gray coat.

I come out from behind the parked trailer into the open lane that runs to the office. From there I can see the steps, Daniel in a heap at the bottom where he fell.

Zorin is gone.

Headlights have come on at the main gate, Grisha’s car, nosing into the yard on Anton’s signal to block the exit. And that’s when I spot Zorin sprinting towards him, his gun pointing straight at the windshield.

The scene comes into focus with sharp clarity. Zorin’s footsteps. The grunts at the fence behind me coming from the foreman with the knife. Grisha rolling down the driver’s window.

There’s no time to consider the consequences. Maxim wanted Zorin alive, but Grisha is a friend. Besides Anton, he’s the only man I trust with Vera’s life should anything happen to me.

I draw and fire twice.

Zorin sprawls backwards. The gun flies from his hand and skids away under Grisha’s car. Then it’s quiet, a different soundtrack. A long way off, a train. Grisha’s engine idling. My own breathing, and the pain beginning in my arm.

Anton crosses the yard and checks Zorin first, then Daniel, and shakes his head.

I call Maxim straight away. Any fallout is mine to bear.

“Zorin is dead,” I say, adrenaline draining from my body. “It was him or Grisha. Reed is dead too. Zorin shot him before we reached the gate.”

There’s silence on the line. “The foreman?”

“Alive.”

“I’ll take him instead. Are you hurt?”

“Not badly.”

“Get it seen to. Anton can clean up there.” Another pause. Then, “The next time you disobey a direct order will be the last.”

He hangs up.

Anton is already moving. His men lift Zorin and take him through the north fence to one of the cars. The foreman and the two road guards go into the others. No one touches Zorin’s gun. Daniel stays where he fell too, on his side at the bottom of the steps, his hood fallen back.

“The day shift will find him in the morning,” Anton says, beside me. “Then the police.”

I nod.

“Call her,” Anton says. “Before you do anything else.”

The police have gone by the time Grisha parks outside the bakery with me in the passenger seat. They needed someone with a key, and Vera offered; it will be her bakery soon, and Kostya, one of Anton’s men, went with her so she wasn’t alone. She’s braver than she realizes; impulsive but brave, and I wouldn’t have her any other way. Kostya is across the street in his car. The front of the shop is lit.

Vera opens the front door before I reach it. She looks at my face, then down at the rag around my arm, and she is on her tiptoes, my face cupped in her hands, her mouth crushing mine.

“I’m happy to see you too,” I say, folding my arms around her and breathing in her sugar and honey scent that feels like home.

She leans back in my arms so that she can look into my eyes.

“I know,” I say when she doesn’t find the words.

She nods once and extricates herself from my embrace. “Staff room. Now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”