Chapter 20 - Misha
The estate holds its breath.
I stand in the command center, running final checks on the tactical display.
Alexei is at my shoulder, monitoring communications.
Yevgeni Lenkov—head of internal security for the past twenty-two years—works the secondary console, his weathered face lit by the glow of the monitors.
He's been with the family since before I was born, a quiet, methodical man who knows every inch of this estate's security systems.
Dmitri's men are integrated with my own, a seamless defensive force spread across the grounds. We've done everything right—fortified the weak points, established overlapping fields of fire, prepared contingencies for every scenario we could imagine.
It won't be enough. It's never enough.
My eyes drift to the feed from the basement corridor.
The safe room door is sealed, Bianca and Anna locked inside together, with Petrov stationed outside—one of my most trusted men, a decade of service, utterly reliable.
I argued with Anna for twenty minutes before I gave up—she refused to leave, refused to do anything sensible.
In the end, I put her in the safe room with Bianca, figuring at least they could keep each other calm.
Or drive each other crazy. With Anna, it could go either way.
I can't see inside the room itself—no cameras there, a security feature that now feels like a flaw—but I can see Petrov on the corridor feed, standing at attention beside the door, his weapon ready. That's something. That's enough.
"Interior is locked down," Lenkov reports, his voice calm and professional. "All access points secured. Secondary safe room on standby if needed."
"Good." I nod without looking away from the monitors. "Keep the internal channels clear. I want to know immediately if anyone breaches the house."
"Understood."
I should have told Bianca more. Should have found better words for what she means to me, for what I'm fighting to protect. But words have never been my strength. Violence is my language, and tonight I'll speak it fluently.
"Movement on the south perimeter," one of the teams reports. "Three vehicles approaching. No headlights."
I lean forward, studying the thermal imaging. Three SUVs, moving fast, cutting across the fields toward the estate's weakest approach.
"Hold positions," I order. "Let them commit."
The vehicles stop a hundred meters from the wall. Doors open. Men pour out—more than three vehicles should hold, which means they were packed tight, which means this is just the vanguard.
I key my radio. "Petrov, status."
"All secure, sir. No movement down here."
"Keep it that way."
"Yes, sir."
One less thing to worry about. Bianca and Anna are safe. Petrov won't let anything through.
"Contact," the south team reports. "Engaging."
The first shots shatter the silence, and the night erupts into war.
I grab my weapon and head for the south wall.
***
The assault hits from three directions simultaneously.
South, east, and north—coordinated strikes designed to stretch our defenses, to force us to divide our forces. Professional. Disciplined. Sergei has been planning this for weeks, and it shows.
I reach the south wall as the first wave crashes against our positions. Muzzle flashes strobe in the darkness. Men shout, scream, die. I slide into position beside my team, rifle up, and start shooting.
The first attacker goes down with a bullet to the chest. The second takes one in the throat. I move through the chaos like I was born for it—because I was. This is what I am. What I've always been.
"Team two, flank left," I bark into the radio. "Cut off their retreat."
We push them back, meter by bloody meter. Bodies pile up at the base of the wall—theirs, mostly, but some of ours too. I step over a guard I've known for five years, his eyes staring at nothing, and keep moving.
No time for grief. Grief comes later.
"North wall is taking heavy fire," Alexei reports through my earpiece. "They're focusing on the drainage tunnel."
The weakness we identified. Of course they know about it.
"Send the reserve team. Hold that position at all costs."
"Already done."
I trust him. I have to. I can't be everywhere at once, no matter how much I want to be.
An attacker rounds the corner of the wall, weapon raised.
I drop him with two shots before he can get one off.
Another appears behind him—younger, hesitant, probably his first real firefight.
I shoot him anyway. Hesitation is death in this world.
Mercy is a luxury for people who don't have empires to protect.
The fighting is brutal, relentless. For every attacker we drop, another seems to take his place. They're well-trained, well-equipped, moving with the kind of coordination that only comes from months of preparation. Sergei has been planning this assault for a long time.
I wonder, briefly, if he's out there somewhere. Watching. Waiting.
Then another wave hits the wall, and I stop wondering about anything except survival.
The south assault falters around midnight. Sergei's men are pulling back, retreating to their vehicles, leaving bodies in the grass. I take advantage of the brief lull to reload and check in.
"Petrov, status."
"All quiet, sir. We can hear the fighting, but nothing down here. The ladies are holding up."
"Good. Stay sharp."
"Always, sir."
They're safe. Whatever happens above ground, they're safe.
I allow myself a single breath of relief before the radio crackles again.
Then the east gate explodes.
"Breach! Breach at the east gate!"
I'm running before the words finish echoing in my earpiece. The gate is gone—blown inward by some kind of shaped charge—and men are pouring through the gap. More men than we anticipated. More than Sergei should have been able to commit to a secondary assault.
The realization hits me even as I run: this isn't a secondary assault. This is the main attack. The south wall was the diversion.
I arrive at the breach just as the first wave of attackers meets our defensive line. It's chaos—close quarters, hand-to-hand in places, the kind of brutal fighting that separates survivors from corpses.
I throw myself into it.
Knife in one hand, pistol in the other. An attacker lunges at me; I sidestep, open his throat, move on. Another raises his weapon; I put two rounds in his chest before he can fire. A third comes at me from behind; I spin, block his strike, drive my knife into his eye socket.
Blood everywhere. On my hands, my face, my clothes. The copper smell fills my nostrils, familiar as breathing. I've lived with this smell since I was fifteen years old. Since I stood over my parents' bodies and swore to become something terrible enough to survive in this world.
"Push them back!" I roar. "Don't let them through!"
We fight for what feels like hours but is probably only minutes.
The breach becomes a killing ground, bodies piling up until we're climbing over the dead to reach the living.
I lose count of how many men I kill—five, six, maybe more.
They blur together, faces I won't remember, lives ended by my hands.
One of them gets close enough to slash my arm before I put him down. The cut is shallow, barely a scratch, but it reminds me that I'm mortal. That even I can bleed. That somewhere in the basement of this house, there's a woman waiting for me to come back alive.
But slowly, agonizingly, we push them back.
The east gate holds. Barely.
I lean against the ruined wall, catching my breath, surveying the carnage. Half a dozen of my men are down—dead or wounded, I can't tell yet. Twice as many attackers lie scattered across the courtyard, their blood soaking into the gravel.
This is what victory looks like in my world. Corpses and ruin and the knowledge that more is coming.
"Status report," I demand through the radio. "All teams."
The responses come in one by one. South wall holding. East gate secured. North wall—
"North wall is breached," Alexei's voice cuts through. "They're through the drainage tunnel. Fighting in the gardens."
"Internal security holding," Lenkov adds from the command center. "No penetration of the main house yet."
Yet. The word hangs in the air like a threat.
The north wall. The drainage tunnel. The weakness I identified days ago, the one we fortified but couldn't fully seal.
I'm already moving.
The north wall is the real fight.
They breach the drainage tunnel around two in the morning.
A dozen men pour through before we can seal it, and suddenly the fighting is inside the perimeter.
I watch on my tactical display as icons scatter—my guards engaging in the gardens, among my mother's overgrown hedges and forgotten fountains.
The garden is mine. I know every path, every shadow, every hiding spot. I used to play here as a child, before the world taught me that play was a luxury I couldn't afford. Now I use that knowledge for something else entirely.
I move through the darkness like a ghost, my weapon ready, my senses tuned to every sound and movement. The gunfire is sporadic now—short bursts, then silence. My men are hunting the invaders. So am I.
The night air is thick with smoke and the smell of cordite. Somewhere to my left, a man screams and then goes silent. Somewhere ahead, I hear the sharp crack of a rifle and the thud of a body hitting the ground. The garden has become a maze of death, and I navigate it by instinct.
I find them near the greenhouse.
Three of Sergei's men, pinned down behind a stone bench, exchanging fire with my guards. They don't see me coming. They don't see anything—not until I'm on them, my knife opening the first one's throat before he can turn.
The second one gets his gun up. I deflect it, put two bullets in his chest. The third tries to run. I shoot him in the back.
No hesitation. No remorse. This is what I am. What I've always been.