My heart skipped a beat as I stared death right in the eyes.
“You can put a bullet in my head right now,” I said. “But rest assured: My husband will hunt you down like an animal. And that’s when you’ll realize there’s no place on earth to hide from him.”
His jaw tightened, finger hovering over the trigger.
“Trust me, there isn’t a version of this where he won’t find you. And when he does…hewillkill you,” I growled, concealing my fear and anxiety.
“Until then,” he replied. “Any last words?”
I hesitated. “Screw you.”
And with that, I closed my eyes, waiting for my end. The sound of the gun cocking echoed in my head. Then I heard it.
Bang!
Chapter 28 – Karik
I stood on the hill overlooking the abandoned structure surrounded by towering trees. This was where the Sokolov Syndicate was holding my wife.
Through the binoculars raised in front of my face, I scanned the area, patiently waiting for Sergei’s return. He’d taken a handful of men for a quick reconnaissance survey. We needed to be sure they didn’t know we were coming.
The sound of a twig snapping beneath a boot behind me caught my attention. I didn’t have to look back to know it was my lieutenant.
“There are five men on the east wing,” he said, approaching me. “Seven guard the main entrance. And I counted three more on the west side.”
“How many in total?” I lowered my binoculars. “Plus the four on the roof.”
“Nineteen. Give or take.”
“Our snipers?”
“In position.”
“Excellent.” I withdrew my pistol and cocked the damn thing. “Let’s kill these bastards.”
Sergei and I mobilized the men and moved through the woods undetected. We counted nineteen men outside, but there were more inside. Their exact number was unknown. However, that wasn’t a problem we couldn’t handle.
There were just ten of us: me, Sergei, and eight of my finest fighters. We moved stealthily, invading the building and taking out the guards one by one.
Our guns had silencers attached to their barrels so the shots were muffled. No noise. No unnecessary attention was drawn to ourselves.
In less than five minutes, fifteen out of the nineteen we counted earlier were already dead. Their bodies were dragged into dark corners to avoid suspicion.
Our boots made no sound against the concrete as we snuck into the building, each on high alert. On my signal, we split up into groups of two. Sergei was with me. The plan was to quietly invade as many rooms as we could and kill as many guards as we could until we found my wife.
As we moved through the space, hiding behind pillars, one of the men on the balcony spotted a movement in the shadows. I signaled Sergei to pause. He did.
The guard, holding his radio in his hand, drew closer, eyes fixed in my direction. To distract him, Sergei kicked an empty can across the room. As expected, the man’s attention was drawn to the sound.
The second he took his eyes off, I fired two shots at him. Two bullets to the chest. I thought he was going to fall backward. Instead, his limp body stumbled over the railing. There was a table below, and the moment he crashed onto it, the noise would alert the others.
“Shit,” I mumbled.
The table broke under his weight as he landed with a loud thud.
“Hey!” someone yelled after spotting me.
As soon as he saw his colleague’s corpse on the floor, he pulled out his gun and fired one shot at me. Because the whole place was quiet, the sound was louder than it should be.
