NICHOLAS - ENG

DAVOS, SWITZERLAND

NICHOLAS

I had a fucking assignment and I fucked it up.

No wonder. Andrej himself failed at his job when a woman came into the picture, and that’s how I failed too.

Bljad.

My problem is called Himari, is about one meter fifty-five tall, has chestnut brown hair and black eyes. As black as her soul.

I never thought I could ever hate a woman, but what I felt for Himari at that moment was nothing but pure rage. Anger so great that I wanted to kill her.

Himari may have been small, but she could kick and punch like a big one. I had underestimated her in that respect, because she was a fucking killer. What happened? I don’t even want to think about what happened... I also don’t want to know what Sergei will do to me when he finds out that Himari is on the loose.

I could only hope that Andrei would come as soon as possible to help me find him. Riad, the idiot, was good for nothing, or maybe that’s just what I thought. I’m so angry that I don’t notice my bleeding cheek and swear at everything. The wound is next to my left eye and if I didn’t know better, I would have almost lost my eye.

My cell phone vibrates.

ANDREJ: The flight leaves in an hour, try to find useful information in that time and don’t do anything wrong.

NICHOLAS: Tell that bitch to pray she doesn’t run into me in the next hour, I’ll kill her.

ANDREJ: Pull yourself together, otherwise we run the risk of getting killed ourselves. Calm down...

Rajkov always said that... Calm down. There is strength in calm, nothing should be rushed.

I take another breath and try to organize my thoughts as I walk back to the Hotel Belvedere. The staff look at me in shock, but I don’t care what they think about my situation. They would probably prefer to call an ambulance, but that’s not an issue for me. I’m fine.

I run into the bathroom, take a hot shower and then put on fresh clothes. I grab my laptop and do what I do best. I hack into every camera, looking for any little piece of information that might help me in my search for Himaro.

I just have to find them.

Three weeks earlier:

NICHOLAS

Riad, Yuri and I were called into Sergei’s office.

That’s always a bad sign if you ask me, because Sergei hadn’t told us why he wanted to see us.

Something must have gone wrong.

His daughter was pregnant by Andrej, my Bratwa brother. Was that allowed?

Well... if you fuck your boss’s daughter... That definitely doesn’t go down well. Andrei was lucky that he was practically raised by Sergei. Rajkov, our deceased pachan, had found Andrei back then, taken him into the Bratwa and made sure he was doing well. Just like all of us, except Riad. Riad was in the London Bratwa until recently, while we are an integral part of the Texas cell.

The great traitor Dimitri, former Bratwa brother, was killed by Andrei after he tried to hand over Sergei’s daughter Latonya to the Yakuza, who are our enemies at the moment.

Why am I telling you all this?

That, ladies and gentlemen, probably explains why we are standing in this office waiting to hear what Sergei is going to tell us.

“I suppose you know why I asked you here?” asks Sergei as he strolls leisurely into the office.

Yuri and I look at each other. I’ve known Yuri since my time at the Bratwa. Like me and Riad, he is about 190 cm tall, has a short haircut and a three-day beard that emphasizes his angular jawline. Sometimes he reminds me of Tom Hardy. Yuri’s story? You’d better not hear it, I’ll just tell you that Yuri is deaf.

Correction: he was made deaf. After a brutal incident, his ear canal was so badly damaged that he hasn’t been able to hear anything since. He has learned to read lips and sign language, but is very reserved about it. He is introverted and practically only lives for the Bratwa after Rajkov rescued him. Yuri’s strength makes him a brutal fighter who will stop at nothing. He is what you would call an enforcer. He finishes what others have started. Numb.

Riad our sunny boy, tanned, green eyes and a damn player, talks more than he should. From what I could find out about him, his mother wasn’t Russian, only his father. What he can really do, I honestly don’t know yet... At least I should find out now.

At the age of eighteen, he decided to go to London, first to go to school and later to study, but nothing came of it. While searching for his father, he ended up in the Bratwa. His mother was told that he had died in a car accident, or rather that he had almost died. According to the London police report, the accident was so serious that Riad had to spend several months in a rehabilitation clinic to recover, and now it seems to me that he simply lives with the knowledge that he might die one day.

And me? I was what you would call a hacker today, the head of the Bratwa, the eyes and ears. Everything that was connected to a cable or in the network was my territory. I made the impossible possible and even found Latonya after six months. Six months in which Andrei had desperately searched for her after her escape.

While we all continue to give Sergei no answer, he fixes me with his gaze. A look that doesn’t seem to say anything. We still don’t know whether it will be us who have to take the rap for Andrei. Andrei and Latonya even got married with his blessing, which is unique in Bratwa history. It is actually forbidden to marry a woman. The reason? The family leads to such problems. The people you love become a target and that makes you think irrationally.

“I assume it’s about Andrei and Latonya?” I finally ask, shrugging my shoulders. Thank God Sergei is not a dictator. We think of him as a brother, or rather as our pachan, with certain niceties.

“Not quite,” replies Sergei and lights a cigar while leaning against his desk.

What do I like about Sergei? He has style. He’s a classy man, always looks well-groomed, has great charisma and has proven to us that he’s different. Maybe not for everyone, but in some ways he can be. That strengthens the relationship.

“Ishiro tried to hurt my daughter, practically forced me to sign a contract for half of our income...”

Riad frowns demonstratively and raises his eyebrows.

“Concerned?” he asks Sergei, who gives him a devilish smile.

“Do you think I’ll sign any contracts? No my boy... But he’ll try again by trying to attack Latonya... my weakness. I didn’t care before, but now she’s pregnant and I won’t tolerate her being put in danger anymore.” He breathes in and out, fixes me with his gaze and continues speaking.

“Long story short: I want Ishiro’s daughter in our captivity while Latonya is away with Andrei. I want Ishiro to suffer, and as far as his daughter is concerned, he’s even more sensitive,” Sergei claps his hands once.

“Order understood?” he asks us all, while I nod silently and Riad only gets an “Aye” out of his mouth. Yuri nods too and looks at me again as if everything depends on me.

“As soon as Latonya is really safe, I’ll let you know. Then your part begins, is that clear?”

‘Yes,’ Riad and I say in unison, while Yuri nods.

“Good, thank you for your great work. You can go now,” Sergei instructs us, while Yuri is the first to leave Sergei’s office, I’m in the middle and Riad is the last.

When we are out of range, Riad starts talking.

“How the hell are we supposed to find a woman we have no idea who she is?” he asks me as I bite my lower lip desperately and look at Yuri, who shrugs his shoulders and understands my discomfort. He understands that I’m annoyed by Riad and would actually be better off without him.

“We already know who she is and where she is...” I interject when he cuts me off.

“Really? Then the mission is already half done...”

Yuri raises his eyebrows with a grin as he continues to look at me.

“I don’t think it will be that easy. We have to fly to Switzerland... I’ll explain the rest on the flight, okay?” I wink at him and disappear into the kitchen.

Ishiro’s daughter was currently in Davos, Switzerland. At least Ishiro believed that she was safe there. I would let him believe that as long as Sergei didn’t give us the GO. But the worry was: what would I do with her once I had caught her? I had to organize the rest of the process so that everything went smoothly. It might not have been a bad idea to have Yuri with us, but Riad? With Riad, I had the feeling that he had two left hands, although it looked different in London during the shootout.

I could only pray to God that everything would go well, because otherwise Andrej wouldn’t be able to enjoy his baby happiness carefree. The thought that Latonya could be injured with the baby scared me.

It reminded me of my recent past: Valya.

My hair stands on end just thinking about it. Rajkov, who is already dead, knows about the circumstances and Andrej, who happened to be there at the time, nobody else.

I was a damned monster and should have been sentenced to death.

I didn’t just let Valya go, no. I let her think I was dead. She was pregnant, but I didn’t know anything about it. I really didn’t know anything about it, I swear to God! And even if I had known, I should never have gotten involved in that shit. I left my whole family behind to continue my life with the Bratwa.

I let her think she was dead and had to watch her fall into the abyss...