The first shot cracked through a driver’s skull. The second hit a shoulder. The third—right through a throat. They scattered like startled wasps.
Return fire lit the sky. Bullets slammed into the stone around me, shards of glass bursting beside my cheek. I ducked back behind the wall.
Someone crashed beside me—a young kid, maybe nineteen, from our crew. His hands trembled as he clutched his rifle.
“They’re fucking professionals,” he gasped, eyes wide and terrified.
“No shit,” I muttered, snapping the last mag into place. I raised the rifle again and kept firing—taking out another one trying to scale the fence. But they were swarming now, too many, too fast. Some were already breaking off and closing in on the house. I wouldn’t be able to shoot them all.
I ducked back, heart pounding, and finally set the rifle aside. It was useless in close quarters.
“They want war?” I said with a shrug. “Great. I was getting bored playing nice anyway.”
Downstairs, the house was chaos—smoke, screams, splintered wood, and gunfire echoing off marble floors.
I moved on reflex.
One man came around the corner—I shot him twice. Another burst from a side corridor. I met him head-on, blade out, catching his ribs and twisting. He howled, blood spraying the walls.
Sashko ran past me, yelling orders or maybe warnings—I couldn’t hear the words over the roar in my ears. I ducked another shot, rolled across the floor, came up, and fired. The bastard dropped like a sack of bricks.
Footsteps. Another one.
I grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed his skull into the marble wall. He crumpled.
Then I saw them—two men rushing up the main staircase.
My blood turned to ice.
That was Kira’s floor.
I aimed fast and shot the first man clean through the back. He dropped. But the second didn’t stop. He was fast—military fast—already halfway up by the time I fired again.
Missed.
Fuck.
I ran after him, boots pounding up the stairs, chest burning with every breath. When I reached the top, he was already in the hallway, moving fast—too fast. He was flinging open doors one after the other, checking every room like he knew exactly what he was looking for.
Then he reached Kira’s.
His hand wrapped around the knob. It didn’t move. Instead of stepping back, the bastard slammed his boot into the wood and blew the door inward. Something feral tore through my chest. My blood iced over. I launched myself at him.
He barely got one foot inside before I slammed into him from behind, knocking him sideways with all the force I had. We collided hard, the impact rattling my spine. He was strong. Trained. He slammed his elbow into my jaw. I tasted blood. I hit back, landed a blow to his gut, but he recovered fast, driving his fist into my ribs. Pain flared.
Our fight tore through the hallway like a storm, blind and brutal, until suddenly we were tumbling down the stairs. I went down first, slamming into the marble steps, pain shooting up my spine. He followed close behind, the weight of him knocking the breath from my chest as we landed.
The air ripped from my lungs, stars bursting behind my eyes.
But I didn’t stop.
He scrambled up—but I was faster. I swept the blade low and slashed across the back of his ankle. He screamed, stumbling forward as his tendon snapped and collapsed hard onto the marble. Before he could turn, I was on him. I mounted his back, yanked his head up by the hair, and drew my knife clean across his throat. Hot blood sprayed my knuckles. He gurgled, twitched, then stilled beneath me.
I rose, chest heaving, blood dripping from my hands. But I was still alive.
I forced myself to look around.
Bodies littered the floor—ours and theirs tangled together in the wreckage. Pakhan’s men sprawled against the walls, dark pools spreading beneath them. The Moscow soldiers lay where they’d fallen, faces frozen in surprise, weapons still clutched in dead hands. Smoke hung low, acrid and metallic, stinging my eyes.
