The others that’ve come with me fan out. They’ve got canisters they use to pour gas around the room.
I turn and stride back into the hall.
The pub smells like rotten eggs from the bullets we’ve fired and now like the gas we’re pouring. It’s an unpleasant, potent stench, but it’s also the smell of revenge.
“Kill,” Sean says when I make it back to the ground floor. He jerks his head toward the back half of the pub. “Check this out.”
I follow him to backroom where there’re large kennels set up. Cages made of metal wire big enough to fit an adult human.
All of them are now empty.
Whoever was being kept down here has been moved. Which means Fedorov and his son probably got wind we were coming for them.
But setting sights on the cages takes my mind to Jhene.
She’s never told me specifics. I’ve never pressed for them. But Ihaveheard the news reports—the stories that’ve circulated in the media about the women trapped in cages at the Vodka Room.
Rage thickens inside me imaginingherin one of these cages.
These bastards kept her and her sister in them. And probably countless others too.
My hands flex open and shut at my sides. I’d snap these cages in half and still be coursing with rage. Still be lusting for some fucking payback for what they’ve done to her.
“Burn it,” I growl. “All of it. Now.”
Sean and the others make it happen.
We step to the street outside as the Vodka Room goes up in a wave of flames. The windows blow out and the roof caves in as smoke hazes the air. The fire starts to spread to the buildings on either side—a Russian bakery and money exchange that’s a front for more Bratva activities.
Collateral damage. I can’t bring myself to care.
We stand by and watch the carnage ’til it starts to drizzle. Summer rain the weather forecasts predicted but that can’t slow down what we’ve done.
It’s already too late. The Vodka Room and the buildings beside it burn down to the ground.
Sean appears at my side, a savage grin splitting his face. “Hell of a night, Kill.”
“It’s a start,” I reply, my eyes still fixed on the flames. “Fedorov and his son are next.”
The Vodka Room crumbles in on itself, sending a plumeof smoke into the rainy sky. Sirens wail from a few miles away, emergency responders finally en route.
We turn to go, leaving the scene in shambles.
This is just the beginning.
It’s well past two in the morning when I finally make it back to the studio. The summer rain’s only picked up, tapping against the side of the building. I’m soaked through, hair damp and plastered to my brow and T-shirt sticking to me like a second skin.
The adrenaline of the night still courses through my veins.
I’m buzzed and probably won’t be getting much sleep tonight. Normally, that’d mean a late-night trip to the Rialto.
But I’ve got someone waiting for me at home.
The studio’s dark except for the distant blur of streetlights in the rain-streaked windows.
I’m only a step inside when I feel a set of eyes on me.
It takes a second longer for my own to adjust to the dark and make out the shape of her.
