Christopher Golden - Sons of Anarchy - Bratva

“Son of a bitch!” Joyce cried. “What are you—”

Luka roared and lunged toward Jax. Opie and Chibs reached for him, knocked his gun away before the barrel could clear his waistband, and drove the gray-eyed Russian to the dirt shoulder. Opie slammed him twice against the ground and then stood back, picked up Luka’s gun and pointed it at him.

Opie glanced over at the guy Jax had killed. “Ustin…”

“Don’t say it,” Chibs said.

Opie grinned. “We have a problem.”

Luka stayed on the ground but let loose with a torrent of what could only be Russian profanity.

“Jax, what are you doing?” Joyce asked, shaking his head and staring, slack-jawed, at the dead Russian. “We had a plan—a good plan that would have protected Trinity. Now Lagoshin’s going to kill you both!”

Jax stood over Ustin, watching blood run out of him and pool in the dirt. Crimson turned black in the moonlight.

“Either Lagoshin sent hitters to Charming to try to take out SAMCRO, or Kirill Sokolov did,” he said. “Do you know which one?”

Joyce scowled. “Of course not.”

“Me either,” Jax replied, with a glance at Opie and Chibs. “I show up where Sokolov’s people are and they figure out who I am—maybe Trinity’s told them she’s my sister, I don’t know—they’re gonna kill me. That is, if they’re the Russians who want to destroy SAMCRO.”

He wandered over to Luka, bent, and did a quick search, taking away the Russian’s cell phone and a small knife strapped to his leg. Dirt rose up from the hard-packed shoulder, the grit getting into Jax’s mouth.

“I bring them our friend Luka,” he went on, “and maybe they listen long enough for me to get Trinity out of there. Bringing Luka to Sokolov shows goodwill, and maybe if they poke him a bit, they can make him tell them where Lagoshin’s holed up. Everybody wins.”

Joyce just shook his head, backing up. He glanced at Opie and Chibs as if expecting their support. “This is crazy. Stupid.”

Ice spread through Jax. His upper lip twitched as he let the mask he’d adopted fall away, and he sneered at Joyce.

“Figured you’d feel that way, considering.”

Joyce went silent and still. Stared at Jax. “What are you talking about?”

He glanced around, saw Opie and Chibs watching him with expressions as cold as the one Jax wore, and started shaking his head. “I don’t know what you think—”

“Now’s not the time to lie,” Chibs said. “We’ve no patience with it.”

Joyce went pale. All emotion leeched from his face, and he turned again to Jax. “I’m just looking out for you and your sister, man.”

Anyone who saw Jax in that moment and didn’t know him well might have been forgiven for thinking he smiled just then. A flicker. The expression, however, was one of disbelief.

“Don’t make it worse by being a pussy, Joyce. You had the balls to turn on your brothers, take money from the Russians… at least have the balls to face the music now that it’s here.”

“I didn’t, though… I would never…”

Opie held Luka’s gun. He raised it, aimed at Joyce’s head. “Someone told them we were headed to Drinkwater’s house.”

“That could’ve been any of the guys! Thor, Hopper, even Rollie. Shit, man, Baghead is a basket case!”

Jax shook his head. “Only it wasn’t any of them. I should’ve known it back at Birdland. You were so clued in about the Russians, where and when they’d be there. Started trouble with ’em because you figured you could. You’d dealt with them before. Guy wearing a cut has to be stupid or damn sure he’s not gonna eat a bullet if he’s gonna start trouble like that. Something seemed off then, but when Krupin rolled up on us after the visit with Drinkwater, I knew it had to be someone from SAMNOV, and you’re the only one who makes sense.”

Jax cast a quick glance at Luka, saw the way the Russian was watching them, and he had his answer.

Desperation had Joyce sweating. His chest rose and fell in quick breaths. He shook his head again.

“I promise you, this wasn’t me,” he said. “You don’t believe me, fine, take it to the table. You’re not in Charming. Talk to Rollie, man, if it’ll make you feel better—”

“Exactly what I’m gonna do,” Jax said.

Which was when Joyce went for his gun.

Opie shouted in alarm, but he had nothing to worry about. Joyce never had a chance. Jax shot him through the skull, and Joyce flopped backward onto the dirt.

“Idiot,” Chibs snarled, staring down at the dead man. “Who goes for his gun when he’s got one pointed at his head?”

Jax exhaled, staring at the spatter of Joyce’s blood in the dirt. “He knew it was over for him. If we took it to the table, it would’ve ended the same way. Maybe he just figured this was quicker.”

Opie wiped his prints from Luka’s gun, then pressed it into the grip of Ustin’s dead fingers. Luka muttered a curse in Russian, seeming to have abandoned English entirely since the tables had turned on him.

“What are we gonna do with this guy?” He pointed at Luka, and all three of them stood there for a moment contemplating their next move. They had nothing but motorcycles. No way to get Luka where they needed him without the risk of the guy taking off.

“Shit,” Opie muttered.

Chibs laughed humorlessly. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Jackie. Situation’s changing fast. We’re making this up as we go along.”

Jax scuffed his shoe against the dirt. “We can’t call Rollie unless we feel like taking the time to convince him Joyce betrayed the club.”

“Never mind that he went for his gun,” Chibs added.

“He’ll lose his shit that we didn’t take it to him before getting into this situation,” Opie finished for him. “We could just say Ustin killed him, but this other piece of Bratva shit isn’t going to cover for us.”

They all stared at Luka for a few seconds, Jax trying to decide how much they needed Luka. Enough to go to all the trouble it would require to get him where they needed him? He swore quietly. They might not need Luka to convince Kirill Sokolov, but if they did…

“Drag the bodies away from the road,” he told Chibs and Opie. “Dump the bikes on the other side. I’ll get to cover, keep him guarded, while you two go find us a truck.”

Luka had a smile on his face, enjoying their frustration.

Jax cracked him across the face with his gun, then turned to Opie and Chibs.

“Make it fast, or this whole thing is going to fall apart around us.”

As Olegshook her, Trinity fought to stay asleep. She sighed, grumbled, and batted his arm away. In that bleary state between sleep and wakefulness, she became aware of the thin line of drool on her cheek and the dryness of her throat.

“Come on,” she heard Oleg growl. His hand clutched more tightly at her arm, and he shook her so that her head lolled back and forth like an old rag doll’s. “Trinity!”

Her eyes snapped open. They burned, craving sleep, but she batted his hand away more forcefully and propped herself up, glaring.

“What time is it?” she demanded, the question accusation enough.

“Get up, love,” Oleg said, more gently this time, although his gaze carried a grim urgency.

Trinity threw back the single sheet, untangling her legs. Oleg handed her jeans over, and she slid into them. She wore no bra under her tank top, but he seemed too impatient to wait for her to put one on, so she grabbed a thin sweater from the bedpost and slipped it over her head even as he ushered her into the corridor.

“What the hell—” she said, voice muffled by the sweater.

As she drew it downward, trying to keep her footing, she heard voices coming from other rooms, saw Timur and Gavril rushing up behind them with guns in hand, and fear burned the last cobwebs of sleep from her mind.