Sweet Collateral

“Get them to load the guns,” I say to Samuel. He gets out of the car, and I pull away, winding the SUV through the snowy woodland on the edge of the Russian runway. It’s really too easy, all of this. No wonder the Bratva are so wealthy. The government is even more corrupt than in Mexico. Guns and drugs run through this country as plentiful as food or water. The Bratva have so much power that no one could or would stand against them. Except me and Nero.

Of course, we don’t have to stop the drugs so much. Carlos is handling that from our end. We’ve allowed the cartels to keep selling to the Russians, keeping our involvement silent. But as soon as those shipments are past the border they’re fair game. We’ve stopped most of them, not to mention, exponentially increased our own stocks. I even ‘steal’ my own shipments to avoid suspicion. Dimitri is getting increasingly more fractious as his supplies continue to dwindle. Their business is suffering on all fronts, and of course, he blames Nero.

The Italian has been on the rampage, declaring war in a big way. And still, there’s no end in sight. Nicholai still has Anna and Una, but not her child. I know very little of the details, only that Una managed to get help on the inside. The child was smuggled out to Nero. You’d think that would ease him somewhat, but I think it’s done the opposite. Perhaps he has even more to fight for: his son’s mother.

The Russians are fleeing his city in droves because no one is safe from Nero’s wrath right now. All this, and still nothing. I’m starting to lose hope.

The tires of the car bump over the rough ground, and I pull onto the country road that leads away from the airstrip. I don’t pass a single car for miles until I reach the outer limits of Moscow. The barren countryside bows to civilization, the low orange glow of street lights giving a somber air to the bleak, snowy streets.

I pull into the driveway of a nondescript-looking house at the end of a cul-de-sac. My footsteps mar the snow as I walk up the path. The rental house is cold, and I swear every floorboard creaks when I step inside. I could have left men here to stop the gun shipments, gone home to the desert and the heat, but I can’t. It’s like there’s an invisible chord bolted to my chest, attached to Anna. The further I am from her, the more I feel as though it’ll snap, and the moment it does, I don’t know what I’ll do. Being here, in Russia, I know I’m under the same sky as she is; it brings a small comfort.

I tell myself I need to be here. The truth is, I’ve abandoned my cartel and dragged my men up to this frozen hell and for what? My own personal obsession. They never complain though. They’re just happy if they’re getting to blow shit up, steal guns and fuck the Russians.

I take the bottle of vodka off the worktop and tip it up, watching the bubbles drift upwards as the burning liquid trickles down my throat. I swallow several mouthfuls before setting it down and taking a cigar from my pocket. I’ve always been a man of vices, but I find them more of a crutch these days, leveling out the extremes of so much violence. This isn’t my cartel, there’s no business angle, no political agenda, no reason to be tactful in any way shape or form. As long as we get the guns, it doesn’t matter how we do it, and I find myself craving the bloodiest methods possible. Hatred for these people festers away at my soul, driving me to lose all sight of reason. And in the wake of so much unrestrained aggression, I seem to reach for the bottle, allowing it to level me out, to keep me from losing it completely. This is the vicious circle of my life without Anna, without her gentleness, her innocence. I spent a long time trying to escape the man I’d been forced to become, and she made me want to be better. Now…it’s like the free-fall into hell with nothing but fire awaiting me.

I sit there in the kitchen, drinking and smoking until the door bangs open. Samuel and ten of his men are staying here. They’re a specialized team, military, trained, regimented. They all disappear, like an apparition that never existed. None of them ever linger in my presence for too long, except Sam. Maybe he’s just a glutton for punishment.

“Someone will be here in the morning to pick up the guns. There’re a couple of missiles in there as well.”

“Fucking Russians and their dodgy shit.”