Chapter Sixteen
Slava
I have never felt fear like this in my life, not once in thirty-three years, as we tear down the highway toward the estate.
The estate. The woman who brings light into my days is inside that building right now. The place I dragged her into with a promise that I would never let danger touch her.
And I am a man who keeps his word. Which means I need to be inside those walls, my body over hers, and I need to paint every hallway red with the blood of whoever decided ambushing my Bratva is a good idea.
But today is also the one true test of the vow my people swore the night they knelt in front of her.
"Faster, Ilya. Fucking faster," I hiss, my knee bouncing hard enough to rattle the door panel.
I know he's already pushing this car past its limit. Doesn't matter. Nothing feels fast enough right now. Nothing will feel right until I have my hands on her, until I know for certain she's okay.
Ilya swerves around a car doing sixty in the wrong lane, missing it by inches, and I bite down on the urge to tell him to go faster still. Dead men are useless.
At one point we're half off the road entirely, tires tearing through the tree line to skip a jam on the highway, the car screaming in protest under us. I don't care if the wheels fall off the second we arrive. Get us there.
And then, finally—finally—we arrive.
Cars are parked at every angle around the estate's perimeter, abandoned wherever they stopped. I count at least forty vehicles. It'll be almost a shame when I hang each of their heads from the fence line like Christmas ornaments. Almost.
We hit the brakes hard enough that the tires give out completely, the car skidding the last twenty feet on bare rims. The second our boots hit gravel, a round cracks past my skull close enough to graze the top of my ear.
I drop behind the car door, Ilya already down beside me, both of us scanning the tree line and the parked cars for the muzzle flash. My eyes catch on one SUV with tinted windows—a flicker of movement behind the glass. I put a round through where a head should be. Glass shatters but nobody falls.
Empty seat.
Ilya curses under his breath and pulls the backup piece off his other hip.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
He works down the row of tinted windshields, reloading mid-motion when the first mag runs dry.
Another round comes at us from somewhere lower, which narrows the angle enough that we both redirect fire toward the cluster of cars on the left flank instead of guessing blind.
Three, four shots into the same door panel, and then red blooms across the inside of the glass.
Target down.
I'm up and moving immediately, Ilya matching my pace step for step.
Stay strong for me, love. Please. Please.
I kick the door in and the first thing I see is one of our newest boys, shipped over from Moscow three months ago, barely finished with his training, sprawled face-down in a pool of his own blood.
I step over him. Inside, our men are crouched behind overturned furniture, exchanging fire with a line of shooters who haven't clocked us coming in yet. I count roughly twenty of theirs in the entry hall. I take the angle they've left wide open and put down four.
Ilya's on my left, dropping three more in the same breath. He's always been better at this part than me.
"PAKHAN!" One of ours catches my eye between shots.
"Where is she?" I shout back. "Where's your pakhanessa?"
"Safe room, Pakhan! We sent three of our best women with her. Sonya's got her sidearm, they're locked in!" He fires twice more between sentences, taking down a shooter who'd peeked around a doorway. "She's safe, I swear it on my life, she's safe!"
I can’t feel relief until I have her in my arms and can confirm it with my own hands.
I need to finish clearing this floor before I go find her myself. When the rest realize their numbers are dwindling, they’ll make a run for it themselves out of the estate.
Doesn’t matter. I’ll hunt them to the end of the earth.
We push forward, room by room, Ilya covering my back through the west corridor. Their numbers are thinning fast. Ten left, maybe fifteen, and every one of the Bratva men is fighting like a demon.
My mind keeps running the same name on a never-ending loop.
Nora. Nora. Nora.
Almost there. Almost done. Then I find her.