Chapter 32
Kolya
Against the night sky, the warehouse looms like a hulking monster of corrugated metal and broken windows. I adjust my earpiece, listening to my team bark their confirmation of the plan.
With every breath, my ribs scream. All my injuries from the safe house attack throb, but pain is irrelevant now.
Only the adjusted mission matters.
Find Chloe.
Kill Gio.
The rest is just noise.
I check my weapons one last time—pistol with silencer, spare magazines, the knife against my ankle—and nod at Max.
Dressed in varying shades of black-and-gray tactical gear, he blends into the night with predatory stillness.
My earpiece crackles. “Vanya in position. Ready to charm the pants off these assholes.”
A second voice follows. “Kirill set. I have eyes on the east entrance. Four tangos. Two smoking. One with a visible assault rifle.”
I press my finger to my ear. “Alexei?”
“Back loading dock secured. Their patrol schedule is sloppy. Going silent now.”
Max and I exchange a glance. His eyes darken, signaling his eagerness to slip the leash.
A shiver crawls across my neck. “Execute.”
Vanya saunters toward the entrance with empty hands and a casual, loose gait.
Even from this distance, I can see the transformation from a deadly enforcer to a charming, tipsy businessman who’s lost his way.
He stumbles forward, slurring. “Genblemen, think I took a wrong turn s’mere. My GPS’s abs’lute shit—”
The guards tense and draw their weapons.
Vanya raises his palms in exaggerated surrender, then wobbles as if he can barely hold them up. He starts spewing a stream of bullshit about a poker game and a wrong address.
One guard lowers his weapon. Another laughs.
From Kirill’s position, the first silenced shot whispers in the night. The guard on the far left drops to the ground. The second one follows a heartbeat later.
Vanya’s holding a pistol in each hand before I can even blink. He dispatches the remaining guards with two clean shots and holsters one gun before pressing a finger to his ear while scanning the area. “Front clear.”
That’s our cue.
Max and I glide like ghosts across the roof of the neighboring building toward the warehouse. When we reach a six-foot gap of empty air, we pause.
I leap first, landing in a controlled roll that ignites fresh agony in my cracked ribs. Every breath slices my lungs.
Max follows soundlessly.
We creep over to the skylight. The dim emergency lights reveal the empty warehouse floor below.
I exhale into my mic. “Ready.”
“Package location confirmed.” Kirill’s response gives me more hope. “East side, second floor office complex. Twelve tangos between your position and target.”
I attach the rope to a ventilation pipe and test it with a sharp tug. Beside me, Max performs the same task.
We need to clear the third floor to get to her.
We position breaching charges—small enough to create a hole without bringing the whole roof down—on the skylight.
“In three. Two. One.”
The charges pop with a noise equivalent to a handclap. After the glass punches loose, we rappel in perfect sync, descending into the heart of enemy territory.
Two guards gape up at us from under a shower of broken glass.
I put a bullet through the first one’s throat before my feet touch the ground. Max eliminates the second one with his knife, the blade finding its mark with surgical precision.
We start moving again before their bodies hit the floor, flowing through the warehouse like shadows on water.
The first real resistance comes at the stairs to the second level.
Three men with automatic weapons wait, alerted to our presence by some sixth sense.
To my right, Max melts into the darkness. I duck behind a stack of empty crates. The guards advance, sweeping their weapons in careful arcs.
With a soft, wet noise, Max’s garrote wire finds its home, cutting off a scream before it begins.
The remaining guards whirl toward the noise.
Popping up behind their backs, I shoot twice. Both bodies drop onto the concrete floor.
I huff out a breath, wincing when my ribs protest. “Southeast stairwell clear.”
“Loading dock compromised.” Alexei’s voice crackles in my ear while gunfire pops in the background. “Heavy resistance. We’ll hold them here.”
The diversion works, drawing attention away from our approach.
I signal Max, and we descend the stairs in controlled jumps. My body propels forward on instinct, years of training and violence distilled into pure, efficient motion.
The second floor is a maze of temporary walls and makeshift offices. Chloe should be somewhere ahead.
At the first junction, we encounter two more guards. Max engages one in a swift, brutal takedown that ends with the guard’s snapped neck. I handle the other one with a gunshot to the chest. After gurgling a wet cough, the man quiets. Dead.
We continue toward our destination. Halfway across the floor, all hell breaks loose.
Alarms blare. Emergency lights pulse red in the darkness. Someone found a body.
“Cover blown.” Screaming in the background competes with Kirill’s voice. “Switching to assault protocol.”
“Roger.” I ditch the silencer and swap it out for a fresh magazine. Beside me, Max mirrors my actions.
No more sneaking. Time for war.
Our enemies rush us from both ends of the corridor in a wave of black-clad security.
Max and I stand back-to-back, a two-man fortress.
His style is controlled fury. Economical movements with no wasted energy, each strike a killing blow.
Mine is cold precision. Headshots. Throat shots. The most efficient path to eliminating a threat.
Bullets fly. One grazes my shoulder, burning a line of fire that I immediately ignore. Our vitals are protected by bulletproof vests.
Max grunts when a round hits his thigh, but his rhythm doesn’t falter. We advance step-by-step, leaving bodies in our wake.
Through the chaos of gunfire and shouting, I hear Vanya in my ear. “Second wave engaged at the main entrance. Assholes brought friends.”
The plan is still good. “Hold position. We’re closing in on the package.”
The air fills with cordite and blood, the scents accompanied by a symphony of violence.
Gunshots, bones breaking, the thud of bullets invading flesh.
Amid all the chaos, I remain cold and focused. Each man I kill is just an obstacle separating me from Chloe.
Their deaths are nothing personal.
When we reach a junction where the corridor splits, Max glances at me with an unspoken question in his eyes.
“I go right. Clear the floor. Make sure we’re not flanked.”
He nods once and disappears, a silent predator hunting in his natural environment. He’ll be fine. Without a partner to protect, Max is even more ruthless and deadly. He’ll unleash and kill everyone in sight.
I quicken my pace, growing more reckless with each stride. The blueprints for the building are still fresh in my mind. Another cluster of men blocks my path. Not hired muscle this time. Skilled. They move with military precision, coordinating their attacks.
Adrenaline surges as I duck and shoot. When my pistol empties a second time, I switch to the knife and slide the blade into a man’s ribs. As he collapses, I steal his weapon—an MP5 submachine gun—and race forward, abandoning all pretense of stealth.
The MP5 chatters in my hands, cutting down anyone foolish enough to stand in my way.
My world narrows to a tunnel of pure focus.
Forward, always forward, I hasten toward the reinforced door at the end of the hall where Kirill says I’ll find Chloe.
The last guard before the door puts up more of a fight than the others. He catches me with a lucky shot that rips through my left arm.
Between the continued adrenaline rush and my determination, the pain barely registers. I empty the last of the MP5’s magazine into his chest. He folds to the floor, a marionette with cut strings.
I reach the final barrier between Gio and me.
Between Chloe and me.
The reinforced door looms before me. One slab of metal representing the last obstacle.
I press my finger to my ear. “Target located. Breaching final door.”
“Copy that.” Exertion strains Alexei’s reply. “Hurry the fuck up. We can’t hold them off much longer.”
I set the breaching charge and retreat, covering my ears.
The charge detonates with a concussive thump that vibrates my skin.
As the door buckles inward, before the smoke can even clear, I rush to whatever waits on the other side.
The room materializes through a dissipating haze, revealing an improvised interrogation chamber with bare concrete walls and a single overhead light that casts harsh shadows.
Chloe sits in a metal chair at the center, her wrists bound to the armrests with ropes. Despite the fear in her eyes, she wears a mask of determination.
Blood trickles from a cut on her cheek, a bright crimson streak against her pale skin. Alive, but hurt.
Red blurs my vision as I try to cling to the edges of my control.
She’s not supposed to be injured. This entire time I kept her safe, and now she’s bleeding.
A pulse throbs in my temple.
Bastard. I’ll kill Gio with my bare hands.
But not yet. First, I need to hold her in my arms.
Gio Falcone towers over her, dressed in his perfectly tailored suit and aiming a gun at the side of Chloe’s head.
“Nikolai Ilyin.” He presses the barrel against Chloe’s skull. “Roman Kozlov’s attack dog. I was wondering when you’d show up.”
I enter the room slowly, the MP5 hanging empty at my side. I let the gun drop to the floor.
The clatter echoes in the concrete space.
Blood runs down my left arm, dripping from my fingertips in a steady rhythm.
“This isn’t about her.”
Gio laughs. Sharp and brittle. Like the teeth I’m about to knock down his throat.
Chloe’s eyes lock on mine from across the room.
There’s no plea within them, no desperate call for rescue. Just that steely strength, shining brighter than ever.
She gives me the smallest nod, and my heart stumbles.
Chloe trusts me. She believes in me to get her out of this.
I won’t waste the gift of her faith.