Chapter 28 Lucie
TWENTY-EIGHT
LUCIE
My right foot taps incessantly on the floorboards of the private jet.
Dante eyes me warily, while Irina and Aleksei avert their gaze. They both know what it means to chase someone they love and not know if they’re alive or dead. I do, too.
Flashbacks of last summer assault me. Dante’s disappearance. The goose chase. The fear, the denial. I’m living it all over again.
This is exactly why I wanted out of the mafia. And why I won’t ever be able to leave. Toma needs the protection of the family. I’m so angry at him, yet so scared he’s not going to survive his brother. The duality is confusing.
I can’t sit still, shifting constantly, licking my lips. Anything to release the anxiety I feel. Everyone’s bodies are strung tight, ready to jump when we hit the tarmac.
Dante’s phone rings and he takes the call, putting it on speaker.
“We got Diane,” my dad says, out of breath but with relief coating every word.
I lose all composure. “Dad,” I scream into the cabin. Sobs makes their way up my throat, uncontrollable. Irina comes to my side and envelops me with her arms, holding me and lending me strength.
“Loulou. We’re safe. We’re safe. We’re on our way to the airfield. I’m so sorry, ma princess. Je t’aime. A tout de suite.”
I close my eyes, trying to get my shit together. The airfield we’ll land at is an enclave of neutral territory half an hour away from Split, by the coast. Until they reach its limits, they could still be in danger.
“How’s Diane?” I ask, throat clogged with emotions.
“I’m okay, Loulou,” she answers but her voice is hoarse and with everything she had to go through on this mission, I don’t think she is okay. Her bravery hits me in the chest.
“And Toma?” Silence descends in the cabin and the air grows cold. “Tell me.”
“He’s…”
“Just tell her, Bruno,” Diane says and I’m grateful she understands what I need. He may have hurt me but his death would be worse.
“His brother took him. We left, but he said he’ll stall The Butcher. You need to hurry if you want to save the boy’s life.”
“We’ll get him,” Irina whispers in my ear a few times while I nod absentmindedly.
By the time we reach Split, Christmas morning greets us, the low light barely illuminating the airfield.
A heavy fog covers Mosor Mountain in the distance, promising a light dusting of snow in the next few days.
The strong wind slaps all of us with cold wet air.
Somehow, it’s what I need to settle my nerves.
My entire demeanour changes. I’m not a woman looking for the man she loves. I’m a soldier again.
My eyes clash with Irina. She nods once and I do the same. Just like we did before, I’m hers to command, a soldier obeying her general. I might not be the best, but I’m as well trained as anyone else in our team. And more importantly, I’m determined to get to Toma.
In reinforced vans, we drive towards the city. We’re going to cross paths with my father’s car, but with how I long to embrace Diane and him, and even Michel, I can’t afford to stop. We don’t have time. They’ll fly to London, and wait for us there.
Our biggest advantage is Petar’s eyes on Toma and the escaping prisoner.
We might not be able to clean up the city of Petar’s complex organisation in one day, but we can extract Toma and kill the king.
I trust Dante to continue the assault on the Bratva with the forces gathered by the Moretti family.
Their alliance in our war against human trafficking and the Moscow Bratva and their allies will be key.
This will be our first battle, taking our enemies by surprise but retaliation will be brutal. Yet, the future has no place in my mind right now. Only what we’re set out to do.
When we arrive at the foot of the hill on which Petar Kova?’s house sits, we descend our vehicles and continue on foot. Everyone’s shoulders is up to their ears. Our feet are silent as we march to our destination, but the blood rushing to my ears is loud.
Aleksei, Dante and two more of their men spread across the expanse of the estate, hidden behind a fence.
Cameras point towards where the rest of us are hidden but Andrea Capaldi, the cyber genius allied to my cousin, has already disabled them from a distance.
It won’t be long until they manage to bypass him again, the ongoing dance of cyberattacks and counter-attacks fast as we will move through the house.
Waiting is the worst part of this.
My fingers flex around the trigger of my automatic rifle. The muzzle vibrates slightly with how unsettled I feel.
“Take a breath,” Irina commands, and I obey. Once. Twice. Another for good measure. “Steady your aim. Otherwise you’re a liability.”
I glance at her, her sniper rifle resting where she propped it on the ground. She’s ready to shoot the guards manning the doors at Dante or Aleksei’s notice. And she won’t hesitate. She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t falter.
When her husband’s voice echoes through her earpiece, her fingers flex and the two men at the doors fall like puppets with cut strings.
My heart rate speeds up. I swallow around glass, my throat raw with fear.
We storm the entrance of the Kova?’s headquarters. I follow at the end of the line. I only ever killed one man, and injured another. Death isn’t in my blood. But righteousness is. Retribution is.
Petar Kova? thought he could hurt and take what’s mine and I’ve let him. I’ve been silent. I did nothing for weeks. But no more.
Toma will come home with me and I won’t take any other outcome. I steel my spine and advance, knees bent and feet gliding silently across the property, crab-like, checking my rear.
A groan stops me in my tracks. I freeze, and glance down to a man clutching his side. Blood pours out of him from multiple bullets wounds. He moans in pain, his eyes barely seeing me. I crouch and press the muzzle of my rifle on one of his injuries. He howls, but I don’t care.
“Where is Toma?” I scream into his face, contorted in agony.
He shakes his head and I head-butt him, blood gushing out of his broken brow bone. “Toma. Toma Kova?. Where. Is. He?”
The man on the floor repeats a word over and over again in Croatian. I take my phone out of my back pocket and phonetically write the word down.
Basement.
Fuck. This is bad news.
“Please,” the man on the ground begs. My lips tremble.
I don’t have it in me to kill him. He’s already down. Only doing what soldiers do. Aleksei doesn’t have such compunction and executes him in a heartbeat. The man’s head snaps back, his body limp on the floor.
“You can’t hesitate, Lu. We don’t have that luxury.”
I shake my head and continue onwards. The inside of the house is a bloodbath. Aleksei’s chief-of-security is ex-MI6 and his team are trained assassins, fast and moving like shadows. Men fall to their knees on all sides.
A man aims at Irina but she’s focused on someone else. I aim and shoot. My target jerks back, hit through the chest. As carefully as I can, I make my way to the fallen soldier and shoot in between the eyes.
Most of us are wearing kevlar, and I can’t take my chances. It’s kill or be killed. Now is not the time to have a conscience crisis. I take one second to mourn the girl I used to be and a life wasted.
Then, I move on.
My cousin’s team is clearing the house, room by room.
People cry as they die.
Bullets are fired on all sides, breaking pieces of walls in the sinister house.
The smell of blood and gunpowder invades my nostrils, the scent all consuming.
Particles of dust and plaster float in the rare rays of light making their way inside.
My brain can’t compute decor or absence thereof but there’s no mistaking the coldness of the place. Its rotten core.
Through mayhem and death, our enemies die. And silence descends around us. My breathing is loud in my ears, my heartbeat erratic. Flexible on our knees, Irina, Aleksei and I move towards a door at the back of the house. Black. Closed. Ominous.
I swallow.
“Are you ready?” Irina asks.
I nod, incapable of words.
“I’ll come with you,” my ex-husband says, instructing Irina to return to Dante and continue a sweep of the house for any remaining Croatian Bratva or prisoners and trafficked people they might keep on the property.
Aleksei and I descend the stairs together, side by side, our weapons in front of us, poised for use at the first sign of aggression from anyone.
This place smells like death, and I dry heave before covering my nose and mouth.
Silence reigns, eerie and suffocating. My hands are moist on the handle of my rifle, and my heart is seconds from leaving my chest through my throat.
I don’t fear the boogeyman coming out of one of the locked metal doors.
I’m scared of what I’m going to find behind them.
We clear each room one by one. Most are empty, two have lone prisoners in them, dirty and shivering. Aleksei’s second-in-command and his team clear the cells, taking the skinny and obviously abused people to safety. Their hollow cheeks and vacant eyes scream of the horrors they survived here.
I try to breathe but it comes in choppy pants.
I can’t lose it now. I chant the words in my head like a mantra.
I find strength in Aleksei’s assured gait just in front of me, in his cold eyes and calculated movements.
A man made for pain and waging wars. He’s won many before, as the scars on his face show.
With him by my side, I’m more confident that I can save the man who means everything to me.
We enter another cell, kicking the door open with the force of four men throwing their weight on it over and over.
And my heart stops.
Two men of equal build lay on the floor, one with chains around his neck, the other chained with them to the floor. There’s so much blood. Toma’s side is coated with it.
I slide the rifle around my shoulders to rest at my back and push the men who entered before me aside.
“Toma!”
Everything he said to me to protect me falls to the background as I fall to my knees in front of him.
My hands hover over his chest, trembling.
Fresh tears fall on my cheeks and I blink fast to clear my vision.
I’m of no use if I can’t control myself.
I clench my jaw and remove my rifle, then my top layer, pressing the fabric of the shirt onto the biggest injury on his side.
As I use force on the wound, the man below groans in pain and hope lurches violently inside my chest. “Toma.” I choke on his name. “I’m here.”
His eyes are shut, massive blue bruises around the brow bone and underneath, but from his crackled lips, my name falls. Over and over, like he can’t stop saying it.
“Angel. My rose. My Lucie.”
An unhinged laugh escapes me, but we’re not out of the woods yet. A scuffling sound behind me drags my attention to Irina and Dante, standing in the doorway with grim faces.
“We need to leave. Now. His chief of security isn’t here and still holds the city.”
I nod, and turn back to Toma, caressing his cheek.
He grimaces and I take my hand away again.
I don’t want to hurt him. He’s suffered enough.
But his hand lifts. The pad of his index finger glides slowly on my cheek, erasing the lone tear left on the apple there.
It descends to my lower lip. His voice is raw as he speaks.
“I didn’t deserve you. But I loved you all the same.”
His arm drops suddenly. And I break over the body of the man I couldn’t save.