Chapter 24 - Kliment
I did not wait for permission. I did not wait for the signal to be perfect or the timing to be clean or the plan to unfold exactly as designed. The moment we had confirmation, and I knew she was inside, everything else became irrelevant.
“Are we ready?” I asked through the comms, seeing everyone gathered around me.
“We are,” Timofey replied. I turned to see everyone with their weapons raised.
“Go. Now.”
The command left my mouth cold and absolute, and the world responded.
Explosions tore through the eastern wing of the estate before the first bid could even be placed.
The shockwave rolled outward, rattling glass, cutting power to the outer perimeter in a cascade of failing systems. Lights flickered, and security grids collapsed.
And then we moved. Everything was happening around me in a flurry of movement, yet I registered none of it.
It all felt overwhelming. Snipers took the rooftops first. The shots were clean and precise, and bodies dropped before alarms could fully register.
Romanov men breached from the underground tunnels that Viktor had secured hours earlier, rising into the estate like something dragged up from the earth itself.
At the same time, Chernykh vehicles slammed through the main gates with brutal force, metal bending under impact as armed men poured through the opening.
“Operation Excavation has begun. I repeat, the operation has begun.” Alina’s voice came through, and I knew it was happening.
“Status?” Iosif asked through the comms. He was heading the Chernykh vehicles, firing with an intensity I knew he possessed somewhere inside him, and now it was finally out.
“Main doors broken down,” Sera replied.
“We are inside,” Katya chimed in.
What followed was chaos. Controlled, intentional, and violent.
Inside the grand hall, the illusion shattered instantly.
Masked buyers scattered, their cultivated composure dissolving into panic as gunfire erupted through the chandeliers and polished floors.
Security contractors engaged, disciplined, but unprepared for the scale of what hit them.
Smoke filled the air, thick and suffocating, turning gold-lit opulence into something jagged and indistinct.
I stepped through it like it belonged to me.
Because it did.
Every movement was calculated and every shot deliberate. I did not waste time on noise or distraction. I moved through bodies, through resistance, through the collapsing structure of a system that had believed itself untouchable. It no longer was.
“North corridor had been secured,” Viktor’s voice came through the comms.
“Main hall breach complete,” Avgust followed.
“Lower level clear,” Nico added.
Everyone around us was either beginning to run away and escape or was being killed left and right.
No one cared if the men in the room were some of the most powerful men in the room.
None of it mattered. What mattered was that these men were there to buy women for their own pleasure, and all of them deserved to die.
I ignored it all. There was only one thing that mattered.
I needed to find her. A man stepped into my path.
He was armed, trained, and fast, but certainly not fast enough.
No one could be fast enough right now. I was a man on the rampage and no one could stop me.
Not until I found her. Misha. I disarmed him before he could fire, twisted the weapon from his grip, and drove a shot clean through his chest without breaking stride.
Another came from the side. I pivoted and fired back twice, the man going down at once.
I kept moving.
“Any eyes on her yet, Alina?” I asked through the comms.
“None. There are no cameras inside. I can’t find any footage or any signals,” she replied.
Fuck.
The air smelled like smoke and blood and expensive lies burning into nothing.
And then I saw him. Anton Sidorov. He stood near the far end of the hall, barking orders into a comm, his expression sharp with frustration rather than fear.
This time, he had not expected us. The shock and horror on his face was exactly what I had been waiting to see.
He turned just as I stepped fully into his line of sight, and recognition hit instantly.
His lips curved.
“Romanov,” he said, almost amused. “So you came, but it's too bad that you’re late.”
I didn’t answer. I knew he was bluffing to throw me into a panic. We had entered before the auction had even begun, and that was all that mattered. I knew Misha was here somewhere; I just needed to find her. I didn’t slow down as he drew his weapon.
I was already moving.
The first shot grazed past my shoulder as I closed the distance. I deflected his arm before the second could land, forcing the barrel upward as it fired into the ceiling.
“Not so easy, Sidorov.”
We collided hard, eliminating the distance and space between us.
There was no space for anything except violence.
He was neither fast nor trained, but he still had strength in him.
Despite that, I didn’t care. None of it mattered.
I was going to take him down no matter what.
I drove my fist into his ribs and felt something crack under the force of my impact.
He retaliated immediately, elbow slamming into my side and aiming for the same weakness.
Pain flared, but I ignored it.
“I am going to kill you, Romanov,” he grunted, barely able to breathe.
“You can wish,” I replied, slamming him into the wall like a piece of meat.
We moved like predators locked into the same kill, neither willing to yield.
He tried to create space, but I didn’t let him.
My hand caught his wrist and twisted sharply until the weapon fell from his grip.
I kicked it away without looking, forcing him further off balance.
“You don’t understand what you’ve—” he started. I drove my fist into his jaw hard before I could continue and his head snapped back. Blood trickled out of where I had hit him, and he staggered but didn’t fall.
“Volkov planned this,” he said quickly, breath uneven now. “And if you think this ends here, you are wrong.”
“Oh, am I?” I asked, grabbing him by the collar as I slammed him into the nearest pillar. Stone cracked behind him and he choked on the impact.
“Yes, you are, but you can still—”
I didn’t let him finish, not interested in hearing whatever stupid plan he thought he could sell me.
I had nothing but hatred for his man after what he had done to Misha and even if none of it would end with his death, he still needed to die.
That was the least I was going to make happen.
The gun in my hand came up and I placed the trigger on his hand.
“Where is Misha?” I asked, nothing but coldness in my gaze.
“In one of the compounds at the back,” he choked out, blood gushing out of his mouth.
“And where is Sergei Volkov?”
“I don’t know, but he should be… he should be here,” Sidorov replied, fear clearly visible in his eyes. “Kliment, I can hel—”
I pulled the trigger and all it took was one shot.
Clean and final. His body went slack instantly, and I let him drop.
I waited for a sense of satisfaction to fill me, but it never came.
I still needed to find Misha, and I needed to kill Sergei Volkov.
Gunfire still echoed through the estate as I moved deeper into the hall, stepping over debris, shattered glass crunching under my boots.
And then, everything narrowed, just as my gaze fell on her.
“Found her,” I whispered into the comms, but nothing mattered in that moment.
She was there at the front platform, restrained and guarded but appearing unharmed.
For a single second, the world stopped, and all I could focus on were the four days of silence when she had been gone.
Four days of imagining the absolute worst that could possibly go down with her.
I already knew Volkov would never touch her or harm her, but it didn’t stop me from wondering about every awful scenario there was.
She was alive. Several guards moved to reposition as they saw me, raising their weapons, but I was already firing.
With a few shots, three of them were dead before they could even react, and the fourth lunged at me.
I allowed him to come to me before slamming his head with the back of my gun until he fell down.
I took him out with a shot straight to the head.
Despite the chaos, they were still trying to shield Misha from us, which meant that Volkov was still around and giving orders.
And he would not let his prized possession go so easily.
I closed the distance through smoke and chaos, the sound of everything else fading into nothing but the rhythm of my own heartbeat as I neared her. She lifted her head as I reached her and our eyes met, and for the first time since this began, something inside me settled.
“Misha,” I whispered her name, my hands inching towards her.
“You took your sweet time in getting to me,” she said, her voice steady despite everything.
I almost laughed. Instead, I cut through the restraints with one clean motion.
The moment the last binding fell away, she didn’t hesitate.
She stepped into me, bridging the distance.
Her arms came around me, and I pulled her against my chest with enough force to feel the reality of her.
She was warm, real, and alive. And most importantly, she was mine.
My hand came up to the back of her head, holding her there for half a second longer than necessary.
“Are you hurt?” I asked, low and controlled.
“No,” she said against me. “I’m fine. They didn’t touch me.”
Relief hit harder than anything else had. I pulled back just enough to look at her properly. Her gaze was clear and focused. Unbroken.
“Where is Sidorov?”
“Dead,” I replied, and a smile tugged at her lips. “We need to find Volkov now.”
“He is there. At the top,” she replied, motioning with her eyes.