Pain shoots up my leg as I crumple to the concrete.
“Fuck, Katya.” Dmitri is on his knees by me, his face finally a worried mask in the otherworldly glow. “Can you stand?”
“I’ll try.”
I’ve been injured before. It comes with the territory in ballet. And this is an ankle that’s suffered from a lateral sprain more than once. But when I struggle to my feet, the pain is so bad that all I can do is gasp and fall forward, catching myself on the railing. My gut clenches on a wave of nausea.
“I don’t know if I can keep going down the steps,” I tell him. “You go ahead. I’ll only slow you down.”
Dmitri kneels before me, still holding the bags in each arm. “Get on my back.”
“You can’t carry me and all those bags at the same time,” I manage. “You’ll fall and break both of our necks.”
His phone rings.
“Fucking fuck,” he mutters, whipping out his phone and looking at the screen.
I can see that it’s Misha calling this time.
He answers. “What’s up?”
I hear Misha’s voice on the other end but can’t make out what he’s saying.
“What Natasha said is true,” Dmitri says. “The Andrianis had a bomb shipped to Silk. We’re evacuating.”
Misha sounds angry on the other end. I can’t hear most of what he bites out, but then I hear, “…the fucking coke, the money, the guns.”
“It can stay,” Dmitri tells him. “What does it matter if it gets blown up?”
“It can’t,” I hear Misha snap. “The Feds will get called in. They’ll comb through everything. I already have some of my best men tied up in jail.”
“I have five minutes to get out of here,” Dmitri says. “I don’t give a fuck about what gets blown up. The Feds won’t find shit.”
They argue some more, and I can feel the pressure on my chest. We’re running out of time. It sounds like Misha has more than just the drugs and money Dmitri scooped out of the safe hidden here, and he doesn’t want the scrutiny that will come with any of it being found and traced back to him. But all I care about right now is getting out of this building before it blows up.
Finally, Dmitri hangs up and stuffs his phone into his pocket. Then he looks to me. “Get on my back, Katya. We don’t have time.”
I try putting weight on my ankle again, but it’s bad. I know I’ll never make it on my own. With a nod, I climb onto my brother’s back, and he starts giving me a piggyback ride down the rest of the stairs.
Chapter 24
SCORPION
I’m blocks away from Silk when the ground shakes and a huge explosion rocks through the city. Up ahead, smoke instantly rises, the cloud thick and dark and angry.
The bomb went off.
I stare at the evidence, and it’s like the world stops around me. I can’t hear anything. Can’t feel anything. It’s like it exploded inside me instead of the Bratva club where it was sent.
“Cazzo,” Federico mutters. “Something big just happened.”
He has no idea it was us. Has no idea who is inside that fucking building.
What I may have just lost.
It knocks the air out of my lungs.
I can’t breathe.