MONDAY NIGHT

DECEMBER 16th, 1991

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

The only thing that could be seen from the roof through the swirling snow were rows upon rows of panel buildings: ancient, rotting apartment blocks that had succumbed to frost, time, and vandalism. The air, although cold enough to numb Brody's nose, only had the power to nip at his gloved hands which rested atop a long-defunct ventilation unit.

The stairwell door opened from behind, and Yuri was quick to join his side. "There you are. What brings you up here this time of night? Should you not be allowing your leg to heal?"

Brody turned to see the man placing a cigarette between his yellow teeth and fishing into his coat pocket for something. "I couldn't sleep, is all—figured I'd come up here to unwind. Nothing to do with the leg, that's just fine."

Beneath the snow pants and gauze the hole in his flesh continued to gnaw with so much more ferocity than the winter cold ever possessed.

Yuri cracked a smirk around his cigarette. "Good to hear, my friend." He had retrieved a small lighter, which he attempted to activate with flick after flick of the thumb. On the fourth strike, a dim flame came to life. "I have something to offer you. Since you tell me you are feeling better, I think you are able to come with me for our payment."

"Payment? What for?"

"For Alek's head, of course! You didn't take that bullet for nothing, did you?" Yuri's simper widened into a tobacco-rotted grin.

"Right. What was the name of the client again?"

"Makar Tsaryov is his name. I am surprised you've forgotten; he is one of the biggest names in Moscow's drug trade—certainly bigger than any of the dogs pushing their shit alongside us. What do you say, care to come with me to meet him? You deserve your reward in person."

Yuri held out a red-gloved hand, which Brody looked down at in contemplation. The name Tsaryov did not bring any faces to mind—not that Brody was involved in the narcotics trade regardless—but the prospect of meeting a high-ranking drug lord who was purportedly Moscow's biggest was as daunting as it was tempting. The thought of a change in scenery, however, was more than welcome; a man as rich as Tsaryov, a top-ranking reaper of profits from Moscow's countless degenerates and addicts, must have had his own villa.

Brody shook his comrade's hand with frost-stung fingers. "All right, I'll come. You can go down to the car, I'll catch up with you in a few minutes."

Yuri nodded and made his leave as Brody found his gaze traveling back to the derelict buildings across the street.

You'd better have a mansion waiting for me, anything but this squalor.

TUESDAY MORNING

DECEMBER 17th, 1991

KHIMKI FOREST, Russia

The jalopy came to a sputtering stop, jolting Brody from the daze of half-sleep. Through the windshield, the car's single working headlight turned the falling snowflakes into small glowing dancers against a seemingly endless road, which was surrounded on both sides by imposing trees and shrouded in darkness.

Yuri, in the driver's seat beside him, pulled the key from the ignition and killed the lights.

"Why are we stopping?" Brody looked out through the cracked, rime-coated windows on all sides, but there were no structures of any sort in sight, let alone a villa. Trees and more towering trees, sagging under the weight of snow and frost, grew as far and as tall as he could see as he allowed his eyes to adjust to the blackness. "Don't tell me the car broke down."

"Not at all," Yuri replied, "we've arrived."

Brody looked around the car again, bewildered. He stepped out of the vehicle and whipped around, seeing nothing but the vast timberland around him and a few abandoned cars littering the sides of the lonely highway alongside rusted road signs. Faintly through the whistling wind and stinging snowfall he could hear a wolf howl.

Brody folded his balaclava down over his numbing face. "You've got to be joking, Yuri..."

His partner said nothing as he stepped from the driver's seat, donned his own mask and began walking his way around the car, turning on a flashlight and beckoning to his partner. Brody focused on the bright beam of light pointed ahead of Yuri to see a sign through the trees, frosted over and peeling from the chain link fence it clung to. What little Russian Cyrillic remained legible he identified as НЕ ВХОДИТЬ—"do not enter."

The fence itself was easy enough to cross; the barbed wire lining the top had long since dulled and fallen down in places. As the mercenaries trekked on, the woods thickened and the snowfall turned sparse. With nothing but a flashlight and an old, scrawled note to go by, however, Yuri continued to lead with confidence, occasionally looking down before his boots and not once having to stop to regain his bearings.

After about ten minutes, Yuri halted. Brody peered through the thinning tree line ahead of them and could make out the warm glow of a barrel fire through the falling snow, along with a bright blue light emanating from somewhere deeper into the clearing behind a dilapidated structure. Beside the open flame was a figure leaning against the wall of the building, armed with a rifle and wearing a cautious frown. Brody slowed his pace, as requested by a swift hand gesture from his guide. Turning his flashlight to himself, Yuri raised his free hand above his head.

"Excuse me!" he called out. There came an immediate loading of rifle bolts—more than one. "We have come for the payment of Alek Malyshev's head!"

The guard let out a bark of a response, his breath turning to mist in the wintry air. "Two of you?"

"Yes. It's Yuri, and my partner is with me."

The guard turned to the blackness behind him and muttered something to unseen company. A moment later another gunman, dressed in a shabby red hooded jacket, stepped into the light. "Come forward," he said.

Yuri moved first, with slow, methodical steps. Brody looked to him for a moment, wondering whether he should come forward himself. The hooded guard said something inaudible to his partner before adding a louder, "you, in the coat! Come here. Slowly."

With leaden feet and raised arms, Brody fell into step with Yuri, gaze flicking from one rifle barrel to the other. The first guard to be confronted, a lanky, rat-faced young man in a snow-speckled tracksuit, stared Brody down through his Mosin–Nagant sights with a glower of suspicion.

The other guard lowered his rifle once his new company came into the light, a smile spreading across his wrinkled features. "Relax, these are the guys. Good to see you, Yuri, I hardly recognized you through that mask."

The man in the tracksuit lowered his weapon as he continued to glare between Brody and Yuri both, and Brody allowed his shoulders to loosen up.

The hooded guard turned to Brody next, his smile fading immediately. "And you must be Yuri's friend. Victor, right?"

Brody lowered his arms. "Right. And you're one of Tsaryov's lackeys, I presume."

"I don't recognize your accent," the lanky one cut in with a dark look. "You're not Russian, that's for damn sure."

"Gentlemen!" Yuri exclaimed, "shall we get on with the proceedings already? I'm sure your boss is eager to meet us."

The wrinkled guard ignored any more of his comrade's comments. "Of course. Both of you put your hands up again for me." He began patting down either side of Yuri's torso, slowly and methodically.

The man in the tracksuit did the same with Brody, although he did not once let his disdainful expression falter and he carried out the task without much care or skill, Brody could tell.

"What's this?" he could hear the elder gopnik ask, hand resting at Yuri's side.

"Just a precaution," Yuri replied as he took his pistol out and offered it handle-first.

"You can keep it. Tsaryov holds you in high enough regard."

"His friend's clean," Brody's inspector said, stepping back to the wall and lighting a cigarette.

The hooded guard looked his guests up and down one last time before turning and making his way down the length of the small shack, leaving his partner at his post. Yuri tailed behind him and Brody followed suit, but not before catching a growled slur from the young man they were leaving behind.

Around the corner of the decrepit shack, the full scale of Tsaryov's meeting place rested frigid and rickety in all its "glory." The area was devoid of any trees, either the work of nature or logging, and in place of any firs stood the large metal skeletons and rotting wooden frames of an ancient lumber mill. Bright portable floodlights had been placed between the buildings and under high corrugated metal rooftops, setting the falling snowflakes aglow with a harsh blue-white flare. Standing rigid in doorways and squatting beside blazing barrel fires were a dozen gopniki, all armed with implements ranging from worn tire irons to secondhand assault rifles and glaring the newcomers down as they trekked through the labyrinth of squalor.

"You'll love the owner of the place, Victor," the guard leading the mercenaries spoke with a cool tone. "He's got everything—the purest heroin, uncut coke, whatever you might want. Best supplier this side of Moscow, believe me."

Brody did not reply. He continued to follow closely behind and averted his gaze from the multitude of armed men staring him down with venom in their eyes.

Eventually the trio emerged into a larger, fenced clearing amid the husks of old buildings. The concentration of thugs had thinned from the surrounding area, with only two men waiting at the end of a flat, snowy expanse that must have once been home to stacks of cut logging. Floodlights were few here as well; the men ahead of the mercenaries were hardly visible and illuminated only by a small barrel fire set beside them, their features rendered indistinguishable by the blowing snow.

The guide stepped aside. Brody stared out at his greeting party with hesitation. Yuri tugged at his coat's sleeve, drawing his attention and sparking a twinge of irritation.

"This is Tsaryov's place, is it?" he hissed, "the biggest drug lord in Moscow lives in this shithole?"

"This is just a rendezvous point, not his fucking home," Yuri growled back. "Keep your mouth shut here, Victor; these people aren't very fond of Americans, and they would prefer to not be reminded of where your accent comes from. Leave the talking to me and everything will be fine. Now follow my lead."

Slowly, Yuri began approaching the pair of thugs and Brody fell into step. Around them floodlights flared to life with a low buzz, bringing the hired guns' clients into full focus: Not two, but four men all stood in front of a two-story wooden hovel, and a pair of timber wolves flanked them, marred with gruesome scars and fitted with black leather collars as they waited with hindquarters lowered.

Even Yuri could not keep the creeping anxiety out of his voice at the sight. "Hello, gentlemen. We've come for—"

"Yuri." The middlemost figure smirked beneath his blue hooded jacket, eyes just visible in the shrouded light of the floodlamps. "It's good to finally do business with you. Welcome back."

He turned to the men around him and ordered them to step back with a curt flick of the wrist—presumably this was Makar Tsaryov himself. The guard closest to his side, a seven-foot-tall bull of a man in a shabby gray hooded sweater, folded his arms and looked upon Brody with contempt. His amber eyes took on a golden glow in the light of the barrel fire beside him.

"Come, you two," Makar reached up and pulled back his hood, "take those masks off. We're all friends here." The young man's face was as gaunt as those of the wolves flanking him, which, coupled with a head of unkempt black hair, a multitude of facial piercings and sunken eyes, gave him an appearance more appropriate for an addict than a drug lord. His most striking feature, however, was a long serpent tattoo winding up the bridge of his nose and ending somewhere unseen above his shaggy hairline—too detailed and colorful to be a lowlife Russian's work. Something about him seemed less than unanticipated—something seemed very wrong. Brody could feel a cold weight developing in the pit of his stomach at the sight of him.

Yuri was swift to take off his balaclava. Brody, meanwhile, did not react. Tsaryov's smile faded before his lips twisted into a scowl.

"Victor, is it?" Tsaryov glowered. "Are you stupid or fucking deaf? Let me say it again: take that mask off. Show me your face when you do business with me. I'm not one to be disrespected."

Brody continued to stare at the man as something wary tugged at the back of his mind.

Yuri was quick to cover for him. "He doesn't understand Russian too well, you see—"

Tsaryov cut in, in perfect English: "Take that mask off, you American dog fucker, or I'll have Nikolay here break your fingers, understand?" The brawny man behind him cracked his knuckles and sneered. Tsaryov then turned to Yuri with a derisive smile of his own and returned to his Russian tongue. "He is American, isn't he? Thank you for reminding me, Yuri." Brody acquiesced and shot a glare at Yuri, who was too busy staring mortified at his bilingual client. "Now! Where were we? Nikolay," he turned to the burly guard, "go in and get the cash for the gentleman and his friend."

With a nod, Nikolay turned and lumbered into the wooden hovel behind the congregation, the door slamming shut with a resounding bang.

Tsaryov was once again focused on Brody now, any amicability long gone. This time, however, what was once vitriol had boiled down into something unreadable. "So, Yuri, you've never introduced me to your friend before." He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and began making his way towards the mercenaries.

"Well," Yuri hemmed, "he's not the most outward of people..."

Tsaryov stood in front of Brody now, looking up and down his face with icy blue eyes. Brody found himself reciprocating. That serpent tattoo—he had seen it before.

Tsaryov seemed to come to a conclusion before Brody could. His eyes grew wide, and his face, once flushed from the cold, paled. He began backing away as he continued to study Brody's features with a slim gawk.

He turned to Yuri with a snarl, stabbing a finger at Brody. "I'm not doing business with this man."

"What?" The information seemed to take a moment to register with the Russian mercenary, as it did with Brody himself.

"We'll give you your half of the cut, Yuri, but then you need to pack up that shit and leave."

Even the men around Tsaryov began to look at each other with confused utterings. Brody himself could only watch as their boss began creeping backwards towards the shack, head swiveling back wildly to check for Nikolay's return.

"Bullshit!" Yuri looked to his partner. "What's Victor got to do with this?"

Tsaryov turned to Yuri with a mad grin—disbelieving, hysterical. "You don't know who you're working with, do you? I've seen crackheads come to me, lowlifes, lunatics, freelance killers like yourself—but this man is something else, I've seen it!"

"What the hell is he talking about, Victor?"

Brody could bring no memories of Tsaryov to mind. Regardless, he did what he felt was necessary: he drew his karambit knife from inside his coat and brandished it, more of a cautionary action or intimidation tactic than anything else. It seemed to work; at the sight of the weapon Tsaryov could only stare with jaw slack and eyes set.

"Listen here—" Brody stopped himself when the drug lord drew a large silver handgun and pointed it between his eyes. The guards all raised their bats and tire irons as Yuri threw up his hands.

"Woah!" Yuri cried, "Settle down! Jesus Christ, what's gotten into you? Put your weapons away! Victor, what the fuck are you doing?"

The guards kept their weapons ready.

"T—take your shit and leave!" Tsaryov yelled back, "Nikolay, get the fuck out here! You!" His eye contact with the American remained unbroken. "Drop that knife! I'm not fucking kidding!"

Those around him raised their weapons, gazes all set on Brody as he released his grip on his knife and let it drop to the snow without a sound. The wolves had lowered themselves to their haunches with teeth bared, growling and slavering.

That damned tattoo, the Russian's serpent, was the only thing Brody could focus on. It was fresh in his mind, from somewhere, but not as clear as what it elicited from within him: a deep-seated, seething hatred. Perhaps it was the combination of the thin face and the alarmed blue eyes along with the ink, but the only thing on Brody's mind now was an overwhelming antipathy for Makar Tsaryov. How he would like to see the man with a smoking hole in his head.

One of the hooded guards approached him and reached for his arm.

Brody retaliated by punching him in the throat and diving for his karambit.

The first gunshot sounded, an explosion that lit the snowy night, and the gopnik fell to the ground with a good quarter of this head blown away. The gun smoked in Tsaryov's hands.

"Shit!" the drug lord hissed through gritted teeth.

Brody reached for a lunging wolf's neck and slashed into its collar, and another two shots rang out. The first missed completely, while the second grazed his jacket's sleeve. He looked up to see the cabin door slam, with Tsaryov absent and Yuri standing over the bodies of two men and the other wolf with his smoking PB pistol in hand.

"Fuck!" Yuri snarled to himself. He donned his balaclava and rushed around the side of the building and out of sight.

Brody was swift to approach the cabin's front door, curved knife in hand and dripping blood into the trodden snow. Before he could reach the knob, however, it turned by itself and the door swung in.

Brody next found himself face-down in the snow with a throbbing sensation across the side of his face, head swimming. He tried to right himself, but a boot slammed into his stomach and knocked the wind out of him. The hulking form of Nikolay towered over him, fists clenched and ready to deliver a second punch. He muttered something, unheard through the painful ringing, voice deep and bitter.

Everything was blurry. Brody could feel his right cheek swell as he gasped for air. Nikolay sent another sharp kick to Brody's side, bringing another wave of pain, before bending down for the karambit knife in the snow. He inspected it for a moment, attempted to hold it somehow, and Brody found his chance: with great effort, he heaved himself to his feet and drew back a fist. The Russian dodged and brought the blade down clumsily at Brody's knuckles. The blood turned ice cold against the American's glove as he stepped back and clutched his fingers. Nikolay slashed again, slicing the back of Brody's already injured hand, before sending a fist straight for the side of his face. Brody managed to catch himself this time at the ground, frantically searching for a weapon with his left eye as the other swelled shut.

The next slash was disrupted—the swing of a tire iron swatted the weapon from Nikolay's grip. Brody was now on his feet and circling, with one good eye and one good hand left to fight with, as his opponent glared him down with a toothy sneer.

"That's what I like to see," he grunted, catching the weapon mid-thrust and wrenching it away. "You're no quitter."

He swung with another iron fist, just dodged. Brody struck back at the chest with his good hand, but the bear of a man hardly even reacted. Another punch, now against the nose, sent Brody stumbling onto the cabin porch behind him. After he struck the wooden wall a cold, sticky sensation enveloped the back of his head and neck. A few gunshots rang out from inside the building, followed by the cracking of wood and the shattering of glass. Yuri's muffled voice came through, loud and outraged.

Head throbbing, Brody almost failed to evade the boot heel coming down on his forehead. He rose as sharply as he could and dodged the blade of a hunting knife before sending a punch of his own. It connected, sending Nikolay reeling and dropping his weapon. Brody managed to retrieve the tire iron from the ground before striking the gloved hands clutched over his opponent's face.

The Russian looked up—jaw swollen, nose twisted and eyes alight with fire—and leapt forward at the mercenary, tackling him to the snow. Brody found himself flat on his back with Nikolay's knee on his sternum and both hands grasped around his throat.

"American pig!" Nikolay snarled, grip tightening. "We used to flay fuckers like you alive back in Hawaii." Brody groped around at his side for something to defend himself with as he gasped for breath. His fingers clutched around something solid, and he caught a small glint of the cold floodlamps from beside him—the hunting knife.

The Russian loosened his hold, long enough for his victim to draw breath, only to clench harder and lift, bringing Brody to his feet and slamming him into the cabin wall. Nikolay bared his bloody teeth in a wide grin, eyes burning with sadistic glee. "I've killed hundreds of Americans, all twice the fighter you are. Even with my bare hands." He looked up at the hovel and his smile faltered once a sound from inside reached his ears: his boss' screaming.

Brody's head swam, his lungs threatened to collapse, and his grip held as he reared his knife back and rammed the blade into Nikolay's eye.

The man released his grip and staggered back with a howl of agony. His hands were clasped over his left eye, blood spurting between his fingers and dribbling into the snow.

Brody was on his hands and knees now, gasping at the freezing air as the incessant screaming filled his ears. With much difficulty, he brought himself to his feet with the icy tire iron in hand, staring down the once-imposing Nikolay—hunched over, hood down, hands still over his face, still wailing. With his good hand, he raised the tire iron high and brought it down on the back of the Russian's bald head.

The screaming stopped, and Nikolay went still.

For what felt like minutes, Brody leaned against the cabin and stared out into the cold void above Nikolay's motionless form, shuddering and heaving, karambit in hand.

With a low creak, the cabin door opened. Brody turned to see Yuri in the sickly yellow light of the foyer, one hand on Tsaryov's pistol and the other clutching his side. He stood slack-jawed, eyes flicking between his partner and the fallen giant in the snow.

"Tsaryov's gone."

Brody shot up with a sudden surge of energy. "What?"

"Fucker stabbed me with my own knife and ran out back before I could get anything useful out of him."

Brody pushed past Yuri into the house, noticing that the hand against his side was not glove-clad, but caked in blood. Indeed, the small abode was devoid of any other souls—two thugs once living were slumped over the couch and gutted. Past the entryway to the back of the cabin was a small kitchenette, where another gopnik lay bludgeoned against the sink and the open back door shuddered in the winter wind. A trail of blood made its way from the foot of the staircase nearby to the open doorway, smeared, still reflective and fresh.

"Go after him and bring him here," Yuri said, leaning up against the wall with a wince, "I will stay here and keep the cabin secure. Those gopniki around the place must have heard the gunshots."

Brody took up Yuri's flashlight from the floor and a handgun from a dead delinquent's hand before dashing out the rear entrance into the cold once more.

In place of any more rickety wooden buildings stood an imposing tree line; coated white firs towered mere yards in front of him, marking the edge of the uncharted wilderness. A trail of boot prints, tinted pink by blood and fresh snow, made a beeline for the nearest gap in the foliage. A man such as Tsaryov—bleeding out and unable to line up a decent shot to save his life—could not have chosen a worse method of escape, Brody thought as he trudged through the snow beneath the trees.

Through the beam of his flashlight Brody could see ancient metal signs, or in some cases deteriorated metal posts, every ten yards or so. What lettering or symbols remained were rendered illegible from years of moisture and neglect. In the darkness behind them, a glade developed where a low grunting became audible and a silhouette appeared before the dim orange flicker of a match or lighter.

Tsaryov was on his hands and knees in the snow, tugging at something on the ground and muttering to himself. He turned around at the presence of Brody's flashlight, wide-eyed and shivering like a wounded animal against a metal hatch in the ground underneath him, lighter gripped in his hand. His nose was visibly broken, purple and swollen, the serpent twisted, and his frightened grimace put a broken tooth on display. Several facial piercings had been forcibly removed, with dried blood and scarring in their place. One hand was clutched at a stab wound on his flank, sticky and dark with blood.

He reached into his coat and brandished a switchblade with a snarl. "You stay the fuck away from me!"

Gunfire rang out from the distant sawmill, a series of dull pops in the blizzard.

Brody could not hide his contempt as he stalked towards the drug lord, tattoo square in his pistol sights. "Drop it." Makar was forced to obey by a shot to a tree behind him. He flinched but was otherwise frozen to the spot, terrified and trembling. Brody resisted the overwhelming urge to fire a second shot into his face or even cap him in the knee, keeping the goal of the payment in mind. "Stand up." The man hesitated, still scared stiff. "Do I need to say it twice? Stand the fuck up!" Makar scrambled off the hatch and stood on shaky legs, hands in the air. Brody circled around, never taking the flashlight or the gun barrel from his target until he had the small of his back in his sights. "Now walk."

• • •

The cabin's back door opened on cue as Tsaryov approached it. Yuri peeked his head out at him and glowered. Brody flicked off his flashlight from behind his captive and prodded him along into the building. Yuri glared Tsaryov down, assault rifle in hand, and with the barrel he pointed to the now vacant couch in the middle of the foyer, cleared of corpses. Brody noticed several dead gopniki sprawled out across the room that had not been present before he left.

Tsaryov crept along, Brody behind him, and Yuri allowed him to take his time. Once he was seated, Yuri approached him, and with a dull crack slammed the butt of his rifle across his face. A bloody tooth clattered across the room.

"You're giving us our full cut, not 'my half,'" Yuri growled. "Now, take your coat off."

The drug lord did not say a word of protest; he only stared his captors down with scorn as he unzipped his hooded jacket and tossed it to the ground with a low thunk. His torso was exposed to the cold now, pale and emaciated, covered in Russian mafia tattoos, with a portrait of the Virgin Mary inked on his hairless chest.

Brody took up the jacket from the floor and walked it over to the dusty kitchen table where the stolen Desert Eagle handgun lay.

Yuri began his interrogation in a low rasp, with Tsaryov providing little more than bitter or sarcastic retorts.

Brody fished around in the coat's interior and emptied it out. Beside the gun he placed down a handful of .44 ammunition, a bloodied switchblade, a cellular phone, and one item that caught his eye: the lighter. It was expertly crafted, depicting a bald eagle flying over a mountainous landscape. Out of Yuri's line of sight, he pocketed it and took up the firearm, finding the latter to be surprisingly lightweight.

A shrill cry broke his concentration. He turned around to see Yuri with his rifle in one hand and a claw hammer in the other. Tsaryov sat on the sofa hyperventilating, squinting back tears, and with a dark red spot on his right kneecap growing fast. Yuri placed the hammer on his other knee.

"You'd better fucking tell me where it is, or you won't even be hobbling anymore!"

Tsaryov could not bring himself to speak, only huff in pain.

"Yuri," Brody said, "there's an old hatch in the ground out back. Maybe it's—"

"No," Tsaryov struggled to say, "th—that's just contraband, I swear. Some guns, mostly drugs. Probably not much use to men like yourselves." Yuri reared the hammer back. "The money's upstairs! Under the bed there's a bag, but—!"

Yuri lowered the hammer slowly, looking back at his partner with brow cocked. "'But' what?"

The drug lord's face turned pale—whichever parts were not turned purple and blue, at any rate. He murmured, "But… p—put the hammer down, please…"

Yuri tossed the hammer aside. Makar drew a breath.

"I only have one hundred thousand on hand."

Yuri stared, his fingers tightening around his gun. "What?"

"M—my boss was going to get you the rest…"

Yuri swung a fist against his face.

"He has more!" Tsaryov choked out, "Much more. You let me live and I'll have him double the pay. An extra two hundred thousand. No, f—four hundred. Fuck!"

"That's a lot of money. Who's your boss?"

He spat out another tooth. "Lavrenti Komarov."

Something went off in Brody's head—a shotgun blast, a bombshell. He stormed up to Tsaryov, heaving with a newfound anger, and sent the pistol barrel straight to his right cheek, gashing it open. How he wished to see this man truly suffer now.

Yuri was the one to go pale now as he gawked at the scrawny man. "Bullshit!"

Tsaryov heaved. "I promise, I'm not lying to you," he said, able to do little but mutter from his left side.

Yuri looked back at the looted jacket across the room. "Victor, bring me that phone over there." He took up the phone from his partner's hands and shoved it into Makar's. "Show me. Call him, turn on the speakerphone." He lifted the rifle, placing the barrel squarely at his chest. "And don't be sly about it."

Tsaryov dialed the number in with shaky hands. The line on the other end rang a few times before a click sounded.

"Komarov speaking." The voice was vaguely familiar, but like Tsaryov's face it brought nothing to Brody's mind beyond rage. He looked at Yuri, who had turned yet another shade whiter at the name.

"Hello, boss? It's me."

"Makar? You sound nervous."

Tsaryov's gaze flicked between Brody and Yuri's rifle barrel. "I have a pair of f—fine gentlemen who wanted you to introduce yourself to them. And… and bring them the other half of their pay."

Komarov took pause. "How much?"

Yuri held up three fingers.

"One—three hundred thousand."

Komarov spent a long minute speaking with someone away from the phone, voice muffled and indistinct. At long last, he replied. "I will send someone over. Stay where you are." Before the boss could receive a response, he closed the line. Makar allowed his head to hang, shuddering, blood running down his tattooed chest.

Yuri's mouth was agape. "Holy fuck…" He held up his client by the hair. "You've got a hotline to the head of the Bratva?" Tsaryov only stared, eyes unfocused and dark. "Fuck." Yuri let go, stepped back and heaved the phone across the room, where it collided with the door and exploded into electronics and plastic shards. Makar flinched. "Fuck! We're fucked, Victor!" His voice sounded raw, on the verge of despair. "We're getting the fuck out of here. Look after Tsaryov, I'm getting the money."

Brody watched as he stormed up the staircase, and once he was out of sight turned his eyes to Tsaryov. The man turned his head up, only to have the barrel of his own gun pressed against his forehead.

"Where's your boss?" Brody demanded in English, doing all in his power to not pull the trigger. Tsaryov could only look up at first, eyes brooding. The barrel was shoved forward, upturning the man's bloody, broken face. How gratifying it was to see this smug bastard so crushed, so pathetic. "Where is he?"

Tsaryov mumbled out an address, slurred but placeable—somewhere deep within Moscow. "N—not his place, his partner's. It's all I have. I don't know where Lav lives, I swear to God. Popov-Yakimenko Industries, gun makers. Nadya Yakimenko is who you want, she's the CEO." He put on a broken smile. "Capitalists, eh? Funny how the Bratva runs things nowadays."

Brody thought on it a moment. There it was: a lead at last. The messenger was so weak now, as well as useless. Brody curled his finger around the trigger and pulled.

The gun's slide locked with a resounding clack. No ammunition.

Tsaryov opened his eyes, alight with relief, and Brody reared the gun back. He swung down on his face once, then again. Again, and again, and again. Each strike was harder than the last, and each whittled down the side of the man's face, long past the end of any struggling.

A pair of hands wrenched him back, and Brody found himself screaming. He brought himself back and heaved as the red mist faded away. Tsaryov lay before him, motionless. His head was tilted back, mouth hanging open in a silent cry, blood soaking his entire front left side. His right eye was glazed over, rolled back, while the other was nothing but a gaping, skinless socket. Half of his face was flayed apart, red, raw and unrecognizable. The serpent tattoo still wound down his nose, a vibrant green against his white and crimson face. The pistol was on the floor, chrome barrel soaked with blood and bits of flesh.

Brody had hit the hardwood as well, clutching his already-swollen eye with Yuri standing over him.

"You…"

Brody's head swam as he turned himself onto his back and stared up with a bleary eye. Yuri stood tight-fisted and could hardly speak; all he mustered was a low rasp, red in the face and on the verge of tears.

"What have you done? That—that piece of shit had three hundred thousand rubles on his head, and you… and you…"

"Yuri."

"You made me betray these people, Victor. What the hell is with you and Makar?"

"I don't remember, but listen, this isn't about the money."

"The fuck it isn't!"

"What would we have done with it, Yuri, huh? Shared it with the lowlife crackheads we live with? Think about it! Those scumbags would take their cut and blow it all on drugs, just like always, and where would that money end up going?" He jabbed a finger at Tsaryov's corpse. "Right back to that son of a bitch. Tsaryov wouldn't be losing jack shit, he'd be turning a profit with us!"

Yuri mulled on his words, steadily regaining his temper by the second. Soon enough he hoisted up a duffel bag of rubles from his side and looked at Makar's lifeless body. "We need to leave. I don't think the Bratva will be happy to find their drug pusher dead. Maybe we could make our escape back into the city before they arrive."

"We're not going to be safe anywhere, Yuri. A man as powerful as Komarov surely has men everywhere."

"We could at least try to—"

"To what? Hide out like a couple of cowards and wait for the issue to resolve itself?" Brody sat himself up, gritting his teeth at a surge of pain in his side. "No, I know what we need to do. There's only one way to truly solve this: we need to cut the head from the snake."

Yuri stared down, eyes narrowing. "You don't mean—?"

"We just killed their attack dog, Yuri, think of close we are to reaching the top. Tsaryov had the head's personal number, for Christ's sake! I got a lead out of him we can follow, an arms manufacturer."

"'We?' That's suicide, Victor! Are you out of your fucking mind?"

"You can come along with me or you can cower in the shithole we call home while I get gunned down at the Bratva's doorstep. It's your decision."

Yuri was silent for a long time, looking around the decrepit home and thinking to himself, as Brody sat stone-faced and bruised. Hesitantly, at long last, he stepped forward and reached out his arm.

In the interest of not spoiling the fangame, this is all for now. Should that fall through, I'll return to have this original written story properly finished and expanded upon.

