The whole thing seemed uneventful, and I wondered if that thought alone proved that I was just as callous as Dimitri was. In fact, the more time I spent with him, the more alike I realised we were. Despite being on the brink of war, I had enjoyed my time with him - cocooned in my room, away from the rest of the world.
I felt the stares upon me, the whispers as I stood in this warehouse in front of Mikhail. My presence seemed to solidify their purpose - sanction their actions. And when Dimitri’s hand swept against the small of my back, I tried to remain still - tried not to let it show exactly how much he affected me. He was staking his claim amongst his men, and although I pushed him earlier, the truth was that I didn’t want to imagine anyone else taking me to the same heights that Dimitri did. And just like that, my mind wandered back to sex - I seemed to be doing that a lot lately as if Dimitri had woken the feral part of me that operated on pure instinct.
Still, it wasn’t an ideal time to be thinking about how Dimitri had opened my thighs earlier, tasting and licking me until I lay unhinged, panting his name as if I were his own personal feast.
Mikhail was shaking and I fought the urge to not shuffle backwards in case he puked on me. Stubbing out a cigarette on his face had been entirely unnecessary. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen, and although my heart clenched for him - for what he had done and what would be done in turn to him, I watched with cool indifference as Ravi’s men untied the boy. I only hoped that I would not experience his death in my dreams.
A manic chuckle sounded behind us, and time seemed to stop - or at the very least, slow down. The laughter was so out of place in this warehouse that I instinctively knew that it hadn’t come from one of us.
One of us - when exactly had I accepted my place here?
Wariness flooded my veins as I watched Dimitri reach for his gun on pure instinct.
I turned to find Segei.
He stood beneath the floodlights of the warehouse, a lone man against all of us. But that lone man swung around a pistol.
Sergei looked terrible. His eyes were sunken and dark, his shirt tattered. His hair looked as though it hadn’t been brushed in a week. The manifestation of the Sour Jar in living colour.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” he slurred, scratching the back of his head with the tip of the gun firmly in his grasp.
I was certain that if I stood closer to him I would catch the waft of vodka that seemed to breathe from his very pores.
Dimitri quickly stepped in front of me, shielding me from the unfolding chaos. It shouldn’t have been such a monumental moment, but the men noticed - they dipped their head as one as their King protected his Queen.
Irritation surged through, and it was my turn to step forward. I took my place next to him and stood tall. Dimitri’s jaw ticked with annoyance and I knew he wanted to shove me behind him once more, but I wasn’t someone who would simply hide behind his legs willingly. Instead, I reached for his hand, threading my fingers through his and exhaled - a show of strength and unity if there ever was one. He raised a brow at me before accepting, his gaze bore into mine, willing me to understand what I had just presented. But, I didn’t care. I was in this thing with Dimitri - whatever the hell that meant. I knew that the simple act of holding hands as we faced Sergei would be the final nail in the proverbial coffin. It would change everything.
“You may as well shoot me,” Sergei announced to the warehouse, flinging his arms open wide, welcoming a bullet.
“I mean, you’ve already ruined me - you didn’t need a bullet to do that - not with your little bitch of a Vedman over there.”
Dimitri stiffened at the insult, Ravi reached for his gun, and I grunted my protest at such an action. It didn’t matter what he said, we couldn’t kill him.
“This is all on you Sergei,” Dimitri spoke calmly, refusing to move from his position next to me, gripping my hand tighter with each word spoken.
Sergei laughed manically once more, “I don’t know how you fucking did it, but you did - you ruined me, and I had the perfect plan - the perfect takeover. Tell me, Pakhan,” he spat out Dimitri’s title as if the mere mention of his position disgusted him, “how many moles of mine have come scuttling back?”
Dimitri refused to answer, which seemed to only anger Sergei further.
“You’re really not going to just end this with a bullet?” He screeched, his pitch getting higher with his hysterics.
“You shouldn’t have brought a Voodoo bitch into this,” Dimitri’s anger surfaced, “you shouldn’t have betrayed us the way you did.”
“And you should never have been pushed forward as our leader - you were too young, and now look at us - we’re weaker for it,” Sergei seethed.
Dimitri shrugged, allowing the words of a madman to roll off of him.
“I even took it up with Arlo,” Sergei spat, “but he wouldn’t listen - argued that it was your rightful place and we should all get in line.”
Dimitri’s eyes flared in surprise, and I only noticed because I had seen the same expression on him when I had slid on my knees before him in the shower yesterday. The images I had tapped into of Arlo when reading his palm rose, unbidden, reminding me of what I had seen. Sergei wasn’t lying - he had approached Arlo, and Arlo had shut him down. That didn’t make this right - or justify Sergei’s actions but I still found solace in the fact that he wasn’t lying.
It happened in a split second, he aimed his gun for Dimitri and I saw in his eyes what he was going to do. I was helpless to stop it.
He released the bullet and I willed it to stop - to simply fall, mid-air to the ground. But this wasn’t the matrix, and I wasn’t Dimitri’s saviour.
Ravi was suddenly in motion, throwing Dimitri and myself to the ground, the bullet missing us by a hair's breadth. Bullets reigned down on Sergei from Dimitri’s men, peppering him with bullet wounds and I was helpless to stop it. I protested, trying to push up in any sort of attempt to stop it, but Dimitri held me down, his weight pressed against mine in a protective covering as Dimitri’s men closed in around us, protecting us from Sergei’s death.
But there would be no protection from such a thing because his death unlocked a curse.