AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m beyond furious because there’s no way in hell I’ll get to watch Mikhail die today. We’ll be lucky if we make it out with our lives.
On Pyotr’s far side, Gleb hisses something under his breath as he stays close. Every chance we get, he takes one of Mikhail’s men down. But ours are falling far more rapidly as we attempt to flee, the snipers at the house managing to pick us off between the trees.
My heart skips a beat as a camo-covered gunman rises from the brush to our left, his gun pointed directly at Pyotr. I pull my trigger and am met with the resistance of a jammed bullet.
“Blyat!” I cuss, tossing the gun aside and racing forward because I have no time to draw and aim another weapon.
Pyotr’s locked in the man’s sights and has no idea.
I spin to face Pyotr, turning my back to the bullet as I put my body between him and harm. Shock registers on his face as the inertia from my sprint brings us both to the ground, and I roll off of him.
Then agonizing pain rips through my chest.
“Efrem!” Pyotr shouts, scrabbling across the ground to my side.
Each breath is excruciating. I can feel my lungs collapsing as pressure builds inside my chest, and I cough with the need to clear my airway. But nothing helps.
Horror drains Pyotr’s lips of blood as his eyes travel down over my chest, and I know it’s bad. This isn’t something I can stand up and shake off.
“Someone help me get him up!” Pyotr demands, panic in his voice, and Gleb appears over his shoulder a moment later.
The grim expression on his face tells me all I need to know. The taste of copper coats my lips as racking coughs lift my chest off the cold, hard ground, and I groan with the pain that follows. The corners of my vision darken, and I know this is it. I’m dying.
“Help me carry him,” Pyotr commands Gleb, and his captain kneels to follow his order.
“No,” I growl, grinding my teeth at the effort it takes. Gripping the front of Pyotr’s shirt, I haul him close so he can hear me good and well. “We’ve lost. Leave anyone who falls. They have to fend for themselves. You need to run. Survive.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Pyotr states forcefully, his eyes commanding Gleb to grab one of my arms as he grips the other.
I shove him back with a snarl. “Leave me!” I yell, my order cutting short as blood floods my throat, choking me.
But Pyotr doesn’t. His eyes follow me as I roll onto my side, spitting the fluid that threatens to strangle me.
“Efrem…”
“I’m not going to make it,” I state, trying for a reason because my hard-headed pakhan never learned to take orders. “And if you get shot trying to save me, then my sacrifice will be for nothing. I don’t want to die in vain.”
Defeat crumples Pyotr’s shoulders, and he nods, his gray eyes tortured.
Bracing with one elbow and my other palm, I struggle to form my last request as I feel my life draining from me and onto the forest floor. “Tell… tell Dani I’m sorry. That I love her.”
“Of course,” Pyotr promises, gripping my shoulder with a strong, reassuring hand.
Then he’s gone.
Gleb better keep him alive.
Because I no longer can. The irony of it hits me with blinding force. All I had to do was survive today, and then I would have been free and clear. Instead, I’ve finally fulfilled my debt to the Veles family, paying them back in full for the life they gave me.
I have only one regret.
It wasn’t a long enough life to spend with Dani.
Collapsing back onto the ground, I fight to drag an agonizing breath into my lungs. But the air is too thick now. And then, in an instant, I’m filled with cold relief as the world goes dark.
33
DANI
