Sons of Anarchy. Bratva

“What now?” Thor asked. “You’re not going to get any answers from Jax in the middle of this shit.”

Rollie dragged his goggles up and squinted at Thor in the glare of the sun. “Now we back him up. You think I’d leave our brothers in the middle of a crisis?”

Thor smiled thinly, ready for a fight.

“What about the Russians?” Hopper asked. “How do we know which ones are on our side and which ones are with Jax?”

Rollie thought about that a second, staring at the hotel. Then he dragged his goggles down, fitting them carefully over his eyes. He turned and raised his voice, making sure the rest of his men could hear him.

“Hard and fast!” he barked. “Take out anyone who takes a shot at you. If we get any friendly-fire killings in here, it’s damn well not go

He twisted the throttle, and the rear wheel tore up the dirt shoulder.

Cavalry’s coming, Jackson, Rollie thought. For better or worse.

* * *

Jax and Opie raced through the lobby, encountering nothing but sunlight and shattered glass. Opie turned left, and Jax turned right, taking aim through broken windows in case some of Lagoshin’s men had gone back inside. Jax felt as if he skated along the surface of a death that yawned wide beneath him, but he and Opie were in the flow now, and there was no time for second guesses.

Gunfire drew them to the west wing of the hotel, which had a couple of floors of guest rooms on top of a trio of ballrooms, two on the first floor and one off the mezzanine.

Jax put his back to the wall, motioned for Opie to halt. On the wide steps up to the mezzanine, Oleg and Vlad crouched behind marble balusters, shooting through the openings at the double doors of a first-floor ballroom. Jax caught a glimpse of a short gunman just inside the ballroom, saw the oily sheen of his skin and the dead fish eyes and recognized Viktor Krupin instantly. The gunshot wound in his shoulder had to hurt like hell, but it hadn’t slowed him down.

He swung around the corner and fired a burst from the TsNIITochMash. One of the bullets brushed by Krupin’s face close enough to dry his sweat, and the Russian dodged back into the ballroom.

Jax ran down the hall, TsNIITochMash at the ready. Opie shouted angrily at him for breaking cover but followed anyway. Oleg and Vlad saw them coming and stood, moving down the stairs, covering the ballroom’s doors. One of Lagoshin’s men showed himself, ducking low as he fired a shot at Jax and Opie. All four men returned fire, and at least two of the bullets struck home. The guy slammed against the door frame and then slid back into the room, leaving a wide smear of blood on the frame and wall.

Alive or dead? Jax wondered. Probably dead.

“How many more?” Opie asked.

“At least three,” Vlad said.

With Jax and Opie on one side and Oleg and Vlad on the other, the men inside the ballroom were pi

“We’ve got to get to Trinity,” Oleg said desperately, glancing back up the stairs toward the mezzanine.

Jax froze. “Where?”

“Follow me.” Oleg moved back to the steps, glancing at Vlad. “Kill them if you can.”

Vlad nodded, smiling. “Send help.”

Oleg did not reply. Jax saw him moving toward the steps and glanced at Opie, who only nodded.

“Go,” Opie told him.

Jax didn’t hesitate. He raced across the killing floor, the space between Opie and Vlad where the Russians in the ballroom would have a clear shot at him from inside. He held his assault rifle ready, caught a glimpse of Krupin, but the man pulled back out of sight, perhaps remembering the breeze on his nose from Jax’s bullet.

Then he was racing up the stairs after Oleg. When he hit the mezzanine, he saw that Oleg had stopped to wait for him in front of a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out at the back of the hotel, toward the empty swimming pool and the overgrown back lot. Oleg pointed out the window, and Jax glanced across the lot. From that window, they had a clear view from the west wing to east. At first he saw nothing, but then he spotted movement in a guest room window, one floor up and across from them. A flash of strawberry blond hair and then a dark figure, a broad man whose silhouette Jax knew immediately—Chibs.

The sound of gunfire had punctuated every moment since their arrival—some near and some distant—but he felt sure some of it was coming from that guest room on the third floor of the east wing.

“Fastest way,” Jax said.

Oleg darted back along the balcony portion of the mezzanine. Down below, he spotted Opie and Vlad, heard Opie shouting for Krupin and his men to throw out their guns and he’d let them live. Then Oleg reached a fire door, and Jax followed him through it. They hustled up the steps to the third floor, opened the door, and stepped into the corridor there.

Jax glanced right and left, oriented himself, and ran to the right without waiting for Oleg. There were guest rooms here, two floors above the lobby. Stay alive, he thought, mentally commanding both Trinity and Chibs.

A fire door blocked the other end of the corridor—an entrance into the east wing—and he and Oleg hurtled toward it.

Lagoshin spat curses as he erupted from an open guest room door, crashed into Jax, and slammed him into the peeling wallpaper on the opposite side of the hall. The TsNIITochMash flew from Jax’s grip and skidded along the carpet, far out of reach. Jax still had the bruises to remind him of the last time he’d met the massive Russian, and he didn’t want a repeat. He tried to twist free, but Lagoshin got a hand on his throat, smashed his head against the wall, and started to lift him off the ground. Jax’s back slid up the wallpaper, and his sneakers left the carpet.

Oleg shouted at them and raised his assault rifle, and one of Lagoshin’s men emerged from the guest room. The barrel of his handgun gleamed in the dusty daylight. Jax tried to shout Oleg’s name, but the Russian fired. The bullet ripped through Oleg’s gut and then lodged in the wall. Blood sprayed as Oleg went down. On the ground, he raised his AR-12 and fired, killing the man who’d shot him.

Then he bled. He tried to aim his AR-12, but if he pulled the trigger he might kill both Lagoshin and Jax. Wounded, hands shaking, Oleg pulled the trigger anyway. Three shots, and then he clicked onto an empty magazine. He’d be no help.

Jax wheezed, and his chest burned. As Lagoshin held him aloft, he managed to yank out his Glock, brought it around, and jammed it against the big bastard’s chest. Lagoshin grabbed his wrist and twisted, ripped the handgun from his grasp.

“Teller,” Lagoshin said, buckshot scars on his face gleaming.

Jax’s eyes widened, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course Joyce had eventually revealed his identity to the Bratva.

“You’ve been foolish. You killed Putlova, but I didn’t care about that. He was an arrogant bastard. Now I kill you. I kill Sokolov and his men. No more gun business for the Sons of Anarchy.”

Black spots at the corners of his eyes, losing air and on the verge of losing consciousness, Jax pressed his heels against the wall behind him. Fueled by rage and desperation, he brought his feet even higher and pushed hard, pistoned off the wall, and forced Lagoshin backward. The Russian lost his grip on Jax’s throat, and Jax sucked in a ragged gasp of air as he hit the carpet on one knee.

Lagoshin barked Russian profanities and bent to reach for him. Jax dropped onto his side and whipped both legs around, knocking Lagoshin’s feet out from under him. Lagoshin fell hard, his head striking the wall, and landed on the carpet with a thunderous crash. Jax stood as Lagoshin tried to rise, disoriented.

He kicked Lagoshin hard in the temple, then delivered a follow-up to his mouth, but he said nothing. Jax had no interest in taunting Lagoshin. The huge man groaned, then shook himself like a wet dog and growled as he rose to his hands and knees. Jax glanced at the handgun that Lagoshin had torn from his grip. Just beyond its place on the carpet, Oleg sat against the wall with his hands pressed hard to the wound in his abdomen. His eyes were open, but he looked pale, his face slack.