The sparkles came in at the edge of his vision with greater force, and Nick began wondering why Churkin wasn't passing out and rolling over.
With a show of force he didn't have enough oxygen for, he yanked at the ends of his tie, tightening the silk around her throat. Though it obviously affected her, it seemed to affect him more and the dancing lights at the edge of his vision were pushed inward by black. His world slowly narrowed as he and Churkin held onto each other, each trying to outlast the other. He could only see her face above him, her anger and determination, as he concluding that he was losing the game he started.
Then she jerked suddenly.
The movement loosened her grip on his throat, and through bruised chords and the constriction of the mask he gulped air as best he could before her fingers clamped again.
The clarity of his brain and her slight movement backwards allowed him to twist his arms, effectively garroting the tie. Her eyes started to redden even as she managed to close his oxygen off again.
Abruptly, Churkin jerked backward again, this time farther. Though her hold loosened from around his throat, so did his hold on the tie. As he gulped in precious air, he wondered who had hit her.
Not shockingly, it was his sister.
Sin stood over Churkin and not only managed to do something that made her release him, but she added her own plastic whip to the pressure on the woman's neck. He barely managed to let go of the tie as clarity flooded his brain along with oxygen.
As he watched, Churkin lifted off of him, though it was unclear from his position if Sin was pulling her up by her throat, or if Churkin was trying to throw his sister. Maybe both.
Finally free of the woman, Nick managed to gain his feet just as the other two did. He barely resisted the urge to rub his throat, the raw skin was suffering enough from being exposed to the gas they'd let loose in the room. At least Churkin was breathing the stuff straight.
Still, she managed to shake Sin loose and turn on her.
Trying to figure out how he could help rather than hinder his sister, Nick tried to analyze the fight in front of him and the room in general.
Neither gave him good news.
Sin, still managing to stay behind Churkin, put a couple punches into the other woman's kidneys. But Churkin was a nearly unstoppable force.
So was Sin.
Watching the two of them hit, miss, and swing again, was almost like watching giants fight.
Sin's arm struck out lightning fast, only clipping Churkin on the chin because the other woman carefully moved two inches in exactly the right direction. Used on anyone else, that punch would have made a head roll.
Yulia Churkin returned the favor by sweeping a foot out. But it affected Sin no more than a spider web, not even making contact as she'd seen it coming and feinted right. Churkin still managed to connect, but Sin claimed the other woman's hand and pulled her along. She used her plastic whip, but on Churkin's leather top, it had less effect than she clearly hoped.
Nick kept trying to insert himself in the fight, but there was no way to do it in a way that would actually help Sin.
Seeing him, she managed to hang onto Churkin’s wrist, while planting a foot in the other woman's belly and pushing her body away. She was effectively holding the other woman out so Nick could do something.
Finally.
But no.
He couldn't really end Churkin, because behind Sin, Kaspar Kurev was finally breaking through the mass of crying people. His face was twisted into a mask of hatred that let Nick know he'd seen too much.
As Nick looked back to warn Sin, Churkin reached her arm back in a confusing move.
Shit.
Gun. He knew it the moment Yulia Churkin's hand began to emerge from behind her. Nick recognized the pieces now: Sin had been trying to get behind Churkin, trying to turn the woman around so Sin could get the gun. But it hadn't happened.
Luckily Sin saw the movement, too. Because the women were still too tangled for Nick to try to get a hit in edgewise. He felt useless standing there, waiting, no real weapon, even his tie gone.
Frustrated, he circled.
As Churkin pulled the gun forward, Sin grabbed for the woman's hand. Though she most needed to keep the gun aimed away from herself, Sin was clearly trying to get it twisted back to point at Yulia.
The other woman jumped out of the way, feinting right and dodging the bullet the struggle released.
The sound brought a sharp staccato to the screaming, which quickly turned from crying and worry to abject fear at the retort of the bullet.
The stakes had just gotten higher. If one or the other got the right move, it would all be over. With a rapid movement, Sin got her left hand pushing Churkin's gun hand away as her right hand came up with the knife.
But the other woman was just as good. She dodged, though Sin grabbed at Churkin and didn't let her completely escape. Though the knife made contact, it appeared she only managed to get through the jacket. No blood bloomed or ran on Churkin. Her arm swung back, making strong contact with Sin's shoulder, sending her body swinging away from Nick's in the effort to regain control.
Now. Churkin was sufficiently apart from Sin, the gun was pointed away from Nick; he could be helpful. But just as he reached out to hold Churkin and help Sin, he saw Kaspar, appearing through the people, still scattering like ants.
Kaspar had a gun, too. The rest of them couldn't get one into the mansion, but his people had them. Kaspar probably had one on him at all times, necessary if one ran a business the way the Kurevs did.
As he tried to move forward, a few people screamed in the background, probably just barely managing to get their eyes open through the gas.
Though Kaspar's own eyes teared from the poison in the air, his gaze was steady and so was his aim. It was clear he intended to fire a bullet into the fighting women and didn't care who he hit.
Nick did the only thing he could do.
Sin stared at Yulia Churkin. Finally the woman was right where she wanted her to be.
Raising her left foot this time, Sin went for her second knife. It slid cleanly from her boot, the result of rounds of practice. Even with that, Sin knew Churkin saw it coming.
It was impossible to hide a move from a seasoned fighter, but it was easier to get her own knife than to disarm the other woman, so Sin pulled it. But Nick was interfering.
Standing on the fringes, Nick had tried to break into the fight for a while. It was his fight; he wanted to take Churkin, but there was no good way to hand her back over. Besides, Sin had broken in only because she had to. Clearly Churkin had been outlasting Nick in the air battle, something she’d probably specifically trained. Sin had.
But now?
She didn't want to look at Nick. Couldn’t afford to communicate, as anything she said would be heard by Churkin and easily counteracted. It wasn't like fighting with Lee.
That thought flitted through her head and was punctuated by the butt of Churkin’s gun thumping against her head.
Shit.
No time for melancholy thoughts. Churkin would and did take any advantage.
Ducking, Sin punched with her right hand, the hand not holding the knife.
This knife had been in the left boot, thus it was now in her left hand. And while the other hold—right hand weapon, left hand defense—might be more advantageous in a normal fight, nothing normal was helpful with Churkin.
Crossing her left hand to the right, Sin brought the back of the knife hard against the woman's right temple in a hope of re-damaging the scar from the bullet Nick had put there last time they'd fought.
Though she hit the spot and heard a grunt, Churkin didn't fall the way she should.
To Sin's surprise, she lifted, her feet flying upward, her body slamming into Sin's rather than falling away from the hit.
Sin lived and died by physics.
Hit Churkin from her left, she falls to her right, feints backward, smacks her head forward. Though there was no guarantee, lifting and slamming the opposite direction wasn't something Sin was ready to counter and she lost her air as the two bodies smacked together with a sound much louder than they should have made.
The only consolation was that Churkin looked even more surprised than Sin was and they hit the floor in a tangle of limbs exceeding the number they had.
Two hands pushed on her back—Nick!—Sin realized. He was shoving himself out from under her. While she tried to help him, Churkin flailed above her, oddly out of character.
To Sin's left, Churkin's hand hit the floor and the gun clattered out of her grip.
In a flash of adrenaline-fueled thought, Sin considered grabbing it, but it was enough that her opponent didn't have it, while Sin retained control of her knife.
In another shocking move, Churkin rolled away, barely leaving Sin time to catalog what she saw.
Her opponent lay beside her, mouth open, sucking in the bad air like a fish.
Sin could taste the gas now, not having realized while she fought that her mask had been knocked askew. She was reaching to straighten it, to filter her air again, when another hand smashed her to the ground.
From her odd angle, laying on her back, she saw Nick rise up to a knee in the same smooth motion with which he'd shoved her down. As she watched, his hands wrapped the butt of the gun and his shoulders relaxed. With Churkin's gun firmly in hand, he laid out three perfect shots.
Only then could Sin raise her head and look.
Kaspar Kurev, the last of the live Kurev boys, stood stock still, a shocked expression forever frozen on his face while blood seeped from a perfect hole in the left side of his forehead.
Owen was returning to Chicago with Duffy by his side. The man was much more alert this time, though Owen wasn't exactly sure why.
Once again, he was finding himself on the wrong side of things. Unfortunately he was also on the right side of them. Getting this man medical help without alerting the Kurevs was definitely the right thing to do.
The fact that he had to deliver news to Todd Maxwell about his brother—a fugitive, from the law that Owen so desperately wanted to uphold—was the price of the treatment. It didn't seem to matter that the news was not good. Dr. Todd Maxwell wanted anything he could hear. That it hurt Owen to tell it didn't factor in.
In a fit of not-thinking-things-through, Owen opened his mouth before contemplating what he might hear back. "What made you throw in with Vasilescu?"
"Nick?"
Owen nodded quickly. That response, as much as anything, told volumes. This man questioned the family name but clearly called Nick by his first. The tone told Owen Nick was respected and anything he heard here would be in the positive. He should have stopped, he didn’t really want to know.
But he did.
"Yeah. Why are you on his short list of people to call?"
"Because he trusts me not to notify Kurev." Duffy tried a tentative roll of his injured shoulder. It was an alpha male thing—the need to test limits even when those limits were stitched onto your skin at the moment.
"You aren't in Kurev's pocket?" Owen understood that Nick had a handful of people he'd already swayed from the Kurev camp. Owen understood that Nick had faith those officers and officials would stand up against Kurev and be the tide when Nick decided to part the seas. It was ambitious and depended on loyalty. Something these people were torn between.
But Duffy wasn't on that list.
And Duffy was eying him from the other side of the car. "What's your standing with the Feebs?"
"I'm not FBI anymore. I'm just a college professor with a badge for my state bureau of investigation." Owen took a turn onto the freeway heading back to Annika and trying to alleviate the itch that was building at the back of his neck.
Taking that in for a moment and turning it over, Duffy slowly nodded his head. The he followed up, showing Owen exactly why Nick had chosen him. Though he looked a bit like the donut-loving kind of cop people either loved or hated, he was smart. Calculating. And made sure he was solid before he spoke. Not only would he not betray Nick, he also wouldn't accidentally let things slip.
Still, Duffy waited another moment. Clearly feeling out the situation, trying to consider not only his own loyalties, but the loyalties of those he was loyal to.
Again, Owen had what he needed.
Though it was disturbing to think of Nick as honorable in any way, Owen had long ago faced the fact that his world was neither black nor white. He'd accepted Sin in her single-mindedness. He'd begun to understand that, though he wanted the law to work, it sometimes didn't. He’d also accepted that Sin was often the better alternative than waiting for legal remedies to catch up. Good people suffered and died while Owen's hands were tied by laws. But Sin's weren't.
It had been harder to put Nick into that category.
Owen had wanted Nick in the negatives column. But the ledger didn't want to accept him there. Though the edges of the law had never been certain—what was illegal one day was legal the next—the core had been pretty stable. Though now that was shifting too.
Nick was up to his neck in more than just drugs, but even so, even in shades of gray, he had his own code. Owen was just trying to figure it out.
Duffy spoke again. "He's not perfect, but he's consistent. . . Nick wants cleaner streets, stronger communities, and more opportunities for the kids who grow up in the wrong neighborhoods." There was a longer pause this time. "I don't always agree with where his line is, but the fact is: Nick's line is far more reasonable than the blue one and if you check Atlanta, he's holding it."
Well, Holy shit. Owen blinked, thinking he could be knocked over with a feather. He had not expected a well-rounded commentary on the state of society from friend-of-the-godfather Officer Duffy.
His estimation of both Duffy and Nick went up several notches.
At least he felt better about getting Nick immunity. But he was starting to wonder if the better deal wasn't to leave Nick in place. It wouldn’t happen. Whatever Duffy and Owen might think, there was no way the legal line would move to Nick's line, whether he could hold it or not.
But Duffy was talking again, still not incriminating anyone, but giving out more details, more of what he seemed to sense Owen wanted. "I've done some things for him. Helped him find a few people, take down a few harmful groups. He's stepped up and always gave me full credit on stings or arrests."
"So you're indebted to him?"
"No. It goes both ways." He looked out the window and rolled that injured shoulder again, but he spoke before Owen could activate his parental vibes and slap him. "I've never seen him take advantage of anything for personal gain. I know he lost someone, but I've never seen him go off the rails over it. He's had opportunity. He could be wealthier than he is. His moral compass doesn't point due north, but it stays damn steady. Which is more than I can say for a lot of my true-blue brothers."
Owen was absorbing that when Duffy said something that made his blood run cold.
"I mean, if you put a tracer on that guy, you'd never find a step out of order with what he says." Duffy looked at Owen then. "Fuck. A tracer."
He'd put it together, too.
The mechanic had a bead on a straight line to Annika and the Holders.