Exhales of steam twisted from lips as I panted, sinking back against the rough brick of the building. I was pinched between it and the smooth back of a dumpster, hidden in partial shadow at the end of the alleyway. Approaching footsteps broke the sounds of traffic, scraping along the cobblestones. They were slow, teasing as the ends of leather soles raked in painfully drawn out movements.
“Come out, come out Issssssaak.” The voice called, the mirth of Yakiv’s half laugh finalizing the extreme morbidity of the his amusement. I knew him. I made him who he was. We were brothers. Friends. I refused his request a response, obviously.
I heard the faint click of a safety being released on a firearm, and my breathing ceased, every sensation suddenly leaping forward and felt with horrendous clarity. A bead of sweat dripped down my brow, falling into my eye and stinging my vision. Though, I did not blink. I could not. The fleeting darkness could be the end of me.
I watched the shadow from Yakiv’s legs grow shorter as he paused only a few feet away, my teeth clamping down on the insides of my cheeks, fighting back my need to gasp for breath as the seconds drew on.
Is this it? Is this how I go? Gunned down behind a dumpster in the London streets?
A ring cut through the painful silence, the darkness of the Yakiv’s outline changing as he lowered his weapon and instead raised a phone to his ear. The men from Kiev, of course. Divine intervention. Is something more important than murdering me? Evidently. Rude.
Without another word, my betrayer turned, stalking back toward the mouth of the alley. I held my breath a moment longer, head dropped back against the building with a soft thud. There was a spark of pain, but it was drowned out by the throbbing from my bicep. Droplets of hot blood fell in a pool by my polished shoe, steaming in the lowered temperatures and leading a trail outward from my haven.
With care, I fished out my phone, dialing a number clumsily and waiting for the trilling on the line to end. Isaak?
“Yes, Adriano. I need you to come find me. Gerridge and Dibdin Row. Call when you’re at the corner. Please, don’t leave the car.”
