36. Nikolai #2
I glare at Andrei, wordlessly communicating what I need from him.
I know I can trust him. He’s a dead man if The Wolf doesn’t go down.
I turn my back to them, realizing I only have one bullet left.
The smoke begins to rise, but I turn my gaze upward, trying to make out The Wolf’s outline before he completely evaporates into it .
I aim for his knee, and am rewarded with his sharp cry of pain before he plummets into the smoke, and I hear the shattering of glass, assuming he’s taken out part of the snake pen.
A man runs toward me, and I toss my empty gun, ready to go blow for blow, but by the time he reaches me, he’s sluggish.
I imagine whatever venom was injected into him is effective, and know it’s only a matter of time until the poison in my own bloodstream will begin to dull my senses.
I’ve come to terms that I have limited time, and that I’ll most likely receive more bites as I step farther into the room. So be it.
I sweep around him, coming around to his back, and snap his neck.
I drop him to the floor, then walk through the snakes, my boots crunching broken glass, still barely able to make out much as I search for The Wolf. The floor is alive, but I don’t let it act as a deterrent.
Before I reach the glass tank, though, I have a split second to jump back as a knife swings out at me.
I catch the arm, twist it, and punch the elbow upward, snapping it immediately.
The arm dangles loosely, and the man screams as I steal his blade and slide it across his throat, his cries coming out as a gurgle now.
I have just enough time to use his body as a shield as two gunshots go off.
The Wolf.
I throw the man at him, and as he tries to sidestep him, I take the opportunity to knock the gun out of his hand.
He’s grinning like a fool; his eyes dilated from the excitement.
Perhaps in all these years of having his men do his dirty work, he forgot the thrill of the fight. Or perhaps it’s something else. Perhaps he’s been bitten and knows his time is limited, pumping him with adrenaline the same as me.
The race against time set in an arena full of monsters.
My next step wobbles, and my breathing becomes shallow.
Fuck . I try to ignore the pain, pushing through it as The Wolf charges me with a manic look in his eyes.
“Isn’t this exhilarating, Udav ?” he yells.
And as we both pull our knives, it occurs to me it’s the first time he’s referred to me with some measure of respect.
The lights go out, sending us into darkness.
Good. It means Luca is holding up his end of the bargain.
I put a tracker on Sienna’s phone so they could pinpoint our location.
Of course, a room full of venomous snakes isn’t exactly something I could prepare them for.
But if one of Luca’s hounds is as good at hacking surveillance systems as he says, then surely, they can adapt accordingly.
I can’t see a fucking thing, depending solely on my instincts as I lean back to avoid a swipe of The Wolf’s blade. Serpents wriggle around our feet, and I hear a subtle grunt as one most likely bites The Wolf. I strike out to my left, feeling the tip of my blade connecting and sliding along flesh.
I can hear gunshots and screams in the distance, and my heart rate spikes. I notice my body becoming more sluggish, growing more irritated the longer I’m away from Sienna. Not comfortable with having to depend on someone else to protect her.
I assume The Wolf has fallen, as another man comes through the smoke just as the lights come back on. My eyes adjust quickly, and I plunge my blade between the man’s ribs. I catch his gun before it falls to the floor.
“Too late,” The Wolf cackles from behind me, and I can feel the muzzle of his gun press into my back. “It’s been fun, Udav ,” he says, with the promise of an excitable death in his tone.
I move as he pulls the trigger, feeling the shot explode in my right side. But I force through the pain, using the blade I still have embedded in the man in front of me as leverage to swing him around. Another gunshot goes off, but instead of my chest, it’s his man between us who takes the blow.
“Not quite,” I growl as I raise the gun in my other hand to shoot The Wolf. But as my finger tests the trigger, something hits him in the back of the head, and his mouth goes wide. I pull the trigger, and the bullet enters under his chin blowing his brains out of the top of his skull .
Blood and brain matter splatter my face as I yank my knife out of the man and let him drop back toward the snake tank. When The Wolf’s body falls forward, I notice the knife shallowly embedded in the back of his head. It’s one of my knives. That’s my girl.
I look up, pushing through the smoke, my back leg dragging as pain erupts through it, and I don’t know what hurts more, the bite or the bullet in my leg. My right-side screams as I apply pressure to the wound while my vision begins to fade in and out.
I’m focused on only one thing.
“Nikolai!” Sienna screams from somewhere just ahead of me, and I barely make her out, still on the wooden ladder, holding another blade in her hand, her long jacket now open slightly, displaying the line of my blades.
She goes to jump off, but Andrei blocks her in. He’s taken a bullet graze to his arm, no doubt from protecting both of the women. Agata’s heaving in breaths, but she’s safe. My gaze locks on Sienna as I grit through the pain to get to her.
The two wooden doors split open, and I bring the knife and gun up, ready to shoot and fight through anyone to get to her.
But a pair of blue eyes freeze me in place as Dmitri Volkov raises his gun at my head.
Everything seems to stop in that moment, as I’m faced with the man who was handed the same cards as me but was given a different path.
My half-brother—shaved head with vicious scar running along it, gaze cold and shrewd as he stares at me. And then he pulls the trigger, the bullet whizzing into the smoke where I sense a body fall behind me.
“Nikolai!” Sienna screams again, trying to twist from Andrei’s grip as Luca and Dante spill into the room. The hounds follow, leaving a trail of bodies down the hallway behind them. The group parts like the sea for the green-gemmed hound, and my eyes widen when I see what he’s holding.
I only have seconds to roll out of the way, hitting the wooden ladder Sienna stands on, as fire explodes from his weapon, spewing into the cloud of smoke as snakes and men are forced back.