33. INTERLUDE: ARKADY

“Nick Chernenko is fucking dead.”

His voice still sounds full of broken glass, and his chest still feels a little stab when he takes a deep breath. But it doesn’t matter; he’s still in charge, and his companions are still ready to follow him, no matter what.

Darya runs a hand through her green hair, her eyes dancing.

“What about Jessica?” she says. “Are we gonna finish what we started?”

Darya’s apartment is virtually brand new and runs almost two grand a month, but it still looks like a crash pad for homeless people. Pizza boxes and alcohol bottles strewn everywhere, huge stains on the furniture, debris littered all over the floor.

“I don’t know yet,” Arkady says thoughtfully, scratching the remnants of his last line of cocaine from the end of his nose. “I think I’ll take my time with that one.”

It’s just the two of them in the fading afternoon light. Normally, Andrei and Val would be here, too, listening but not offering any input because they’re too fucking stupid. But ever since Arkady’s father found out about his first encounter with Chernenko, he doesn’t trust them. One of them must have squealed.

“So how do we do it?” Darya asks.

“From a distance. My little swimming lesson with the old man taught me one thing: not to get close enough to Chernenko that he can see us coming.”

“I still think I could take him. If it hadn’t been for those fucking dogs – ”

“You still would have gotten your ass handed to you,” Arkady says matter-of-factly. “Pops told me Chernenko used to be an enforcer. Afterwards I asked a couple of the old guard about him. They had stories that’d make you shit your pants.”

Darya scoffs. “Maybe back in the day. He’s an old man now. He’s gotta be, like, 40 at least.”

“We’re not going to take chances. That’s that.”

“So what then?”

Arkady taps out another line on the mirror with an old safety razor blade that’s covered in rust.

“Sniper shot,” he says.

She nods. “Fine,” she says glumly. “If that’s how it has to be.”

“You take the shot, I’ll be in place to snatch up the bitch as soon as he’s down.”

Darya looks offended. “Why don’t you take the fucking shot?”

“Because you’re better than me. We can’t afford to miss.”

“There’s a laser sight,” she says. “The distance we were at that last time when they were fucking is perfect. Anyone could make the shot.”

“Fine,” he grumbles. “Whatever. But we have to make sure they’re both outside at the same time. If we take him out and she’s not with him, she’ll have a chance to run, or call the cops.”

“Plus I want her to see his head get blown off,” Darya giggles.

Even through his drug-induced fog, Arkady recognizes that last line was a bit extreme. But that’s what he loves about Darya – she’s unpredictable. That’s what makes her so much fucking fun to be around. Her old man doesn’t like her – says she’s a liability – but he wouldn’t be without the Bonnie to his Clyde.

“When are we gonna do this?” she asks.

“We’ll start staking the place out tomorrow. But from now on we use a duck blind. He must have seen the scope when we were up there. I don’t want that happening again.”

She nods. “All right, then,” she says. “I’ll clear my calendar.”

Arkady blinks at her for a second before getting the joke. Then the two of them laugh like maniacs.

After the hilarity passes, Darya fetches a heavy sigh.

“What the fuck is it with you and Jessica, anyway?” she asks.

He frowns. Does he even know the answer to that? Her parents got into hock with him, running up a huge tab in smack. He turned them out to dealing to help pay it off before he found out about their hot little daughter.

Unfortunately, he’d caught the two of them using the stash they were both supposed to be selling and so he had to send Val and Andrei to take care of them. Their bodies were somewhere in the Tuckahoe River now.

But he couldn’t tell Jessica that, or she’d think she didn’t have to pay their debt.

“She’s hot,” he says simply. “And innocent, y’know? I like that.”

“Yeah, me too,” she says. “But it’s a lot of hassle just for a piece of ass. There has to be something else.”

There is. Something he didn’t have the nerve to tell his old man either of the times he was getting beaten on. It wasn’t just about her; it was about Arkady and Josef.

“The bitch is mine,” he says. “I own her, and my old man is trying to take her away from me. I’m not going to let him. He can go fuck himself.”

Darya eyes him warily. “You ever heard the line about cutting off your nose to spite your face?”

“No.”

She nods. “Just checking. I personally don’t give a shit. I just want to kill the old fucker and then have some fun with the blonde bitch.”

Arkady leans down and snorts a line of the powder, then hands the mirror and straw to his companion.

“That’s what I love about you, Darya,” he says. “You’re not complicated. You want what you want, and you go out and get it.”

She nods. “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

He stares at the gas fireplace set in the corner of the living room, watches the pilot light flicker and gutter its tiny orange light. It puts him to thinking – there’s another reason behind his plans. One he should really acknowledge.

“If I’m being honest,” he says. “And I’d only say this to you—”

Darya leans in, eyes wild. “Yeah?”

“I’ll be fucked if I let my father humiliate me like that.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“I’m going to run the Volkov empire one day, and I need the family to respect me. I’m not going to let them see me as some little punk who’s scared of his own father, or runs away from the fucking boogeyman, Nick Chernenko.”

“Fuckin-A rights.”

“My old man took over when his father was killed,” he says. “Maybe that’s the best way to do it. You know? Out with the old, in with the new?”

Darya goggles at him, her red-rimmed eyes burning with their own inner glow.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” she asks, breathless.

“Maybe,” he says defiantly, not knowing the answer himself. “I guess we’ll see.”

She grins. “Well, count me in whenever you’re ready.”

The inevitable crash that comes with long hours of drug use eventually drags them down, until both are on the verge of passing out. Darya props her feet on the arm of the overstuffed chair while Arkady stretches out on the sofa.

“First thing tomorrow, we start hunting,” Arkady yawns.

“Uh-huh,” Darya sighs. “And then we have start having fun with little Miss Jessica.”