Chapter 22 The Devil’s Rage
Kolya
The vodka burns, a slow fire that does nothing to quell the inferno inside me. My fingers curl around the glass, but I barely notice the pressure, my mind focused entirely on the grainy black-and-white footage flickering across my screen.
There she is.
Lila.
Surrounded by them .
And that’s when it hits me.
I know them.
Years ago, these men did a job—an extraction. A mission so clean, so precise, that I hadn’t even realized who was responsible at first.
But now, watching them hover around my wife, the pieces click into place like a loaded chamber.
They were the ones who had cost me millions.
Worse, they had cost me power. They had taken something—someone—from me. Whoever had hired them had left me bleeding, humiliated, weakened. And now, those same men have my wife.
My grip tightens around the glass, the pressure threatening to shatter it. Fate enjoys correcting its mistakes, it seems.
I will take back what is mine.
My jaw tightens as I lean forward, studying every pixelated movement. She sits in their little fortress, a place they think can keep her from me. But walls are nothing but illusions. Their security? Meaningless. My man on the inside has been invaluable, detailing their routines, the layout, even the blind spots in their pathetic camera coverage, information I’ve meticulously woven into my plans.
And then he speaks.
The voice crackles through the speaker, low, hesitant, my inside man. A man whose loyalty was bought long before Lila ever ran.
“She’s pregnant.”
The words land like a gunshot to the skull. The room tilts for half a second before my mind catches up, snaps back.
Pregnant.
My thumb slams down, disconnecting the call. Silence rings in the suddenly too-quiet room.
I exhale slowly. My grip on the glass stills. My pulse roars not with disbelief, not with doubt—
With clarity .
The whispers of doctors years ago, low motility, infertile, flicker and die like faulty wiring. Incompetent fools. They measured biology; they couldn't measure destiny. My destiny. I can almost picture it, one of those nights I had her pliant, willing or not, my seed taking root despite their pathetic pronouncements. It was always meant to be.
The thought that those men , the ones hovering around her in that grainy footage, might have… Impossible .
The idea is ludicrous. Against nature, a betrayal her very cells would reject. She belongs to me , my mind discards it instantly. She wouldn't dare. Her body, her soul, they know their master. This child is not a complication; it is confirmation.
She is carrying my child. My blood. My heir. The proof that she was always meant to be mine, no matter how far she ran or how fiercely she fought it. Any other explanation is a fantasy, a pathetic attempt by lesser men to claim what is sacredly and irrevocably mine.
Of course, she is. There has never been another possibility. The idea anyone else touched her, that she gave herself—laughable. Delusional. Absolutely ridiculous. The delusion she ever thought she had a choice.
I trace the rim of my glass with my thumb, a smirk curling at the corner of my lips. Fate has intervened. Lila tried to run, tried to forget, but she carries the one thing that will always bring her back to me.
I whisper the word under my breath, savoring the taste of it. The final nail in the coffin of her so-called freedom. Does she truly believe she can escape me now? That she can erase the mark I left on her? That those men can replace what we had ?
Foolish Pet.
Heat crawls up my spine, a dangerous, seething heat that coils in my gut, burns behind my ribs. The urge to shatter the glass in my hand—to give in to the rage threatening to consume me—is strong.
But I don’t.
Because rage is useless without precision. And I am nothing if not precise.
I set the glass down, exhaling slowly, evenly. My focus shifts, fury hardening into something colder, sharper, more dangerous .
I let her have her fun. Allowed freedom, indulged the foolish rebellion. Patiently watching, waiting for reason. But reason failed her. Now, it's over.
The waiting is over.
She has defied me for long enough. Playing her little game tested the limits of my patience.
Now, it is my turn.
I push back from my desk, rising to my feet as the pieces begin falling into place. A plan has always been there, lingering in the background. When. How. The intel from my mole has provided the perfect blueprint: their shift changes, the precise moment their guard is lowest, the specific entry point he has secured.
Now I have my answer.
Lila will come home. Whether she walks or bleeds, whether she begs or screams, it doesn’t matter.
Because in the end, there has only ever been one outcome.
She is mine .
The dim glow of the overhead light casts long shadows across the mahogany desk. My fingers tap against the surface in a slow, deliberate rhythm as I reach for the phone. Control settles over me like a second skin—tight, unshakable.
No more waiting.
I dial the number, bringing the receiver to my ear. The voice on the other end is hushed, expectant.
"Is it time?"
A slow smirk curls my lips. "Yes, but no mistakes this time."
"Understood." A inhale follows the silence.
"Our man inside. He’s in position?" I lean back, the leather groaning. "The access point he confirmed, the rear service door, cameras disabled during their late-night system reboot, is still our primary entry?"
"Ready when you are. He confirms the reboot sequence begins in ten minutes. We have a seven-minute window before their system comes back online with heightened alerts."
Perfect. Like clockwork. My inside man has not only bypassed their supposed state-of-the-art security but has also mapped their response protocols. These brutes playing house with my wife? They are predictable. They won't know what hit them.
“Proceed with the ambush.” My voice is cold steel. "Swift, overwhelming force. Utilize the schematics he provided for interior movement. No hesitation. I want her secured before they even react." The reward... worth every drop of their blood. It isn't desperation—it is inevitability. The tide pulling her back.
"She will resist," the voice offers cautiously.
My laugh is soft, almost indulgent. "Of course she will. Resistance is... temporary."
My free hand curls into a fist, the sudden reminder that she ran , that she chose defiance, tightening a noose around my throat. My vision blurs—
The glass shatters in my grip. Blood wells up in my hand.
Silence stretches, thick and humming over the line. I force my breathing to slow, uncurling my bloodied but steady hand. The anger slithers back beneath my skin, contained.
"Prepare the team," I say smoothly, as if nothing happened. "Crucially: Lila is pregnant." I let the words hang, heavy with implication. "With my child. My heir. So, she must be retrieved completely unharmed . Understand? No marks, no risks to her or the child. Any action, any force directed at her , that could possibly risk the pregnancy is absolutely forbidden. Her pathetic defiance is a matter for me , later. Is that clear?"
A beat of silence. "...Clear. Completely unharmed." Then, the inevitable question follows, laced with professional caution, "And the men protecting her? What are the Rules of Engagement?"
"Them?" My lip curls slightly. "They are obstacles. Remove them. Lethal force is authorized if necessary, but subduing them quickly and efficiently is preferred. Focus on disabling, not killing, unless unavoidable. I want them to witness her return to me. I don't care how, just get them out of the way." I pause, anticipating his next question.
"And... if getting her out 'unharmed' proves difficult? If she refuses to cooperate once the obstacles are neutralized?"
I smile, a cold, fierce thing. I lick a stray drop of vodka — or maybe blood — from my lip, savoring the sting. "She will come home. If she fights, contain her. Use necessary force to restrain her without injury . No tasers, no damaging holds. Use speed, disorientation, numbers. Box her in, secure her limbs gently but firmly, get her into the transport. She can scream, she can struggle—it changes nothing. Bringing her back intact is all that matters. Understand?"
"...Understood. Containment without injury."
"Excellent." I end the call, the silence absolute.
The game is over.
Time to collect what's mine.
The night is thick with silence, the kind that comes before the storm. My men move like phantoms, slipping through the darkness, every footstep calculated, every breath controlled. I watch from a safe distance, perched atop an abandoned rooftop, the small town spread out beneath me like a chessboard.
Tonight, I make my move.
Their compound is well-secured, but security means nothing when cracks already exist within its walls. My inside man has done his job. He has disabled the initial perimeter sensors along the west fence and confirmed the delay of the interior motion detectors in the ground floor hallway for precisely seven minutes, our window. Just enough to give my men a window—just enough to let them in without raising immediate suspicion.
They are in position.
A flicker of movement in the shadows, the telltale shift of weight—a predator preparing to strike.
The moment my men breach the perimeter through the confirmed unsecured service door, multiple shadows move from inside the house—fast, precise, trained . Some hold back, likely protecting her , but the ones that meet my men head-on are no ordinary security detail. And leading the defense... them . The three men from the footage. More dangerous in person . They aren’t just fighting to defend; they fight like men who have been through war and won . They don’t hesitate.
The first shot rings out, cutting through the night – closer than expected, from within the house. Followed by the flash of muzzle fire. My eyes narrow. The bullet strikes metal near my men, sending sparks into the darkness. Somewhere in the chaos, a strangled yell echoes, one of mine.
Before I can process the level of coordination, the fight explodes. Fast. Brutal. Efficient. My men, trained and ruthless and following the routes I laid out based on the mole's intel, are suddenly forced onto the defensive. Their aggression meets something harder. They are losing ground.
They are no longer the predators—they are the prey. My knuckles whiten where I grip the edge of the rooftop parapet. Impossible .
Ethan Mercer—lean, calculated—moves like a ghost through the chaos, his ice-gray eyes, reading the fight like some damned equation. He takes down one of my men with brutal efficiency, a precise shot to the kneecap that has the man screaming, followed by a swift, disabling blow to another's temple using the butt of his rifle. My eyes narrow. Fast and precise, just like the tech expert he supposedly is.
Then Bastian Cross—the strategist, radiating controlled power. He fights coldly, methodically. Every move deliberate. He breaks one man's arm with terrifying ease, dislocating the shoulder before using another attacker's momentum to slam him face-first into a wall, dropping him instantly. No wasted motion.
And Ryker Cage... the biggest one. Pure, unpredictable force. A fucking Berserker . He doesn't fight with grace or calculation, just raw, unhinged violence that borders on suicidal. He catches a pipe swung at his head, wrenches it free, and uses it to shatter the attacker's bones. He meets a knife attack not with evasion, but with a laugh —a raw, wild sound that carries faintly even to my rooftop perch—before brutally headbutting the man into unconsciousness. Blood smears across his knuckles, unnoticed or ignored.
My jaw tightens so hard a pain shoots through my temple. This is not how it's supposed to go. My perfect plan, built on precise intel and designed for surgical insertion and extraction, unraveling under their disciplined assault. My grip tightens on the radio communicator, the cool plastic threatening to crack under the pressure.
I watch my highly trained men falter, struggle, fall . Did I underestimate them? Grossly. These are not mere bodyguards or hired guns. The way they move coordinated, lethal, no hesitation, screams elite military training. Perhaps the intel from my mole, while accurate on the physical layout, failed to capture the true caliber of my opponents. Or perhaps they adapted faster than anticipated.
The same men who had cost me millions years ago. Rage, cold and sharp, coils tight in my gut, fighting the need for damage control. A hissed curse escapes my lips. This isn't defeat; it is tactical necessity. Preserve assets and reassess.
“ Otstupat'! ” I snap into the radio, the Russian command severe and cutting. “ Retreat . Fall back to pre-designated rally point Bravo!”
The retreat is chaotic, costly... This stings, a rare, infuriating miscalculation. One I will not make again. Fury settles into something cold.
A lesson. Next time, I will not make the same mistake.
But it isn’t over.
I turn away, inhaling deeply, forcing my pulse to steady. My men regroup, licking their wounds, waiting for orders.
I will regroup, re-strategize. They won tonight. But wars aren’t won in a single battle.
Then I disappear into the night.