AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Seven.” I smile. “How lucky.”
And say nothing, Little Ms. Lucky.The words come to me unexpectedly, and I blink to keep my focus.
“Relax, Andrei,” Dmitri replies. “It won’t be as hard as last night.”
Last night, we struck Talia’s men like mist rolling over the river. We breached their compound, easily outmaneuvering the mercenaries that had been hired. She must be desperate. Or maybe her father is. The hired guns were motivated to succeed. But I wasn’t planning on losing, not to them or anyone. We left the house standing, but not the men guarding it.
“Besides, getting in is easy.” Dmitri looks through the binoculars again. “Getting out is a bitch.” He sighs and reaches for his arm to brush away a phantom pain.
“We don’t have to go in,” I reply.
“Are you testing me?” he scoffs. “Someone has to keep you in line.”
Last night, two of my men had to pull me off a Nikitin guard. He was dead, but I kept beating him like a madman, as if he held the sole blame for my fucked-up life.
“Now?” asks Dmitri.
I shake my head, though he probably can’t see me clearly. All of this could be done from a distance. Drop a few bombs from a drone and pick off the people fleeing with night vision rifles. But where is the sport if I do it the easy way? I can’t inject fear into their shaky hearts if I’m sitting at home being a literal keyboard warrior.
No, I want to do this the old-fashioned way. The personal way. I need to smell their fear and see the life go out of their eyes.
Another guard disappears into the club.
“Six,” Dmitri whispers.
This moment, this is me. This is when I can do nothing wrong. I was raised to be what I am, and nothing will change it. Paige hasn’t changed me. Even if I want to change for her, I can’t.
It’s a part of me that cannot be cut away because it is in my soul and twisted tight into my DNA.
Vasilyevich,I think bitterly. I am still my father’s son.
I will always be my father’s son, whether I like it or not.
Violence is what keeps me together because I know it. I understand it. I create it. I know what to expect when it’s headed for me. I welcome it with a savage smile.
The dead don’t want me to change.Vasily, Eva, Igor. It’s too late for them. It’s too late for me.
“We go in when I give the word.”
Dmitri nods. “All sides are covered. We have smoke grenades to blind whoever is outside, and then we are in.”
I can’t see my men, but I know they’re as restless as I am. The ones that remain are eager to show me that nothing can scare them or make them run away. I know the men that left are not cowards. But they’re letting their pride get in the way.
Quickly, I tune out my thoughts. I pull night goggles over my eyes, and Dmitri does the same.
“Time to go,” I whisper, letting my lips twist into a smile.
“Davai!” Dmitri whispers into his radio. “No prisoners. Leave Gleb Novikov for the pakhan.”
Chapter 42
Andrei
When the smoke bombs go off outside the club, the mingling crowd seems unsure of what to make of it. Great plumes of smoke engulf them and rise into the air, punctuated with flashes of light.
Suddenly, a whoop and holler starts. Someone thinks this is part of the show.
The two guards at the door realize too late what’s happening. Before they can call for backup, my men take them out from forty yards away.
