Chapter 1 #2
I wrinkled my nose at the horrid stench and turned around, walking back out. “Clear,” I said, heading to the next door.
We repeated the process, checking each room before moving onto the next. There were two more bedrooms exactly like the first. Except one of them had a naked, unconscious woman lying on the bed, her body bloody and bruised, as well as a tiny bathroom with no mirror.
All clear.
The hallway turned left and right, screams and gunfire echoing from both sides. Thudding footsteps reached my ears a moment before someone came bounding around the corner, running smack into my chest.
At first glance, I thought he was just a kid. He was definitely short enough to pass as one. No taller than 5’3. But the bushy beard and gang tats on his face proved he was anything but a child.
The man-child stared up, and up, and up at me, his eyes going wide open in shock.
I couldn’t really blame him. At 6’7, I was taller than most people. Not to mention that I worked out 24/7, so I was pushing a tight 240. My thighs were literally the size of his body.
Indecision flashed across the man-child’s face before he reared back and punched me in the jaw. Or tried to.
He didn’t quite have the reach, so instead of hitting my face, he got my chest.
The blow was weak, sloppy. But his downfall was the hesitation. If you’re going to hit someone, hit someone. Don’t half-ass it. Don’t second guess yourself—especially if it’s a matter of life and death.
I arched an eyebrow, raised my gun and fired, hitting him in the middle of the forehead.
The armour-piercing round tore through his head, spraying blood and brain matter all over the walls.
His body thumped to the ground. More footsteps echoed around me, like a stampede of gazelles were running towards us.
Father plastered himself to the wall opposite me, leaned over to get a count of how many Outfit/Zeta men were about to be on top of us and then jerked back. He held up four fingers.
Sweet. Two for him and two for me. I held up a hand to our men that had been following us the whole time, a silent message to hang back and let us handle it.
I reached behind me and pulled out my knife. I spun the blade in my hand, holding it in a reverse grip and brought it up to sit parallel with the gun in my right hand. I took aim and waited, my complete and total focus locked on the space in front of me.
Across from me, Father gripped his P-90 tightly with both hands, aiming it towards the sounds of rushing footsteps.
The second someone stepped into view, I fired my gun, hitting him in the side of the head.
As he dropped, I stepped forward and spun, my knife ramming into the chest of another guy as he ran right at me.
He didn’t even see me coming, he just impaled himself right on my blade.
All I had to do was apply the slightest bit of pressure to pierce his flesh. He did the rest.
The other two men had their guns aimed at me, reacting fast to the death of their comrades.
I hunkered down, using the dead guy’s body in front of me as a shield.
Father fired a stream of bullets, taking them both out before they could send off a single shot.
Stretching my neck to the side, I checked the coast was clear before yanking my blade from the guy’s chest and letting him fall to the ground.
I wiped the blood on the sleeve of my shirt, cleaning both sides of the blade before tucking it back away.
Father stepped up to my side. “Good work,” he grunted, checking to see how many bullets he had left in his magazine. He must have had enough, because he didn’t bother reloading.
I inclined my head at his compliment. It wasn’t often Father gave them, so acknowledging it was the only thing I could think to do.
Father looked behind him into the darkness of the hallway. His head whipped back and a frown creased his brows. I knew why. We were going to have to split up to cover more ground. This place was bigger than it looked from the outside.
I hooked a thumb over my shoulder at the hallway behind me. “I’ll go this way. You go that way,” I said, pointing in the other direction.
Father looked like he was going to protest. I didn’t give him the chance. I looked at the group of Bratva men waiting off to the side for their next command. “You three with me, the rest with the Pakhan .” That gave Father a backup of six men. More than enough.
As I turned to walk away, Father spoke. “Aleksandr.”
I froze, but didn’t turn around.
“Bud' ostorozhen, syn moy,” Be careful, my son. He said in Russian, a deep sincerity lacing his voice I’d never heard before.
The kidnapping of my sister must have affected him more than he was letting on. He never usually said stuff like that.
I nodded once and continued on, not turning back. I was a lot like my father that way. We both didn’t handle emotion very well. We were hard. Tough. Preferred to act instead of speaking.
With the Bratva men trailing behind me, we made our way through the house, checking each room we came across.
We ran into a few more men, having to fight our way through.
I fucking loved every minute of it. The brutality of it.
The violence. The way it felt taking their lives.
Ramming my blade into their bodies. The blood pooling on the floor. It was cathartic, in a way. Relaxing.
Well, it was for me anyway. I’m pretty sure normal people didn’t feel that way about killing. But I wasn’t normal. I was a blood-thirsty killer.
When we came to a set of wide, double doors I stopped, my head tilting as I studied it.
Just from the door alone, I could tell whatever laid in the room beyond would be different to anything else we’d come across.
I raised my gun and flicked my head to Erik, signalling for him to open it.
Erik nodded, twisting the handle and flinging the door open wide.
I marched in, prepared for the worst and stopped dead in my tracks.