Chapter 47
GAbrIEL
Twenty minutes earlier…
The van is parked on Braun Avenue, two blocks from the nightclub. Engine off, lights off. Six men are in the back, geared and silent.
Alexei’s team arrived just a few moments ago—four special ops men from his private security firm, headed up by the man himself. They’re the kind of men whose resumes are mostly redacted. They wear black tactical gear with no insignia, no patches, no identifying marks of any kind.
My own men are good, loyal, disciplined, capable. Many are ex-military. But they’re soldiers, not special ops. Alexei’s men are on another level.
My driver, Dante, is at the wheel. He’ll hold the perimeter with two men. No one goes in, no one goes out. Alexei sits across from me, studying blueprints on his tablet. He’d got them thirty minutes ago. I didn’t ask how.
“Alright,” he says. “Three entry points—main entrance, side door, service entrance. Kolya’s office is in the back corridor. The main floor is an open club space. That’s where most of the men will be. Thermal imaging shows eleven male signatures.”
“Ten guards plus Kolya,” I say.
Alexei nods. “There are other signatures in the building as well—a handful of women. Not easy to tell which is Thea.”
“Rules of engagement?” one of Alexei’s men asks.
Alexei looks at me. “This would be your call, Gabriel. It’s your show. The rest of us are merely players.”
I scratch my face, thinking it over. “Anyone armed dies. Anyone unarmed gets secured. Kolya stays alive until after I’ve found Thea.”
“And after?” Alexei asks.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
I check my weapon—HK MP5, my submachine gun of choice. I haven’t led an assault in years, but my woman and unborn child are on the line. There’s no version of this where I sit in a van and wait for good news.
“Alright,” Alexei says with a nod. “We ready?”
“Ready.”
“Power goes out on my signal,” he says into his coms. “Thirty seconds from the end of this call, I want the building dark.”
I key my radio. “All teams, thirty seconds.”
I pull on my night-vision monocular. The world turns green and sharply defined.
I close my eyes and picture Thea. I remember when she told me she was pregnant, when I was filled with a happiness I’d never known before. I fold the moment up and lock it away somewhere safe and deep.
Alexei nods. “Let’s do this.”
Through the windshield of the van, I watch as the club goes dark.
The two guards posted outside never saw us.
The first dropped with a single silenced round from one of Alexei’s men.
The second turned toward the sound and caught two rounds in the chest before his hand ever made it to his holster.
He staggered back against the wall and hit it with a thud, sliding down slowly into a lifeless heap.
I step over him and we enter through the side door, quick and quiet.
The corridor is pitch black, but I can make it out through night vision. I spot concrete walls and exposed pipes, a strip of lights along the upper corner. I move with the four men, taking point, with Alexei close behind.
We push through, spotting a room up ahead. Storage. We sweep and move on.
I hear chaos—heavy boots, shouting in Russian, the crashing of furniture. A trio of gunshots sounds out, erratic and uneven. My gut clenches at the thought of those gunshots being directed at Thea.
More gunshots. They’re panicking, shooting at shadows.
We reach a corner and form up. Alexei’s hand lands on my shoulder.
“Second team is in position,” he whispers. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
He gives the order.
We continue down the hallway, passing what appears to be a dressing room. I spot movement and raise my weapon. A scream cuts through the air, and I scan five or six young women. They duck down behind chairs and dress racks.
“Thea?”
No one responds. I place my hand on the comms and speak.
“At least six women,” I say to Anthony, my man on the perimeter. “Second door on the right. Move in to secure.”
“Copy.”
Gunshots ring through the air again, blending with shouting and orders being barked in Russian.
The ambush has begun.
We soon reach the doorway to the main floor. Through my night vision goggles, I spot figures stumbling through the dark. Some are crouched behind the bar, one with a weapon raised at nothing.
I give the signal to open fire. Alexei takes aim, dropping a man by the DJ booth with a single, clean shot to center mass.
I step through and acquire the pair behind the bar.
The first is using his phone as a flashlight, the screen as bright as the sun, painting himself so bright a target that he might as well be wearing neon.
One round drops flashlight boy. The second behind the bar gathers his bearings enough to sense what directions the shots are coming from. He takes aim, but a quick pair of rounds from Alexei sends him down behind the bar and out of sight.
I spot Alexei’s team engaging on the other side of the room. Three of Kolya’s men are mowed down instantly as they attempt to gather a resistance.
It’s over in seconds. Nothing dramatic.
The main floor is clear. I scan, unable to spot Thea or Kolya.
“Clear!” I shout.
“Clear!” comes a response.
Then a pause.
“Got someone!”
Is it Thea?
I rush over to the second team’s point man. He stands next to a woman crouching behind one of the booths. She’s trembling, her hands over her head in a defensive gesture. I can tell by the shape that it’s not Thea.
“Gabriel?” she asks.
“Yes.”
She stands slowly, her knees shaking. I rush over to help her to her feet. She’s breathing hard, and I can spot a cut above her eyebrow, blood running down the left side of her face. One of my men has a red-filtered tactical light that paints her in shades of crimson.
She looks familiar.
“Where is she?”
“He took her.” She points toward the back of the club—past the booths, past the VIP rope, toward a section that’s barely visible in the weak, emergency lighting that’s beginning to flicker on in stuttering pulses. “When the lights went out, he grabbed her and dragged her back there with Sasha.”
Recognition flickers in my mind.
“You’re her friend from the auction,” I say. “You’re Sylvie.”
She nods. “I am. But Kolya has her.”
I’m already moving.
“Gabriel,” she calls after me. “He was going to kill her. He had the gun pointed at her when the lights went out. But as he was dragging her away, I heard him tell her he wants to kill her in front of you.”
I round the VIP rope, past a velvet curtain that’s been half torn off its rod. The emergency lights are cycling now, pulsing a dim, hellish red over the scene.
I hear footsteps behind me and glance over my shoulder to find Alexei close behind.
“You’re out of your mind if you think you’re doing this without backup,” he says.
I nod in response, turning my attention to what’s ahead of me.
The VIP section opens to a raised platform with private seating and a low table.
Kolya is standing on the platform. Thea stands in front of him, one arm locked around her neck, pulling her back against his chest. His pistol is pressed to her right temple. Her hands are gripping his forearm, fingernails digging into his sleeve.
Our eyes meet.
She looks at me, eyes wide and terrified, but she’s alive. Kolya’s hand is clamped over her mouth, her cries muffled against the thick meat of his palm.
The emotion I’d been holding back surges to the surface all at once, and I have to physically stop myself from rushing forward.
My sights are aimed at his head, and every instinct I have is screaming at me to take a shot and kill him.
But Kolya is holding Thea in front of him as body armor, his gun to her temple, and his finger on the trigger. I can’t take that chance.
Alexei materializes next to me. I can sense he’s doing the same calculations in his head and coming to the same conclusion.
We don’t have a clean shot.
“Gabriel.” Kolya’s voice is almost warm, congenial. “I wondered how long it would take for you to find me. Sooner than I’d expected, but nonetheless. You’re efficient and I’m impressed.”
“Let her go, Kolya.”
He shakes his head and chuckles. “No, I don’t think I will.
You know, Gabriel, you always have gone with your heart.
It’s your worst quality, if you ask me. A don who falls in love?
That’s a don who can be controlled, like a puppet.
I mean, look at the power I’ve had over you just by pulling at the right string.
” He shoves at Thea’s temple with his pistol, making it more than clear what he means.
“All of this,” he continues. “All of this bloodshed and drama because of some fat little maid from Brooklyn.”
Thea flinches at the words. I see it, and so does Kolya. He smiles at her reaction. I want to rip that goddamn smile right off his face.
“Tell your men to lower their weapons and leave the building,” he says.
“All of them. You too, Petrov. You might have managed to take out my men here, but this is only a fraction of my army, and the rest are on the way.” He arches a brow.
“You weren’t expecting that, were you? Let’s see how these fancy operators are against four dozen of my finest soldiers. ”
Is he bluffing? Hard to tell.
“Now,” he says. “Lower your weapons and let us leave. She and I are going to walk out of here together, and I’ll be in touch at a later time. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, and we can have a nice negotiation.”
He shoves the gun against her temple hard enough to cause a whimper of pain. My gut tightens.
“Choose wisely, Gabriel. The war or the girl.”