We both put our head gear on and pat ourselves down, making sure we have everything. We’re wearing body armor, head protection, and we’re armed. There is fire coming at the fuckers trying to kill us from the east, and cover from the tanks rumbling into town from the west. Yes, we’ve got to run across an open field, but the light is on our side. It’s not dark yet, but it’s gloomy.
“The gloaming is upon us, and it is our friend,” Andrius, the poetic bastard, says.
He bangs my helmet once with his fist, and I nod and look at him. He holds his hand up and counts off three, and we’re moving.
We sling our bodies over the top, keeping low as we crouch-run toward the open field. Both of us turn as one when we reach the broken fence to the field and aim our weapons at the buildings lining this patch of what was once a grazing field for livestock, but is now more like a wasteland. We fire, and the bullets light up as they zip away from us, hopefully finding some targets.
We’re firing blind, but it gives us some cover. The men behind us cover up their firing, and we both stop shooting, turn, and run like hell.
We don’t go in a straight line, but we don’t waste time zigzagging all over the place. We make the odd sharp turn to throw off our shooters, but mostly we simply go hell for leather to cover the ground in front of us.
The joking about the zigzag versus straight line debate is an old one between us. Andrius maintains that unless you’ve got an expert sniper aimed at you, you’re better running in a straight line as fast as you can; particularly if you’re wearing body armor. I maintain it’s better to zigzag. We developed the half and half approach one day when yet again fleeing for our lives. Andrius jokes if he gets hit doing this, he wants, “He zigged when he should have zagged” on his gravestone.
We reach the cover of the tree line, and I throw myself into the dense foliage.
My heart is pounding, my lungs are burning, but I’m happy as fuck to be out of the damn shitty little hole.
“Took you long enough,” Andrius deadpans to the men.
One of the men steps forward, and it’s a senior commander. “Where’s the other one? We were told there were three of you.”
“Head shot,” Andrius says.
The commander winces. “Shit. Let’s get you two home at least.”
Home. Moscow. The best city in the world. A city of beautiful women, cold vodka, and buildings to make your soul sing. I clap Andrius on the back.
“When we get home, friend, what do you say we find ourselves a bottle of vodka, a hot meal, and an even hotter woman.”
“Fuck yes,” one of the other soldiers says, interrupting our conversation. “I can’t wait to be balls deep in pussy.”
“You want to be balls deep in anything, you’ll have to pay for it; ugly mug like yours,” one of the other men shoots back.
And so it begins. Banter. Relieved laughter. I join in, but I’m acutely aware that the brains of my dead comrade are still matted in my hair, and that tonight a woman will find out her husband will never return home.
War, it makes fools of us all in the end.
Chapter Three
The businessman
Moscow-Five years ago
“It’s worth way more than that.” The man is staring at me, outrage etched on his ruddy face.
I’ve offered to buy his shitty company, and he doesn’t like the deal on the table. Well, screw him. I’m not a damn charity.
I sip at my iced water and stare him out.
I’m in a foul mood because my sperm donor has been in contact again.
The first time Moscow Today did a segment on me, he crawled out of the woodwork pretending he cared about me. I told Annika, my assistant, to bar his calls, and so now he’s sending me letters. Shitty, pathetic letters.
I want to kill him, but these days, alongside the Bratva shit, I run a lot of legit business, and murdering my own father might bring a little too much attention, even for me. Plus, I quite like the control it takes for me not to kill him. It’s like a perverse game I play with myself. There’s an animal inside of me, the soldier never really having gone away, and every day I put on a suit and play dress up as a civilized human being. It’s a test, a game, a way to pass the time. And anyway, I’m just a soldier of a different sort now. Instead of shooting my enemies, I take them apart financially and keep the spoils.
Still, when it comes to my father, I can’t let him get away with no punishment at all. That just won’t do.
I’ve sent one of my henchmen, Vasily, to give him a warning. He’s to leave me and mine alone. Right about now, Vasily will be giving my old man a slapping he won’t forget. I told him not to break any bones—after all, the old bastard is still blood—but to hurt him badly.
He might be blood, but he’s blood I hate. Blood I loathe. My fucking piece of shit father, who beat my mother, then left her, two children, and his own ailing mother to fend for themselves in the desperate days after the fall of the Soviet Union. That piece of shit thinks he deserves part of my success? No fucking way.
He let my mother die, his own mother too, and then my sister. I grind my teeth and shove those thoughts away. If I let them in, I’ll lose it and pummel the ruddy face of the businessman almost in tears in my office.
“Why don’t you think about it,” I tell the man in front of me, bored now with this shit.
“No, thanks. Nothing to think about. It’s a shitty offer.”
“Oh?” I stand and walk around my desk, perching on the edge of it. My offices are on the top floor of one of the tallest buildings in Moscow. My desk is walnut, but not some boring, staid desk. It’s a large walnut stand with drawers and a desktop that shoots out of the base, slicing into the room like a shark’s fin. I like that it reflects who I am these days. A damn shark. I’m the victor now, the one who the spoils go to, and every time I win anew, I tell my dead sister that this is for her. If only she’d lived: I could have made her rich beyond her wildest dreams. I could have gotten her the best healthcare money could buy. Shoulda, woulda, coulda… It’s too damn late.
I narrow my eyes and imagine my fist caving in the face in front of me. Instead of letting my inner animal out, I swallow and force out a polite statement. “Well, it’s the only offer you’ve had in three years, and you are personally in debt to the tune of two million US dollars. This will pay off your personal debts and leave you enough to live a nice life in retirement.”
He’s turned a deep shade of puce now, and he splutters when he speaks. “How the fuck do you know about my personal finances?”
“I always do my research,” I tell him.
“It’s not only about me. My father built that company. I took it over, and the people who work for it, for me, they’ve become like family. Your offer doesn’t guarantee their jobs.”
Of course, it doesn’t. The company is worth nothing to me as it is, but it’s worth a lot stripped down and sold off. I also want the name for my own nefarious reasons. I ponder what he’s said. I can’t guarantee his staff a job in his company because it will no longer exist as an entity once I get my hands on it. But I can guarantee them work. He only employs about thirty people; it’s not an impossibility.