Christopher Golden - Sons of Anarchy - Bratva

Mikey the Prospect took a single shot that snapped off a shard jutting from the window frame. The tattooed Russian spun out of view, no longer framed by the window.

“Mikey, knock that shit off!” Rollie shouted, as he and Baghead moved up on either side of the kid. Friggin’ prospects . Even Bag hadn’t forgotten his orders so fast.

The black-suited Russian put his hands up but didn’t drop his gun. “You are Jax Teller’s men?”

Rollie winced. He was president of SAMNOV, and Jax was VP up in Charming. He sure as hell wasn’t one of Jax’s men.

“We’re with him, yeah,” he said.

The Russian lowered his hands. Rollie, Bag, and Mikey covered him.

“Then we are on the same side,” black suit said. “I am Kirill Sokolov.”

“Sokolov,” Rollie replied. “The man who would be king.”

The Russian grinned. “If you say so.”

“All right, then,” Rollie said, lowering his gun. “Let’s go get you a crown.”

Opie popped a magazine out of his gun and dug a fresh one from his pocket. The bullet graze on his side had started to seep blood through Rollie’s stitches. The wound would stay closed—wasn’t even that serious—but he had to be careful not to tear it open completely, or blood loss could take him out of the fight.

He glanced at Vlad. “I’m out of ammo after this. We keep dicking around out here, and they’ll outlast us.”

Vlad stared at him as if he’d grown a second head. “You want to rush them? We have them pinned down. If we wait, others will come, and we will have greater numbers. They will have to surrender.”

“You know these guys,” Opie said, frowning at him. “You think they’re gonna surrender? We need to finish this so we can help Jax and your guys with the rest.”

Vlad rose up from behind the marble stairs outside the ballroom and took two shots at the open doors, just to remind Krupin and the others that they were still there. Opie slammed home his replacement magazine and chambered a round.

“There are two of us and at least three or four in there,” Vlad said. “I don’t like the odds.”

Opie shot him a withering look. “Neither do I.”

Vlad exhaled, lowered his head, and then laughed softly. “All right. We go on three. One…”

“Two,” Opie said.

He snapped his head up at the sound of quick, light footfalls along the corridor down below. On the grand staircase, he and Vlad swiveled to aim at the advancing figures, only to exhale when they identified the new arrivals. Opie didn’t know Rollie or Baghead well, and he didn’t even remember the prospect’s name, but he saw their cuts and the club insignia on those vests, and the desperation he’d felt a moment before left him. He imagined Vlad felt the same way seeing Kirill and the other Russian there. Five men. Five guns, including two assault rifles.

Opie and Vlad smiled at one another and finished the count.

“Three.”

They rushed down the steps, moved sidelong toward the open ballroom doors. Opie waved to the others, signaled them to approach the other set of doors—which remained closed. Kirill went first, flung open the doors, and rushed inside, shooting as he moved, fearless and a little mad, the way anyone who wanted the job he wanted had to be. Opie caught a glimpse of Rollie following him, and then he and Vlad were bursting in through the other doors.

Gunfire tore up the ballroom floor and walls.

Opie spotted Krupin toward the back, on the far side of the dance floor, where a large section of wall had been paneled in mirrored glass. He strode toward Krupin, images in his head of their first meeting, of the gleeful, arrogant sadism of the beady-eyed little man. Those eyes had fear in them now, and he felt as if a vengeful flame ignited inside him. Opie had tried to put the violence and bloodshed of this life behind him once, but in moments like this he doubted such a thing could be possible. He yearned for a peaceful life, but he would not turn his back on his responsibilities to his brothers.

Krupin’s right arm hung limply, blood soaking through his shirt from the gunshot wound of the night before. Opie shot Krupin four times, bullets ripping through him, shattering the mirrors on the wall behind him. Blood-spattered shards crashed down on top of the dying man, some reflecting Krupin’s shock and pain and some showing Opie a reflection of his own grim features. As the gunfire ceased, only soft echoes remaining in the ballroom, he turned away. He hadn’t liked the look of his eyes in that reflection. He would have expected to see a killer’s eyes, but all he saw in those mirror shards was pain.

Black sunbursts of oxygen deprivation blossomed in Jax’s eyes. His legs pounded the floor, and he smashed his fists into Lagoshin’s side. He tried to force the monster’s arms away, but Lagoshin’s size and weight overwhelmed him. In his fury, the Russian felt none of Jax’s blows. In the rush of imminent death, Jax could no longer feel any of his own injuries, only those hands around his throat and the burning hollow in his lungs.

Lagoshin looked down on him and grinned. He whispered something in Russian that Jax would never understand.

A fresh wave of rage flowed over Jax, one last burst of strength, and he slammed his fists into Lagoshin’s sides, already thinking ahead to his next move—his last move. He had to reach the enormous bastard’s eyes.

Tensed, about to thrust his arms up inside Lagoshin’s reach, he punched one last time… and realized that his left fist had struck something at the Russian’s side that shouldn’t have been there. In the fog his thoughts had become, it took him a precious moment to realize it was a sheath. A handle jutted from it.

Lagoshin had a knife.

Desperate, lungs screaming for air, Jax drove his fist into the Russian’s side one final time, but now his fingers closed on the handle of the knife, and he drew it out. In his triumph, Lagoshin didn’t notice until the blade punched through his right side. Weakened, Jax only had so much strength, but he had enough to drive the blade in and twist . He hacked tough muscle, split skin.

Lagoshin roared and lurched off him, scrambling backward in a crouch until he hit the corridor wall. Pain contorted his face as he looked down along his side and saw what Jax had done—saw the knife handle jutting from his side.

Drawing in ragged breaths, fighting back the blackness in his peripheral vision, Jax crawled along the carpet to the opposite wall and used it to leverage himself upward. Leaning against the wall, he reached deeper… breathed deeper… and found a determination that his body lacked.

Jax took a deep breath that seared his throat and stepped away from the wall. Lagoshin reached down and ripped the knife from his own side. Blood poured from the wound, painting the carpet and then running in a steady stream that soaked into his pants. Eyes bright with murder, Lagoshin stepped toward him. Jax punched him in the throat. Wheezing, sucking in air, Lagoshin staggered backward. Jax went to follow, but the Russian swiped the blade across the space between them and tagged Jax on the arm, a thin red line burning against his left tricep. A shallow cut, but the knife would do much worse.

“I will enjoy killing your sister,” Lagoshin said.

Twin gunshots exploded in the hallway. Twin holes appeared in Lagoshin’s torso. He took a single step backward, blinked, stared at Jax and then down at the rose-red patches blossoming on his chest… and then he fell to his knees. A long moan came from his throat, and then he slid down to lay on his side as if he had simply decided the time had come to sleep.

Jax staggered backward a step, staring at the dead Russian. Slowly, he turned to see Oleg lying on his side on the bloody carpet with a 9mm pistol in one hand and the other pressed against his abdomen, his shirt soaked in blood. The smell of blood filled the corridor—his and Oleg’s and Lagoshin’s mixing together into a metallic, copper cloud—and he forced himself to ignore his injuries. He walked to Lagoshin and stepped on the Russian’s wrist, tore the knife from his grip and tossed it away.