Sons of Anarchy: Bratva

19

The SAMNOV tore along the pavement toward the Wonderland Hotel, tires throwing up a cloud of dust and righteous fury. Rollie rode in the lead, an icy ball of dread and suspicion heavy in his gut. He’d known Jax’s father, J. T., and though the man had been arrogant as hell, he’d also been a man of honor. Death had come for him far too young. Too young to have had the proper influence on his son. That remained to be seen.

Hopper rode up on his left, gesturing toward the hotel. Rollie had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he’d stopped paying attention to anything but the heat lines rising from the pavement ahead. They were still half a mile from the hotel, but now that Hopper’d drawn his attention to it, Rollie saw the many vehicles parked out front.

Slower than before, he rode toward the hotel with the eight members of SAMNOV who’d been close enough to respond to his summons. Hopper and Baghead, Antonio and Thor, Clean and Bronson, Ugly Jim and Mikey the Prospect. Nine guys—that was what SAMNOV could muster. Enough to cause problems.

Gunfire cracked the air. A gunman patrolled the roof. Two men ran around the perimeter, and one of them took shots at the guy on the roof, hoping to get in a lucky shot.

Rollie pulled his bike onto the dirt shoulder, engine growling as it idled. Thor drew up next to him on one side, and Hopper on the other, while the rest of his club halted behind them, waiting.

“What now?” Thor asked. “You’re not going to get any answers from Jax in the middle of this shit.”

Rollie dragged his goggles up and squinted at Thor in the glare of the sun. “Now we back him up. You think I’d leave our brothers in the middle of a crisis?”

Thor smiled thinly, ready for a fight.

“What about the Russians?” Hopper asked. “How do we know which ones are on our side and which ones are with Jax?”

Rollie thought about that a second, staring at the hotel. Then he dragged his goggles down, fitting them carefully over his eyes. He turned and raised his voice, making sure the rest of his men could hear him.

“Hard and fast!” he barked. “Take out anyone who takes a shot at you. If we get any friendly-fire killings in here, it’s damn well not gonna be one of us!”

He twisted the throttle, and the rear wheel tore up the dirt shoulder.

Cavalry’s coming, Jackson, Rollie thought. For better or worse.

Jax and Opie raced through the lobby, encountering nothing but sunlight and shattered glass. Opie turned left, and Jax turned right, taking aim through broken windows in case some of Lagoshin’s men had gone back inside. Jax felt as if he skated along the surface of a death that yawned wide beneath him, but he and Opie were in the flow now, and there was no time for second guesses.

Gunfire drew them to the west wing of the hotel, which had a couple of floors of guest rooms on top of a trio of ballrooms, two on the first floor and one off the mezzanine.

Jax put his back to the wall, motioned for Opie to halt. On the wide steps up to the mezzanine, Oleg and Vlad crouched behind marble balusters, shooting through the openings at the double doors of a first-floor ballroom. Jax caught a glimpse of a short gunman just inside the ballroom, saw the oily sheen of his skin and the dead fish eyes and recognized Viktor Krupin instantly. The gunshot wound in his shoulder had to hurt like hell, but it hadn’t slowed him down.

He swung around the corner and fired a burst from the TsNIITochMash. One of the bullets brushed by Krupin’s face close enough to dry his sweat, and the Russian dodged back into the ballroom.

Jax ran down the hall, TsNIITochMash at the ready. Opie shouted angrily at him for breaking cover but followed anyway. Oleg and Vlad saw them coming and stood, moving down the stairs, covering the ballroom’s doors. One of Lagoshin’s men showed himself, ducking low as he fired a shot at Jax and Opie. All four men returned fire, and at least two of the bullets struck home. The guy slammed against the door frame and then slid back into the room, leaving a wide smear of blood on the frame and wall.

Alive or dead? Jax wondered. Probably dead.

“How many more?” Opie asked.

“At least three,” Vlad said.

With Jax and Opie on one side and Oleg and Vlad on the other, the men inside the ballroom were pinned down unless they chose another exit. If they came out these doors, they would be in the middle of a cross fire.

“We’ve got to get to Trinity,” Oleg said desperately, glancing back up the stairs toward the mezzanine.

Jax froze. “Where?”

“Follow me.” Oleg moved back to the steps, glancing at Vlad. “Kill them if you can.”

Vlad nodded, smiling. “Send help.”

Oleg did not reply. Jax saw him moving toward the steps and glanced at Opie, who only nodded.

“Go,” Opie told him.

Jax didn’t hesitate. He raced across the killing floor, the space between Opie and Vlad where the Russians in the ballroom would have a clear shot at him from inside. He held his assault rifle ready, caught a glimpse of Krupin, but the man pulled back out of sight, perhaps remembering the breeze on his nose from Jax’s bullet.

Then he was racing up the stairs after Oleg. When he hit the mezzanine, he saw that Oleg had stopped to wait for him in front of a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out at the back of the hotel, toward the empty swimming pool and the overgrown back lot. Oleg pointed out the window, and Jax glanced across the lot. From that window, they had a clear view from the west wing to east. At first he saw nothing, but then he spotted movement in a guest room window, one floor up and across from them. A flash of strawberry blond hair and then a dark figure, a broad man whose silhouette Jax knew immediately—Chibs.

The sound of gunfire had punctuated every moment since their arrival—some near and some distant—but he felt sure some of it was coming from that guest room on the third floor of the east wing.

“Fastest way,” Jax said.

Oleg darted back along the balcony portion of the mezzanine. Down below, he spotted Opie and Vlad, heard Opie shouting for Krupin and his men to throw out their guns and he’d let them live. Then Oleg reached a fire door, and Jax followed him through it. They hustled up the steps to the third floor, opened the door, and stepped into the corridor there.

Jax glanced right and left, oriented himself, and ran to the right without waiting for Oleg. There were guest rooms here, two floors above the lobby. Stay alive, he thought, mentally commanding both Trinity and Chibs.

A fire door blocked the other end of the corridor—an entrance into the east wing—and he and Oleg hurtled toward it.

Lagoshin spat curses as he erupted from an open guest room door, crashed into Jax, and slammed him into the peeling wallpaper on the opposite side of the hall. The TsNIITochMash flew from Jax’s grip and skidded along the carpet, far out of reach. Jax still had the bruises to remind him of the last time he’d met the massive Russian, and he didn’t want a repeat. He tried to twist free, but Lagoshin got a hand on his throat, smashed his head against the wall, and started to lift him off the ground. Jax’s back slid up the wallpaper, and his sneakers left the carpet.

Oleg shouted at them and raised his assault rifle, and one of Lagoshin’s men emerged from the guest room. The barrel of his handgun gleamed in the dusty daylight. Jax tried to shout Oleg’s name, but the Russian fired. The bullet ripped through Oleg’s gut and then lodged in the wall. Blood sprayed as Oleg went down. On the ground, he raised his AR-12 and fired, killing the man who’d shot him.

Then he bled. He tried to aim his AR-12, but if he pulled the trigger he might kill both Lagoshin and Jax. Wounded, hands shaking, Oleg pulled the trigger anyway. Three shots, and then he clicked onto an empty magazine. He’d be no help.

Jax wheezed, and his chest burned. As Lagoshin held him aloft, he managed to yank out his Glock, brought it around, and jammed it against the big bastard’s chest. Lagoshin grabbed his wrist and twisted, ripped the handgun from his grasp.

“Teller,” Lagoshin said, buckshot scars on his face gleaming.

Jax’s eyes widened, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course Joyce had eventually revealed his identity to the Bratva.

“You’ve been foolish. You killed Putlova, but I didn’t care about that. He was an arrogant bastard. Now I kill you. I kill Sokolov and his men. No more gun business for the Sons of Anarchy.”

Black spots at the corners of his eyes, losing air and on the verge of losing consciousness, Jax pressed his heels against the wall behind him. Fueled by rage and desperation, he brought his feet even higher and pushed hard, pistoned off the wall, and forced Lagoshin backward. The Russian lost his grip on Jax’s throat, and Jax sucked in a ragged gasp of air as he hit the carpet on one knee.

Lagoshin barked Russian profanities and bent to reach for him. Jax dropped onto his side and whipped both legs around, knocking Lagoshin’s feet out from under him. Lagoshin fell hard, his head striking the wall, and landed on the carpet with a thunderous crash. Jax stood as Lagoshin tried to rise, disoriented.

He kicked Lagoshin hard in the temple, then delivered a follow-up to his mouth, but he said nothing. Jax had no interest in taunting Lagoshin. The huge man groaned, then shook himself like a wet dog and growled as he rose to his hands and knees. Jax glanced at the handgun that Lagoshin had torn from his grip. Just beyond its place on the carpet, Oleg sat against the wall with his hands pressed hard to the wound in his abdomen. His eyes were open, but he looked pale, his face slack.

“Kill him,” Oleg rasped, blood bubbling on his lips.

Jax aimed another kick at Lagoshin’s skull. Even as he did, the big Russian launched himself upward, hurling himself from hands and knees into a battering ram. He tackled Jax, slammed him to the carpet and straddled him, backhanded him twice and wrapped his huge hands around Jax’s throat and began to squeeze. The pressure forced a strangled grunt out of him, the last of his air. The pressure made Jax cry out in rage and pain.

In his mind, he saw the faces of his sons. Of Tara and of his mother. Somewhere nearby, Trinity and Chibs were in trouble, but he realized he was not going to be able to help them.

Trinity had fooled herself into thinking they could escape through the window. She’d picked up a chair and slammed it against the glass. If the pool had been full, maybe they’d have been able to make the jump, but they were thirty or forty feet above the rear parking lot. If the fall didn’t kill them, it would mess them up badly enough that they’d be lying there broken and bleeding until Lagoshin’s men came and finished the job. She’d given up smashing the chair against the window after the third attempt. The glass had cracked, but there seemed little point.

Only then had she seen the door to the connecting guest room. She’d unlocked and opened the door, but of course there was one on the other side—one that could only be unlocked from the adjoining room.

“Chibs!” she called.

He had shoved the dusty, stained mattress off the box spring and put it against the wall, an added layer for the Russians’ bullets to pass through. Now he glanced out the door, assault rifle clutched in both hands.

“I can do this all day,” he shouted to them. “You want us, you’re gonna have to come in after us!”

“Chibs!” Trinity snapped.

He whipped around to glare at her. She pushed the floor lamp back so he had a clear view of the connecting door and pointed to it. Holding his gun, she mimed shooting at the lock, and he nodded, a mischievous light in his eyes.

Chibs held up his hand, palm flat, halting her. She frowned, and he sketched his fingers at the air, indicating that she should go out through that room and into the corridor. It took her a moment to realize what he wanted, and when she did, she thought there might have been a look of mischief in her own eyes as well. She relished the moment. Any second that passed with her feeling something other than fear was something to cherish.

She gestured toward Chibs.

He thrust his assault rifle out into the corridor and fired blindly in the direction of their attackers. With the gunfire as cover, she shot out the lock, blowing a hole in metal and wood, tearing the mechanism in two.

The door swung inward. She didn’t even glance at Chibs as she rushed into the next room, spotted the same dusty bed, the same dust motes dancing in the sunlight streaming through the windows, the same sad, faded artwork on the walls. She ran to the door, hauled it open, and ducked into the hall. The Russians were twenty feet along the corridor, ducked into the recessed doorway of a guest room and so laser-focused on the space where they expected to see Chibs firing at them that it was a couple of seconds before one of them noticed her.

Trinity didn’t try to aim. She lifted the gun and fired its last two bullets, then ducked back into the room and threw herself onto the floor.

Bullets tore up the open doorway, splintered wood and drywall flying.

More gunfire, but echoing now from the next room as much as it was out in the corridor. She heard a cry of pain, a terrible grunt, and then the wet, heavy sound of bodies toppling to the floor. Trinity had provided a distraction, and Chibs had taken full advantage of it.

“Clear!” he called from the corridor.

She lurched to her feet and out into the hall, gun left on the floor, forgotten.

In the hall, Chibs relieved the dead men of their weapons. He handed her a sleek assault rifle. The gun felt heavier than anything she had ever carried in her life.

You’re alive, she reminded herself, and the burden lightened a bit. But only a bit.

Chibs grabbed her arm and gave her a little shake. Trinity snapped her gaze up to stare at him.

“You with me, girl? I need you focused. We’re not out o’ this yet.”

Trinity stared at the dead men. “I’m with you.”

“Quickest way down’ll be the stairs,” Chibs said. “Likely to be some more of these bastards in our path, but my job is to get you out of here.”

“I’m not leavin’ without Oleg,” she said coldly.

He hesitated, and she could almost see him weighing his options. “We have no way of knowin’ where they are. Best thing we can do for them is keep the exits clear.”

Rollie stood in the lobby, head cocked as he listened to the sounds of gunfire. Baghead and Mikey the Prospect were with him—he’d sent the rest of them off in different directions to do what they could—but now he hesitated.

“Which way?” Mikey asked.

Good question, Rollie thought. They could just hold the lobby, but he wanted to get to Jax before the Bratva did. Like any brotherhood, they might fight among themselves, but if an outsider came after one of them, they circled the wagons. Rollie would give up his life for that principle.

“Front window!” Baghead snapped.

Rollie turned, sweeping his gun hand up and around to take aim at the shattered, jagged remains of the plate-glass windows. He spotted a pair of stone-faced killers just outside, gray in the shadow of the hotel. One wore a white tank, and his arms were wreathed with tattoos. The other wore a black suit and tie.

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.

“He’s dead,” Oleg said, his voice a groan.

Jax turned to see Oleg trying to force himself into a sitting position again, and failing. He lurched over to Oleg and knelt beside him. Gutshot, blood still foaming from the corners of his mouth, he was close to death.

“Thank you, man. Truly,” Jax said. “You saved my life just now.”

Oleg gripped his arm, staring at him with the dark urgency of words he did not have the strength to speak.

Then his gaze went dull and his grip slackened, and he was gone.

Jax sat down to rest beside the dead man.

His eyes closed.

Jackie. Wake up, brother.

It might have been minutes later, or only seconds, when he heard the quiet burr of Chibs’s voice, and he opened his eyes again. Jax blinked to clear his vision, weak from blood loss, exhaustion, and the beating he’d taken. Chibs knelt to his right, a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. To his left, Trinity stood staring down at the pale corpse of the man she’d loved and at the pool of blood that surrounded him where he sat against the wall. She cried silently, mute with grief. For long moments, it was as if she didn’t even realize that Chibs and Jax were there in the corridor with her. Then a dark, familiar anger stole over her face, and she glanced at the gun in Jax’s hand, then over at Lagoshin and the bullet wounds in his torso. He hadn’t been able to save Oleg, but he had taken vengeance for her.

It was cold comfort, but it was all he had to offer.