Chapter 12 Mikhail
MIKHAIL
The gunfire is getting closer.
I press my back against the wall of the hallway at the top of the stairs, my Glock warm in my hand, and count the shots.
Three attackers on the east wing.
Two more coming up the main staircase.
The acrid smell of gunpowder fills my nostrils, mixing with something else. Blood. Too much blood.
“Boss!” Marco’s voice crackles through my earpiece. “They’ve breached the south entrance. We’re falling back to the—” Static. Then nothing.
Fuck.
I take down the men climbing up the stairs then sprint down the corridor toward the master bedroom, my heart hammering against my ribs. Sophia.
I left her there with two guards, thinking it would be enough.
Thinking I could handle Adrian’s assault before it reached her.
I was wrong.
The door to our bedroom hangs open, splintered wood scattered across the marble floor.
One guard lies face down in a pool of crimson.
The other is slumped against the wall, his eyes staring at nothing.
The bathroom and closet doors are open and their rooms empty.
“Sophia!” Her name tears from my throat.
Grunting, then shuffling.
As I spin toward the door, Sophia emerges from under the master bed, her blue eyes wild with fear but very much alive.
Relief floods through me so intensely my knees nearly buckle.
“Mikhail.” She runs to me, and I catch her against my chest, one arm wrapping around her waist while I keep my gun trained on the hallway. She’s trembling, her fingers clutching my shirt. “They killed them. They just…they came in and…”
“I know.” I press a kiss to the top of her messy hair, breathing in her scent. Alive. She’s alive. “We need to move.”
More gunfire erupts from downstairs. Glass shatters. Someone screams, the sound cutting off abruptly.
Sophia pulls back to look at me, and I see something shift in her expression. The fear is still there, but underneath it is something harder. Determination. “Give me a gun.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” She holds out her hand, steady despite everything. “I’m not going to hide while you fight. Give me a weapon.”
Every instinct screams at me to refuse.
To lock her in the panic room and handle this myself.
But another explosion rocks the mansion, and I hear Adrian’s men getting closer.
I don’t have time to argue, and I can’t protect her if I’m worried about her being defenseless.
I pull the backup Glock from my ankle holster and press it into her palm. “Safety’s off. Point and shoot. Aim for center mass.”
She nods, her fingers wrapping around the grip with surprising confidence. “My father taught me when I was sixteen. Before everything went to hell.”
Of course he did. Vincent Moretti might have been a bastard, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew the world his daughter lived in, even if she didn’t understand it yet.
I take her free hand and pull her toward the service staircase at the end of the hall.
It’s narrow and dark, used only by staff, which means Adrian’s men might not know about it.
Might being the operative word.
We’re halfway down when I hear footsteps above us. Heavy boots. Multiple sets.
“Keep moving,” I whisper, pushing Sophia ahead of me. “Don’t stop no matter what you hear.”
The staircase opens into the kitchen, and we emerge into chaos.
Elena is crouched behind the island, her face pale.
Two of my men are exchanging fire with attackers near the pantry. The air is thick with smoke.
“Elena!” Sophia starts toward her, but I grab her arm.
“We can’t help her if we’re dead.” The words taste like ash, but they’re true. I catch Elena’s eye and gesture toward the wine cellar. She nods, understanding. The tunnels.
A bullet pierces the wall next to my head, so close I feel the heat of it.
I return fire, dropping one of Adrian’s men with two shots to the chest. He crumples, and another takes his place immediately.
“Go!” I shove Sophia toward the cellar door. “I’ll cover you.”
She doesn’t argue, just runs.
I lay down suppressing fire, my bullets forcing Adrian’s men to take cover.
One of my own men goes down, clutching his throat. I don’t have time to check if he’s alive.
I back toward the cellar, still firing. My magazine clicks empty, and I eject it, slamming in a fresh one with practiced efficiency. The motion is automatic, muscle memory from decades of violence.
The cellar door slams shut behind me, and I throw the bolt. It won’t hold long, but it might buy us a few minutes.
If Elena makes out of the kitchen, she’s got a key.
I take the stairs two at a time, my boots echoing off the stone walls. Sophia is waiting at the bottom, the gun still in her hand.
Her face is smudged with soot, her hair wild, but her eyes are clear. Focused.
“This way.” I grab her hand again and pull her deeper into the cellar, past rows of wine bottles that probably cost more than most people make in a year.
None of it matters now.
The hidden door is behind a rack of 1947 Chateau d’Yquem.
I shove the rack aside, the bottles clinking together, and punch in the code.
The new lock, courtesy of Sophia’s escape attempt, disengages with a soft click.
Behind us, something heavy slams against the cellar door. Once. Twice. Wood splinters.
“Hurry.” Sophia’s voice is tight with fear, but she’s not panicking. Not yet.
The tunnel beyond is narrow and dark, lit only by emergency lighting that casts everything in sickly yellow. I pull Sophia inside and seal the door behind us. The mechanism is designed to be impenetrable from the outside, reinforced steel hidden behind a facade of old stone.
We run, dodging the traps I was taught to avoid. The tunnel slopes downward, leading away from the mansion toward the safe house three miles away.
My lungs burn, and my shoulder aches where I took a hit during the firefight at the docks. But I don’t slow down.
Sophia keeps pace beside me, her breathing ragged but steady. I glance at her, and something twists in my chest.
She shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be running for her life through underground tunnels because of my enemies.
Because of choices I made long before I ever knew her name.
The tunnel opens into a junction, three passages branching off in different directions. I take the left one, the route I’ve memorized for exactly this scenario.
That’s when I hear it. Footsteps behind us. Fast and getting closer.
“They’re in the tunnel,” Sophia gasps.
Impossible. No one knows about these passages except my most trusted men.
“Keep running,” I tell her. “Don’t look back.”
“Mikhail—”
“Go!”
I spin around, raising my gun. Three figures emerge from the darkness, their weapons trained on me.
I fire first. One goes down, but the other two scatter, taking cover behind support pillars. Bullets ricochet off stone, the sound deafening in the confined space.
I feel Sophia beside me before I see her.
She’s taken position behind a jutting section of wall, her gun raised.
When one of the attackers leans out to shoot, she fires.
The shot goes wide, but it forces him back into cover.
“I told you to run,” I growl.
“And I told you I’m not hiding.” She fires again, this time closer to the mark. “We do this together or not at all.”
There’s no time to argue.
The attackers are advancing, using the pillars for cover.
I count my remaining ammunition.
Eight rounds. Not enough.
One of them makes a mistake, exposing too much of his shoulder.
I take the shot, and he drops with a scream.
The other one fires wildly, panic making him sloppy.
I step out and finish him, but that’s when everything goes wrong.
Sophia sees the third attacker before I do.
He’s come from a side passage, his gun aimed directly at my head.
She doesn’t hesitate.
She throws herself in front of me, and I watch in horror as her finger tightens on the trigger.
Her shot hits him in the chest, but his gun is already firing.
The bullet meant for my head catches me in the shoulder instead, the same wounded shoulder, spinning me around.
Pain explodes through my body, white-hot and all-consuming.
I hit the ground hard, my gun skittering across the stone floor.
“Mikhail!” Sophia’s voice sounds distant, muffled. She’s kneeling beside me, her hands pressing against my shoulder. Warm blood seeps between her fingers. “No, no, no. Stay with me. Please stay with me.”
I try to speak, but my mouth won’t form words. The tunnel is spinning, darkness creeping in at the edges of my vision.
I can see her face above me, tears streaming down her cheeks, and I want to tell her it’s okay.
That she needs to run.
That she needs to save herself.
But all I can think is how beautiful she looks.
How much I need her.
How I can’t leave her alone in this world of violence and blood.
“I’ve got you,” she’s saying, her voice breaking. “I’ve got you. Just hold on.”
She’s trying to lift me, her slender frame struggling under my weight. I want to help her, but my body won’t respond.
The darkness is getting thicker, pulling me under like a riptide.
The last thing I see before consciousness slips away is Sophia’s face, determined and fierce, as she drags me deeper into the tunnel.
Away from the gunfire.
Away from death.
At least, I hope it’s away from death.
Then there’s nothing but black.