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They knew.
But it was a compulsion. He worried most about Max, whose instinct was always to protect Roman. This time there was someone more important, and Roman was counting on Max to remember that.
He clicked off the safety on his weapon and started down the stairs, taking his time, trying not to make any noise even though every bone in his body urged him to run for Ruby.
If his father’s men were on this floor then so was Ruby. They would be positioned near where she was being held.
Find the men, find Ruby.
He stepped off the staircase and scanned the floor for debris. It was surprisingly clear, probably because his father's men had set up camp here while they'd been guarding Ruby.
He waited for the rest of the men to step off the staircase, then halted their progress again, listening for the sound of the guards, trying to place their location.
Their voices and laughter were louder here, rap music pumping under the conversation.
Roman followed the noise to the left, stepping slowly down a long hall.
This part of the terminal was different than the rest. Rather than a cavernous open space littered with old equipment, there were rooms on either side of the hall. Some of the doors hung haphazardly on rusted hinges. Others had lost their doors long ago. Roman guessed the rooms had once acted as offices for administrative personnel at the grain terminal.
They came to the end of the hall and Roman flattened his back against the wall, waiting for the others to do the same. The voices and music were louder, a faint glow of light leaking into the hall.
The men were right around the corner. Roman and his team would need to be ready when they stepped around it.
He listened again, tracking the conversation, counting the number of people they would be facing.
"… Konstantin will shoot your balls off," one of the men said.
"Konstantin won't do shit," another voice said. "He's not the boss.”
"The boss is the one who said not to touch her yet," the first man said.
"Who's going to know?" the second man asked. "Bitch is essentially already dead.”
Fury flooded Roman's body, a curtain of scarlet rage dropping over his mind, his vision.
Everything.
They were talking about Ruby. About touching her. About hurting her.
Roman shook his head, trying to clear the fog of violence from his mind long enough to issue instructions to the team.
He held up two fingers, indicating there were two men. They were playing cards, obvious from the slap of plastic, the leisurely pace of the conversation. That meant there were two more men somewhere in the building, probably on the first floor by the door near the street.
Roman held up three fingers, then two.
Then one.
He stepped from the shadows and rounded the corner into a smaller hallway. He registered the scene in a matter of milliseconds: a door on the right, closed and locked with a padlock; a cheap card table set up in front of it; two men — one beefy with a meaty face, the other thin — sitting in folding chairs, playing cards laid out in front of them; empty beer bottles littering the table.
He was only a few feet away when one of the men — the big one facing him — saw him.
The man’s eyes widened, his mouth opening as he rose to his feet.
The slender man had his back to Roman, obviously unaware of Roman's approach, which suited Roman just fine.
"What the fuck are you…?" the slender man asked the other man, who was now on his feet and fumbling for his weapon as he watched Max and the other men file silently into the hall behind Roman.
Roman raised his weapon and fired into the back of the skinny man's head. He slumped forward onto the card table and Roman turned his weapon on the other man, now raising a gun in Roman's direction.
