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“No time,” Adam barks and takes a flashlight off his belt before placing it in Tara’s hand. “Bathroom. Now. Both of you.”
“Tara? Where’s Drago?” I choke as she pushes me toward the en suite, leading the way with the small flashlight.
“He’s still not back from a meeting. Come on.”
The roar of engines from several approaching cars penetrates the walls. Other than the earlier bang, which I assume was a vehicle ramming the gate, there are no other sounds. No gunfire. No one is shouting. The house is silent. If the mansion is under attack, wouldn’t there be yelling and the hustle of all the people who are currently inside? Why is it so eerily quiet?
“I don’t hear anything,” I say as we stumble inside the bathroom. “What the fuck is going on, Tara?
“The Romanians decided to pay us a visit.” She reaches behind her back and takes out a gun. Placing the end of the flashlight between her teeth, she releases the magazine to check it, then snaps it back. “One of the guys on guard down the road reported multiple vehicles heading toward the compound. They just broke through the gate, so we’re waiting for them to get here.”
“Did they cut the power?” I ask, my eyes fixed on the gun in her hand.
“Nope,” she mumbles around the flashlight. “We did.”
“What? Why?”
“Standard protocol.” She throws me her phone. “You can watch if you want.”
“You have aprotocolfor an assault?” Shaking my head, I take a seat on the closed toilet lid and stare at the screen showing a dark, grainy video. It’s certainly a feed from the security camera, but I can’t figure out which one. A second later, headlights enter the screen, approaching fast, the glow illuminating the front driveway.
“They can’t drive in the dark with no lights on.” Tara snickers. “They’re sitting ducks now. We can see them, but they can’t see us.”
“Why hasn’t anyone tried to stop them?” I choke out, watching as four black vans stop on the gravel some distance from the house.
“Shooting at moving vehicles is a bitch.” She shoos me to the side, taking half of the toilet seat. “Any moment now.”
I don’t have time to ask her what she means, because a sudden flash fills the screen, lighting the front yard like it’s midday. The men in black clothes, who only moments before poured out of the vans, are now ducking every which way, blinded by the massive floodlights aimed at them. The thirty or so gunmen, each armed with an automatic rifle, momentarily turn into a mindless, murdering horde.
Gunfire explodes into the night.
About a dozen end up sprawled on the ground before the rest scatter around the lawn, shooting at the house.
“Drago is going to be pissed,” Tara mumbles over the sound of gunfire outside.
“Because of the attack?”
“Because he wasn’t here.” She snickers. “I’ll make sure— Fuck!”
She cuts off, staring at the phone, as two more vehicles pull up to the outer limit of light bathing the driveway.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” Tara barks out and swipes her gun off the bathroom vanity. “Stay here. I’m going downstairs.”
“What?” I grab her forearm.
“There are only eighteen people here. Relja sent the rest as a backup to Naos when Misha called half an hour ago. It seems like the attack there must have been a distraction. We’re stretched too thin, even with the advantage of being fortified inside.”
“I’m coming with you,” I say.
“Not happening.”
“But—”
“You told me you could never shoot at anyone, Sienna.” She fixes me with an unwavering stare. “You can’t help. Stay put.”
With those words, Tara dashes out, closing the bathroom door in her wake.
I take in the gloomy interior around me, the glow of the small flashlight the only source of light. The cacophony outside is still raging, but it seems more controlled now than before. Rather than a string of machine gun fire, the shots now are individual, with stretches of time in between. Precise. The attackers have regained their bearings and stopped the aimless assault.
