Chapter 1 - The Dead Man
CHAPTER ONE
THE DEAD MAN
Artyom Gromov
━━━ ⚰ ━━━
BANG!
That was the first thing I heard when I came to my senses.
A woman was screaming, or perhaps she’d already stopped. The room came into focus in uneven pieces: tall windows, black coats, white lilies, a chandelier shimmering over people who were supposed to be mourning me. Satin had gathered around my hips. My hands rested on a polished wooden rim, and I was sitting upright in a coffin that had cost more than most people spent on a car.
At least they’d ordered the correct size.
Fifteen feet away, my wife held a pistol pointed at my chest. Viktoria’s veil had slipped into her red hair, and there was an expression on her face I hadn’t seen in seven years of marriage. She looked less like a grieving widow than a woman whose worst nightmare had interrupted the service.
She fired again.
I tried to duck. My shoulders barely moved, and the bullet struck the panel behind me, showering the satin with splinters.
“Tyoma! Get down!” Ruslan shouted.
An excellent suggestion. Unfortunately, my body was unwilling to follow it.
Blyad.
The doctor had assured me I wouldn’t wake until my brothers had retrieved me privately. Instead, I was conscious in front of a roomful of mourners and still so drugged that gripping the coffin required concentration. Whatever he’d given me had worn off too early in one respect and nowhere near quickly enough in the others.
A hand seized my sleeve.
A petite brunette stood beside the coffin, staring at me with wide hazel-green eyes. She was pale beneath her wispy fringe, and her black dress bore a small funeral-home name badge. I assumed she was responsible for the scream. Seeing your client sit up midway through his own funeral would test anyone’s composure.
“Get down!” she urged, pulling on my arm.
“I can’t.”
“Then lie back, please!”
I attempted it and nearly pitched over the edge. She caught my shoulder as another shot shattered a vase behind us. Water splashed over the floor. Her fingers shook against my shirt, but she didn’t release me.
She looked at my hands, then my legs. “Oh, God. You can’t move properly.”
“No,” I admitted. “And we need to leave.”
She glanced at the nearest exit. Running for it would have been sensible. Instead, she ducked lower and said, “Put your arm around my shoulders. I’ll help you.”
Across the room, Dmitri Volkov caught Viktoria’s elbow and pulled her towards a side door. He turned once. For an instant, our eyes met. Ten years I’d trusted that man with my business, my security, my brothers’ lives. Now he was helping my wife escape after shooting at me.
I leaned towards the brunette. The room lurched, and she caught me before I fell headfirst from the coffin.
“Careful,” she said sharply, repositioning her feet. “I can’t lift you if you fall.”
“Understood.” I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tried to help as she swung my legs over the rim. My boot snagged in the satin. She pulled it free with an impatient tug, and we somehow got both feet to the floor.
My knees immediately buckled. We lurched against the coffin stand, nearly tipping the flowers into the aisle. She tightened her grip around my waist and let out a breath that was half gasp, half furious laugh.
“I can’t believe I’m trying to save a dead man from dying,” she muttered.
I laughed before I could stop myself. It hurt my chest. She glanced at me as though she couldn’t decide whether to be relieved I was breathing or offended that I found any of this funny.
“I’m sorry,” I said, bracing a hand against the stand to take some weight off her.
“Save it,” she answered, shifting her arm higher around my back. “Can you stand on that leg?”
I tested my right knee. It held, just barely. She nodded and kept me moving.
Beyond her shoulder, a mourner lay bleeding beside an overturned chair. Ilya was kneeling beside him, pressing something against the wound while shouting for assistance. Ruslan directed people away from the shooting; Tikhon and two guards covered the room from the opposite side.
These were people who’d come to bury a man. Now some of them might die at his funeral. I’d expected a trap to expose Dmitri’s allies, not a public massacre. The failure was mine, regardless of who’d pulled the trigger.
“Ruslan!” I called. He turned towards us. “Get the guests out!”
He glanced at the woman supporting me, then the curtains behind her, and signalled for us to go. Ilya looked up from the injured man.
“Tyoma, stay with her,” he shouted. “We’ll find you.”
I nodded and let the brunette steer me towards the service door.
━━━ ⚰ ━━━
The door closed behind us, muting the gunfire without making it disappear. We stood in a passage lined with stacked chairs and boxes of candles. She locked the door, pressed her palm flat against it and listened for footsteps on the other side.
When she turned, I saw a thin line of blood running down her wrist.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
She glanced at her hand as though noticing it for the first time. “It’s a scratch.” Her gaze returned to my face. “Mr. Gromov, what happened downstairs?”
I wasn’t sure where to begin. With the betrayal? The forged death certificate? The fact that my wife had apparently decided to finish the job herself?
“I’ll explain,” I said, “but not in this corridor.”
For a second, she looked ready to argue. Then something struck the door behind us, and she flinched.
“Fine. There’s a back staircase. My grandfather and I live above the funeral home.” She stepped under my arm again. “Tell me if you start feeling faint.”
“I already feel faint.”
“Then tell me before you fall.”
She sounded exhausted, not unkind. I did my best to put more weight on my own feet as we moved past the storage cupboards. She knew where she was going; I could barely distinguish one white wall from the next. Her hand stayed firm against my ribs, steadying me each time I stumbled.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Zoya Belova.”
“Thank you, Zoya.”
She glanced up. “You don’t need to thank me yet. I signed for your coffin, Mr. Gromov. I’d like to get you out of the building without having to order another one.”
I felt a reluctant smile pull at my mouth. She hadn’t smiled herself. The humour seemed to arrive without permission, the way it sometimes did when someone was frightened beyond sense.
At the foot of the stairs, she stopped and looked up. Two flights. I’d climbed more difficult things while drunk, but now my legs shook at the sight of the first step.
“Can you manage?” she asked.
“With help.”
“Then use the railing. I can’t carry you.”
I obeyed. Every step was an argument between my will and the drug still working through my system. Halfway to the landing, a tremor ran through my knees and we had to stop. Zoya’s breath came hard beside me. She waited, one hand on my back, until I was steady enough to continue.
“Do you always live above the funeral home?” I asked, trying to stay awake.
“Since I was little.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Usually the dead are quiet.” She glanced at me, an exhausted crease forming between her brows. “Usually.”
I looked at her then, properly. She’d witnessed something horrifying, been dragged through gunfire, and was hauling a stranger twice her size up the stairs to her own home. She had every reason to resent me. Somehow, I found myself hoping I’d get the chance to meet her again under circumstances that didn’t involve a coffin.
A crash echoed from below. She froze, then urged me onwards.
“Just a few more, Mr. Gromov.”
At the top, my vision began closing around the edges. She reached for the apartment door and called, “Dedushka! Open up, please. I need help!”
Locks clicked. An elderly man with neatly combed silver hair opened the door. His expression changed when he saw Zoya supporting me.
“Zoya, are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. Please help me with Mr. Gromov.”
He looked at my face, then back at her. “The gentleman from the funeral downstairs?”
“Yes, Dedushka.”
“The one you were burying?”
She made a strangled sound. “Please. I can’t explain it right now.”
The old man asked nothing further. He slipped beneath my other arm, and together they took me inside.
━━━ ⚰ ━━━
The apartment smelled of tea and old books. Family photographs covered a mantelpiece, and a folded blanket lay across the back of a sofa. It was an ordinary, lived-in home, and the contrast with the carnage downstairs made my stomach tighten.
They eased me onto the cushions. Zoya stepped away, rubbing her shoulder, while her grandfather crouched beside me.
“What happened to him?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Dedushka.” Her voice wavered. “He sat up in the coffin. Everyone screamed, and then his wife started shooting.”
He studied me for a moment. “Is that true, Mr. Gromov?”
“Yes.”
He sighed, as though deciding which question could wait. “Zoya, bring the first-aid box. Your wrist is bleeding.”
She went into the next room. I tried to sit straighter, but the ceiling seemed to shift above me. The older man steadied my shoulder without hesitation.
“I imagine you have an explanation,” he said quietly.
“I do. I owe you both one.”
He nodded, though I could see he wasn’t satisfied. I thought of my brothers still below us and tried to tell him how to reach them. My tongue refused to shape the words.
Zoya returned carrying a white box. She took one look at me and set it down hastily.
“Mr. Gromov?”
Her fingers closed around mine, warm and surprisingly steady now. “Stay awake. Please.”
I wanted to promise her that my brothers would arrive, that she and her grandfather would be protected, that I’d make this right. Instead, I held on to her hand for a few seconds longer while the room dimmed.
Then the darkness took me.
RUSSIAN GLOSSARY
Blyad (Блядь): A vulgar Russian exclamation, roughly equivalent to “fuck.”
Tyoma (Тёма): An affectionate nickname for Artyom, used by his brothers.
Dedushka (Дедушка): Grandfather or Grandpa.
