How many times had he almost died while I slept?
I climbed out of the SUV. My shoulder screamed protest. I ignored it. Followed on foot, staying to shadows, weapon drawn. My left arm was useless. Fine. I'd trained one-handed. Wasn't ideal but manageable.
Sebastian moved through the railyard like he owned it. Confident. Sure. He scaled a wall with movements that should've been impossible for someone who'd been in a grenade blast twenty hours ago. His shoulder bandage showed white under his dark jacket. Blood seeping through already.
Fucking idiot was tearing his stitches.
I climbed a fire escape on the adjacent building. Slower. Quieter. The rust scraped my palm. Metal creaked under my weight. But I made it to the roof. Got eyes on the street below.
Armed men. At least eight. Maybe more in the buildings. Moving crates between trucks. Weapons. Drugs. Money. The trinity of organized crime.
Sebastian dropped from his perch like death descending. The first arrow took a man through the throat before anyone registered the threat. The second hit another in the chest. Center mass. The man went down choking on blood.
Gunfire erupted. Muzzle flashes lit the dark. Sebastian moved like water flowing around obstacles. Every shot anticipated. Every movement calculated. He wasn't just good.
He was lethal.
An arrow through a shooter's eye. Another through someone's knee, dropping him screaming. Sebastian closed the distance, bow collapsing into something smaller, knife appearing in his hand like magic.
He opened a man's throat. Arterial spray painted the wall. Broke another's arm with a kick that made bone crack loud enough to hear from my position. Put a third down with his bare hands, choking him unconscious before moving to the next target.
This wasn't self-defense.
This was hunting.
I watched in horrified fascination as he tore through them. Watched him take a hit to his injured shoulder and barely flinch. Watched blood spread across his bandages. Watched him keep fighting like pain was just noise he'd learned to ignore.
Two attackers came at him from opposite sides. He saw them. Calculated. Threw his knife at one, hitting him in the gut. Dropped into a slide under the second one's swing. Came up behind him and snapped his neck. Clean. Brutal.
The knife man pulled the blade from his stomach. Stupid. More blood poured out. He raised his gun anyway. Shaking. Dying. Determined to take Sebastian with him.
I shot him. Three rounds. Chest. He dropped.
Sebastian spun toward the sound. Saw me on the roof. His eyes went wide behind the hood.
No time for explanations. Three more attackers were converging. One from the building behind Sebastian. Two from the truck.
“Behind you!” I shouted.
He moved. The shot that would've taken his head hit brick instead. He rolled. Came up firing. Arrow through one attacker's lung. The man went down gasping.
I dropped from the roof. Fifteen feet. Bad idea with injuries. Terrible idea. Did it anyway. Landed hard. Something in my ribs cracked. Possibly recracked what had been healing. Pain exploded white and hot.
Didn't matter. The attacker from the building was raising his rifle at Sebastian's back.
I closed the distance. Grabbed his barrel, yanked it up. The shot went wild. I drove my elbow into his throat. He gagged. I brought my knee up into his face. Cartilage shattered. Blood sprayed. He went down.
“Viktor, what the fuck?—“
“Explanations later! Fight now!”
Sebastian's response was an arrow that whistled past my ear and took down a man charging from my blind side. “You're welcome!”
“Did not need help!”
“You literally just fell off a building!”
“Was strategic descent!”
