Page 244 of Mile High Ruin

Fine.

I look at Sloane. “When I move, you stay here.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Sloane.”

“He’s trying to draw you inside.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re going?”

“Yes.”

“That’s insane.”

“It’s also necessary.”

Her eyes flash. “Vadim.”

I lean closer, my voice low enough that only she can hear it. “If he gets another angle on you, I can’t stop the shot from here.”

That ends the argument. Her hand slips from my shirt, but her fingers catch my wrist for one second before letting go.

“Don’t die,” she says. The words are angry.

That doesn’t make them matter less.

“I have no intention of giving him the satisfaction.”

Then I move. I cross the opening low, firing once toward the last place I saw the muzzle flash, and enter the warehouse before Iosef can get a direct line back to Sloane. The air inside smells of oil, damp concrete, and old metal.

Iosef fires from my left. I roll behind a low stack of pallets, feel splinters burst near my face, then fire back twice. One of my shots hits something metal with a violent ring.

Iosef isn’t laughing anymore. He’s still scared.

I keep moving, one step behind a rusted support, another around a fallen length of chain, until the angle between us changes enough that I’m closer to the entrance than he is.

He fires. The shot hits the wall behind me.

I roll behind the nearest steel column as another bullet sparks against the concrete where my knee had been half a second ago, then come up with my gun raised.

Iosef has already disappeared farther inside. I check the magazine by feel and move after him.

A shot comes from my left. I step behind the nearest column, return fire once, and hear him move before I see him.

“You know,” he calls from somewhere behind the old machinery, “you used to be more disciplined than this.”

“You used to be less talkative.”

“I have waited a long time to explain myself.”

“That was your mistake.”

I move again, not toward his voice, but toward the route that keeps me between him and the loading entrance where Sloane is waiting. If he wants to reach her, he has to cross me first.

Another shot cracks through the warehouse and hits the column beside my shoulder.