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But I can make the world a safer place in my own way for her and my baby.
Mila ducks low, spotting something I don’t. In a blur of motion, she sprints to the right. I don’t see the guard in the shadows of a dumpster until she has him at her feet. There’s just enough visibility for me to watch her grip his hair, yank his head back, then slit his throat. She doesn’t glance back at the dead man when she’s finished. He doesn’t matter anymore.
Her eyes lock on mine. There’s red on her knife; it vanishes as she slips it into its sheath. “One for me,” she chuckles. “I’ll end up with a bigger tally than you at this rate.”
A quick breath exits my lips—my muscles flex eagerly. “You need the head start. I don’t.”
Moving as a unit, we rush the door. Mila grips it, giving me a single look to confirm she has my permission before she rips it open. It isn’t locked. And why would it be? These men aren’t expecting a head-on assault, and they would have set a guard to alert them of anything strange.
She darts away to guard my flank, giving me a clear view of the room. It’s massive inside, with metal containers in rusted red and faded blue lining the walls. In the center are five men sitting at a cheap foldout table covered in poker chips, as well as a mountain of white powder. Someone has his head bent into it, in the middle of snorting, but his shocked eyes are locked on me.
There are others in the space—lining the walls, reclining lazily on the containers. All are frozen with uncertainty. It’s the only chance I’ll get to act before they can respond. My hand is bone dry on the hilt of my gun. I’m not nervous, and there’s no reason to sweat. I aim my weapon, placing a bullet through the forehead of the man closest to me, and feel euphoria flood through me.
Like a kicked hornet’s nest, the room comes alive.
“Shit!” a man roars, but whatever he says next is just a sloppy gurgle. Talking is hard when your windpipe has been sliced open. Mila rolls to one side, dodging into the metal containers and out of view. I keep shooting, making sure to aim away from where she is so I don’t hit her accidentally.
One ... two ... three ... I count the men as they fall. After the dead guard outside, the man I nailed, Mila’s recent kill, and these three, there should be sixteen remaining. My pistol has six bullets. It’s emptied before the first man draws his own gun.
“It’s him!” I hear someone yell. I recognize him from voice alone—a large man with a reddish beard and gauges in his ears. Sergei. One of Yevgeniy’s brigadiers who never defected when I took control of the Bratva. The sight of someone of such a high rank sends me into a frenzy. Maybe I’m luckier than I thought.
A bullet grazes my shoulder. I don’t feel any pain, not even as the blood saturates my jacket.
Adrenaline is a hell of a drug.
Ducking behind a stack of boxes, I try to get a bead on my attacker. He’s around my age, maybe older, with three different scars across the bridge of his nose. Lavrentiy ... another brigadier. Reaching for my Glock because my pistol is empty, I prepare to fire back. Before I do, Mila springs from the shadows.
Like a large cat, she lands smoothly on top of Lavrentiy’s shoulders. She’s half his size, but with her knife to his ear, cutting it clean off, she drops him to the ground. He screams in agony as blood pours down his neck and shoulder.
“That’s it!” she laughs, stepping over him as he bucks on the floor. She stamps her foot on his windpipe as hard as possible. “Cry for me, Lavrentiy. Just the way you made me cry for you all those years ago.”
Lavrentiy’s shouting has distracted the other men; I take the opportunity to pick off three more of them. My Glock has a bigger capacity than my other gun. I like it less for that reason, but it does the job efficiently.
Bullets shatter all other sounds. Carnage buries every thought in my brain except kill. Kill. Kill. I cling to the wicked urge to decorate the place with the blood of my enemies. This surge of violence is the perfect bubble to wrap myself in.
Here, where I’m nothing but a tool designed for murder, I don’t have to feel remorse.
I’m free of the agony of losing the woman I love.
Or … that’s what I think.
The bodies litter the floor, each one sending a jolt of delight into my core. But when there are only five men left to stand against us, I sense the awful burrs returning. They were never gone, I realize. They’re embedded too firmly in my soul. Gritting my jaw angrily, I kick Sergei in the stomach. He doubles over with a groan. Even when I embrace this monstrous side of me … I can’t escape the pain of Galina’s absence.
The woman left a canyon in me that nothing can fill.
Nothing but her.
“Wait!” Sergei coughs, holding up his hand. He’s supine on the floor. He tries to stand, but there’s too much blood. Without traction, he slips backward, kicking his feet uselessly. “Don’t kill me, Arsen Kirilovich! Please! I have something you need!”
“All I need from you is to see the light fade from your eyes.” I press the tip of my gun to his chest. Sergei sucks in breath after breath. He’s terrified. I wish it made me feel better. No death I’ve caused has healed me. But maybe his will.
I’m happy to find out.
I start to close my finger on the trigger. He shudders down to his knees. “I know where Galina Yevgeniyevna is!”
All the tension vanishes from my hand; I let go of the trigger, searching Sergei’s face for evidence that he’s lying. “How could you possibly know that?”
Hope returns to his eyes. “Let me go, and I’ll tell you everything.”
