Ritchie takes one side. Rémy takes the other. I move forward with Miff while Serenity stays exactly where I ordered—behind me.
Good girl.
The first guard steps into the hallway. I grab him before he can shout and slam him into the wall. He drops.
The second reaches for his radio.
Serenity moves before Angel can stop her, driving the butt of her Glock into his throat before kicking his knee in. He collapses, choking.
I stare at her.
She glares back. “What?”
“Nothing.”
A proud smile threatens to surface.
Not the time.
Glocks drawn, we move deeper into the basement to kill the rest of Aleksandr’s men. Laughter kicks up deeper in the basement. Are they playing cards?
“Stay alert,” I say.
“There are six more heat signatures,” Miff says through the earpiece.
We reach the open, dimly lit space with caution. I notice a speaker in the middle of a poker table. The laughter blares around the room. Four men holding AKs pop out from dark corners of the room. They squeeze their triggers. We fire back. Serenity drops onto the floor, squeezing the trigger of her AR-15. I aim for our enemies’ heads, taking them out one by one. We notice the bullets stop.
My wife stands to her feet. I pull her behind me again. Pain radiates through my body. I don’t mention to anyone on my team that I’d been shot. Again.
“There’s two more,” I say.
“Angel and I got them,” Kicks says.
They take off down a hallway.
I hear gunfire erupt. A few minutes later Kicks and Angel return.
My team doesn’t leave one man alive. I’m sure there are more of his men around the city waiting for Aleksandr’s word to rain down bullets on us.
Miff checks the tablet. “Movement on the top floor.”
I tighten my grip on my Glock. “Good. Let the coward sweat.”
Catch’s voice comes over my earpiece. “Two men just exited the fire escape.”
“Take them if they run.”
I hear two soft pops.
“Done,” he chuckles.
Our boots pound the concrete as we clear the stairwell floor by floor. Every door gets checked. Cleared. We can’t allow any surprises. Or loss of civilian life.
By the time we hit the top floor, the bastard knows we’re here.
Good.
I stand outside the apartment door, listening. I hear fast footsteps, shouting in Russian, and furniture scrapes across hardwood.
