Chapter 24 – Artur
The war dragged on for weeks, as neither side was willing to surrender. Sergei had been on his best behavior this entire time. No neat tricks. Nothing to hint at a potential betrayal.
All I saw in his eyes was hatred. He wanted Rocco dead as much as I did. The two of us, together with Anatoli, had built an army strong enough to challenge the enemies. On several occasions, the battle was so fierce that they fled for their lives.
Sometimes, it was us who ran away so we’d live to fight another day. The longer we fought, the more the bastard recruited more people on his side. Rocco was a coward, one who depended on external help to win against me.
He knew that without all those people on his side, he was nothing. That’s why he chose to buy their loyalty with money.
Every day that went by, I thought about my wife and her condition. I wondered how she was holding up and whether she was in good shape. I could’ve easily given her a phone so we could communicate daily.
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t risk being distracted by her voice.
The plan was to stay focused on the mission and not return home until I’d taken care of this situation. However, Ilya reported to me at the end of every day. He’d take short videos of her when she wasn’t looking and forward them to me.
That was the instruction I gave him. I needed new photos and videos every evening. Just to be sure she was doing okay. From the videos and images, I noticed she was gradually losing weight.
It had everything to do with my absence.
According to Ilya, she barely ate. And even when she did, she’d just take a few bites and abandon the food. She was thinking too much, and I didn’t like that.
I hated the fact that she was already losing some weight. It wasn’t obvious, and not many might even notice it. But as her husband, the one man who’d memorized every curve of her body, I did. I noticed it.
The only way to get things back to the way they were was by first winning this war. Luckily, for the first time since this scandal, we had the upper hand. We were one step ahead of him.
Sergei had received intel from a reliable source about Rocco’s current location. The men on my team suggested we tear a page from his book: play dirty and attack him when he least expected it.
There was no honor in ambush, and I didn’t like the idea of attacking a defenseless man. Sneak attacks were cowardly, and I did not operate like that. But then again, we were at war, and this same bastard had attacked my home twice. Unprovoked.
Honor or not, he was going down. For good.
The plan was simple: infiltrate Rocco’s hideout with a handful of our most skilled soldiers, kill the guards silently, and get to his room. We had all the information we needed: the location, the building’s blueprint, and an insider.
Once it was time for the attack, we wasted no time arriving at the abandoned warehouse. I chose five of my best men; Anatoli and Sergei also did the same.
Dressed in black, we blended with the night, moving through the shadows with practiced ease. Our guns had silencers attached to their nozzles, so whenever we shot down a sentry, no noise was made.
With drawn blades, we took out the guards, one by one, slitting and stabbing the right organs. Before anyone could make a sound, we’d seal their mouths with our gloved hands, then lay them down silently.
We moved through the building that night, coordinated in every way. None of us made a sound. We communicated through sign language and coded signals. Even while sprinting across the dark hallways, our boots were soundless against the floor.
The more we took down Rocco’s men, the more I figured something was wrong. This was way too easy. Then I began questioning everything. Like, why were there only a handful of guards around the warehouse?
With all that’s happening right now, it didn’t make sense that Rocco’s safety wouldn’t be his top priority. Some of the guards weren’t even properly armed. The whole operation was too easy, and the building seemed like a stage.
“This way,” Sergei whispered to the rest of us, taking a sharp turn down another hallway.
He’d been the one leading us ever since we entered the building. Almost as though he knew his way around the place. Like he’d been here before.
When we finally reached an open space at the center of the building, Anatoli stopped in his tracks.
“Wait!” He held my hand, his eyes meeting mine. “Something’s not right.”
Then came the lights that lit up the entire building, leaving us completely exposed.
We all stopped, drawing close to one another as Rocco’s men marched into the open and surrounded us.
“It’s a trap!” Anatoli announced, gripping his gun more tightly.
I didn’t say a word, even though I already knew who had double-crossed us.
“Well, well, well…would you look at that?” Rocco approached us, clapping his hands in mockery. “All my enemies in one place. How interesting!”
The sound of his single claps and scuffing shoes echoed off the high walls as he drew closer.
“How did you know we were coming?” I asked, my voice calm and composed.
He laughed. “Artur Tarasov, still as clueless as ever, aren’t you?”
“Answer the damn question, dumbass,” Anatoli chipped in, furious.
“You’re the one who made a deal with the devil, and I’m the dumb one? How convenient.”
Anatoli looked at me, his head tilting slightly to the side.
“Excellent work, Mr. Smirnov,” he said, his eyes falling on the culprit.
Anatoli’s jaw tightened. “Sergei, you son of a bitch,” he growled.
Sergei stepped away from us and stood beside Rocco, wearing a smug smirk on his face.
“I trusted you!” he yelled. “I rooted for you!”
“Now, who’s the dumb one?” Rocco sneered, his voice laced with condescension.
“Why?” he insisted. “Why did you sell us? I thought you hated Rocco.”
“Not as much as I hate Artur Tarasov,” he answered, his men flanking around him. “Did you really think that I’d pass on the opportunity to throw him under the bus?”
This whole time, I was silent, and they had no idea why.
Anatoli’s voice deepened. “I’ll kill you for this. I promise.”
“Don’t be stupid. None of you is leaving here alive,” Sergei replied.
Rocco closed the distance between us, wearing that pesky little smirk of his. “Oh, how I love the look of defeat on your face.” He lit his cigarette. “Tell me, Tarasov, how does it feel to be a failure?”
Silence.
“He’s so shocked he can’t speak.” Sergei laughed behind him.
“You’ve tried all you can to kill me,” he continued, sneering at me. “Hell, you even made a deal with another enemy just to beat me. Yet you failed. Again.”
Silence.
“Must be really exhausting knowing you’re never going to beat me because this is where you die.” He released a puff of smoke in my face.
I finally responded. “Your biggest problem, Rocco, is blindness.”
He squinted his eyes, confused.
“You have eyes, but you cannot see. Sometimes, I wonder if you even use the brain in your skull.”
His expression darkened, triggered by my quiet insult. He pulled out his gun and aimed it at me. “Tough words for a dead man.”
I lowered my head, casually toiling with my cufflinks. “Tell me, Rocco, do you really believe that I walked right into your trap?”
I saw the doubt in his eyes, but he covered it up quickly. “Look around you, you’re surrounded.”
“I am.” I nodded. “But so are you and your men.”
The doubt was even more glaring now, so much so that he glanced at Sergei. “What’s he talking about?”
“He’s bluffing; don’t listen to him,” Sergei replied, his voice dripping with conviction. “Just kill the bastard already.”
“So now you’re Sergei’s bitch. I had no idea,” I said quietly.
“I’m no one’s bitch!” he yelled in anger and then fired twice in Sergei’s direction.
He dropped to the ground, and even his men couldn’t do anything to help. They, too, were outnumbered.
Tension rose in the air as he faced me again, the gun aimed at me this time. “You’re next, Tarasov. Any last words?”
I hesitated for a moment. “Now!”
At my signal, bullets rained into the room, knocking down the men around us before they could fire their own weapons. The air was filled with the smell of gunpowder and the echoing sound of rapid gunshots.
Within seconds, only my men and I were left standing in the pool of dead bodies. Even Anatoli was shocked at what had just happened. He looked at me with wide eyes, surprised and relieved at the same time.
Rocco was hit during the ambush, and now he lay on the floor, clinging to life. When the shooting ceased, and he saw me walking toward him, he tried to reach for the gun lying at a distance.
I stepped on his wrist, crushing his bone beneath my boot. He yelled in agony.
“This is where you die.” I aimed my gun at him. “Any last words?”
He spat out blood, his face twisted in fury. “Go to hell.”
My lips curled into a self-satisfied grin. “You first.” I pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The single shot rang out, creating a hole in his head as blood pooled beneath him.
Across from me, Anatoli kicked Sergei’s corpse multiple times, cussing at him in Russian.
“It’s over, Boss,” Konstantin’s voice came through the bud in my ear. “You won.”
“Good job,” I replied, watching Rocco’s dead body at my feet.
Konstantin and the fourteen other men I had positioned on the surrounding rooftops were responsible for the bullet rain that killed the enemies. Sergei thought he was wise, but I was wiser.
I knew the very minute he suggested infiltrating the warehouse that he had something up his sleeve. The information about Rocco’s location came from him. And he did all he could to convince us to attack tonight.
That’s when I knew he was planning to lead us into an ambush. I wasn’t so sure at the time. But I couldn’t risk it. That’s when I reached out to Konstantin, who’d recently been released from the hospital, and asked him to mobilize a fourteen-man army.