Chapter 24 Dimitri
DIMITRI
The SUV crashes through the estate but it doesn’t slow down. I don’t a fuck about the screaming tires or the way the vehicle fishtails when I take the corner too fast. My left shoulder is on fire, blood soaking through my jacket and shirt, but pain is secondary to the terror driving me forward.
I’ve been trying to reach Mikhail for five minutes, but there’s no response. The security frequency is chaos—gunfire, shouting, then silence. That terrible, ominous silence that means people are dead.
My people.
And Vera is in there. Alone. Trapped in the safe room with God knows how many of Konstantin’s men trying to breach it.
I’m too late. I’m going to be too late. She’s going to be—
No.
I can’t think like that. She’s alive. She has to be alive.
Once we reach the circular drive, I abandon the SUV and grab my weapon and move, ignoring the way my shoulder screams in protest with every motion.
The front door is open, hanging crooked on its hinges like someone kicked it in. Heart in my throat, I go in, weapon raised, moving through my own home like it’s a war zone.
Because it is. The foyer looks like a massacre.
Bodies are sprawled across the marble floors in spreading pools of blood.
Some are mine. To my horror, I recognize Pavel’s face, eyes staring sightlessly at the crystal chandelier, a bullet hole in his forehead.
He’s still gripping his weapon, having died fighting like a hero.
Others are Konstantin’s men in tactical gear and body armor. At least four of them are down, with multiple gunshot wounds. My men didn’t go down quietly, they fought with honor.
The north wing is shot to hell. Windows are shattered with bullet holes stitched across the wallpaper. A Monet painting I paid six million is torn to shreds by automatic weapons fire.
I don’t care about any of it. My sole focus is getting to the basement. To Vera.
I follow the sound of machinery—the high-pitched whine of a cutting torch, metal shrieking as it’s torn apart—down the staircase to the basement level.
And there, outside the reinforced door of the safe room, are six of Konstantin’s men.
They’ve…they’ve cut through. The door is breached, a jagged circle of molten steel cooling in the dim emergency lighting and armed men in tactical gear prepare to go through.
Going for Vera.
I don’t hesitate or announce myself. I start shooting.
The first man drops before he even knows I’m there with a clean shot to the back of the head. He crumples, dead before he hits the ground.
The second one is turning when my next shot catches him in the throat and he goes down choking, clutching at the wound.
Then they scatter, returning fire, and suddenly it’s a close-quarters firefight in the narrow basement corridor. Bullets ping off concrete walls and one grazes my already-injured shoulder. I bite back a roar of pain, but adrenaline is a hell of a drug. It keeps me moving and focused.
Another man goes down as I catch him center mass as he tries to flank me. His weapon clatters to the floor.
Then another dying due to a headshot. Perfect aim despite the agony in my shoulder, if I do say so myself.
But there are more coming. I can hear them on the stairs—boots thundering, radios crackling. I’m outnumbered and wounded. Even worse, I’m running out of ammunition.
And then I hear it.
Gunfire.
From inside the safe room.
My heart stops.
Someone got through and they’re in there with Vera.
I don’t think, fighting my way to the breached door with a fury that makes my previous rage look like a mild irritation. Two more men go down under my fire. I’m not even aiming anymore, just shooting anything that moves between me and that door.
I burst through the opening—
And freeze.
Because Vera is standing behind an overturned table, wild-eyed and terrified but very much alive, firing through the breach at Konstantin’s men.
Her aim is fucking terrible. She’s clearly never held a gun before in her life and the shots are going wide, hitting walls, the ceiling. One ricochets off the concrete floor.
But the surprise of it—the sheer fucking gall of my wife shooting back—is enough to throw them off.
And she looks… God, she looks magnificent.
Dark hair streaming behind her like she’s been in a windstorm. Gunpowder smeared across her cheeks like war paint. Those brown eyes bright with fury and fierce determination. Her hands are clumsy but she doesn’t lower the weapon.
She’s beautiful. Absolutely, devastatingly beautiful.
One of Konstantin’s men goes down clutching his leg, and whether that was intentional or luck, I have no idea, but I use the distraction to take out another clean shot to his partner’s chest.
“VERA!” I roar. “GET BACK!”
She whips around, gun still raised, and for a terrifying second I think she might shoot me. Then recognition flashes across her face and her face looks both relieved and overjoyed.
“Dimitri!” she cries out.
“What the hell are you doing?” I drop another attacker. “You’re going to hurt someone!”
“I thought that was the point!” she yells back and fires again. The shot goes so wide it hits a light fixture, and glass rains down. I curse.
“Not yourself!” I’m moving to cover her, putting myself between her and the remaining hostiles. “Or me! Aim for—Jesus Christ, Vera, where the fuck did you even learn to shoot?”
“Oh, I didn’t!” She fires twice more. One bullet embeds itself in the doorframe three feet from any actual target. “This is my first time ever shooting. I used to watch my high school ex-boyfriend play Call of Duty! I didn’t think it would be that hard!”
Despite everything, I almost laugh.
“Call of Duty,” I repeat, taking out another hostile. “Of course.”
She glares at me before attempting to aim. “I’m doing my best here!”
She misses, and the bullet hits the wall. “Your best is going to get us both killed!”
“Well I don’t see you doing much better!” she retorts with another wild shot, but to my surprise, his one actually hits somebody. An attacker screams and grabs his arm.
“I’ve been shot!” I gesture at my bleeding shoulder. “What’s your excuse?”
“I’ve never done this before!” she shouts.
No fucking shit. If we make it out of here, I’m personally overseeing her firearms training. “I can tell!”
Are we seriously yelling at each other while actively being shot at? It’s crazy. It’s reckless. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced.
Because we’re together. Outnumbered and outgunned, yes, but together.
I fire three more shots, crowing at my accuracy despite my injured shoulder. Three more bodies drop.
Vera fires wildly beside me. Her shots are chaos incarnate, but the psychological effect is working. Konstantin’s men weren’t expecting resistance from inside and they certainly weren’t expecting my wife to fight back.
“Aim for center mass!” I shout at her, trying to coach her through the madness.
She pushes hair off her face as she fires another shot, her grip on the gun a bit lax. “I’m trying!” she grits out.
“Try harder!” I order her, bringing down another man who charged into the safe room.
“You’re very unsupportive right now!”
Another of her shots actually connects and catches a man in the shoulder. He yowls and spins from the force of the shot. I finish him.
“See?” she gasps triumphantly, blood on her face. “I got him!”
I fire at another man. “You hit his shoulder. He was charging us!”
“It still fucking counts, Dimitri!”
I’m grinning like a maniac. Despite the situation, this is the most fun I’ve had in a while.
“FALL BACK!” Alexei’s voice cuts through the chaos. I see him at the stairs, and my heart leaps at the sight of my brother even though he’s a fucking traitor. “This isn’t worth it! We regroup!”
Rage surges through me. He’s running. The bastard is running.
I want to chase him and put a bullet between his eyes and end this now.
But Vera is my priority.
I watch him disappear up the stairs with what’s left of his men and count to ten. I wait for the sound of vehicles peeling away from the estate.
Then, my men who survived the initial assault surge into the room. Sergei looks bloodied but functional and Viktor has a cut above his eye. Anton looks worse for wear and Dmitri has a wicked looking bruised eye and split lip.
“Secure the perimeter,” I order roughly. “No one in or out. Sweep every room, and get Dr. Petrov here asap.”
They leave immediately, and then I’m turning to Vera.
She’s still holding the gun and breathing hard. There’s gunpowder smeared across her cheeks and blood (not hers, I realize with relief) splattered across her sweater and nose.
She looks at me, her brown eyes wide and bright.
“You came back,” she whispers.
“I told you I would,” I tell her.
And then I’m crossing to her and desperately pulling her into my arms, ignoring the throbbing of my shoulder. She drops the gun and clutches at me, her hands fisting in my ruined jacket.
“You’re okay,” I breathe into her hair. “You’re alive.”
“So are you.” Her voice breaks. “I thought… when Alexei said you were dead, I thought—”
“I know. I know.” I pull back just enough to look at her and check for injuries, my thumbs wiping away the blood and dirt on her face. “Did they hurt you? Are you—”
“I’m fine,” she insists, her hands coming up to cover mine. “The baby’s fine. We’re both fine.”
Relief hits so hard, my knees almost buckle.
And then I'm kissing her. Hard and desperate and probably too rough, but I can’t help it. I need to taste her. I need to confirm that she’s really here, really alive.
She kisses me back with the same frantic intensity, her hands sliding into my hair, and pulling me closer despite the blood clinging to us both.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard from the desperation of our kiss and lingering adrenaline.