Chapter 43
MELANI
I watch through the gap in the pallets as the men file in, and I count.
Twelve. Fifteen. More are behind them, still pushing through the door. My stomach sinks with each one. We’re outnumbered… badly. Which means we can’t risk being discovered, or it could quite literally be our deaths.
At first, all I hear is the blood rushing in my ears. Then their voices start to cut through it.
“I’ve got the record for most people brought to the boss.”
“By one! And that’s only because the best man, Killian, got compromised and taken out by the boss!” another voice calls out, and someone laughs.
My skin crawls. They’re talking about it like a competition.
Like kidnapping people is a sport with a leaderboard, something to brag about over drinks.
And the guy their boss took out… I feel zero pity for him.
But they don’t even lower their voices when they say it. They don’t feel anything about anyone.
“The boss will be here soon, so stop talking shit!” someone barks, and everyone goes quiet. He seems to have some sort of authority.
“Our next mission will put us closer to our goals,” the voice continues, sparking a low, hungry cheer through the group.
I glance at Vanya. His brows are drawn tight, a faint frown pulling at his mouth. That’s when I realize he probably doesn’t understand what they’re saying. I tug on his shirt, and he looks down at me.
“I know what they’re saying,” I whisper.
Something in his expression clears. He tilts his head towards me, so I start translating as quietly as I can.
The man in charge keeps talking. “The boss wanted me to pass this along before he arrives because he can’t stay long—you know he’s a very busy man.
” The others grunt in acknowledgement. “We’re no longer going after the small fish.
Thanks to Killian and Lev, we got those port workers a few nights ago. That loss hit the Petrov family hard.”
Vanya’s jaw clenches when I translate that part, and I squeeze his arm as I continue.
“We got a taste of power. Now the boss wants more. But we can’t move on to the other families until the Petrovs are out of the way.”
“Kill them all!” someone shouts from the crowd, and a wave of cheers follows.
“Hush. Listen,” the one in charge snaps, and silence drops again. “We have our next target. A member of the Petrov family.”
“That’s a death wish,” someone mutters, and the others grumble in agreement.
“The Petrovs aren’t as powerful as people make them out to be. We’ve taken over two dozen of their men, and they’re still nowhere close to finding us. We can hit them higher. The boss will protect us.” He stops talking when a round of applause breaks out.
“As we speak, the boss already has someone moving on the next target. By the time this meeting ends, we’ll have Elmira Petrov in our custody—”
A gasp tears out of me before I can stop it, my entire body locking. Vanya’s hand clamps over my mouth in the same instant, but it’s too late—I’ve been heard.
The warehouse goes quiet.
Then: “Who’s there?”
And another, harder: “Show yourself.”
I glance up at Vanya, who has an unholy light in his eyes—rage, pure and lethal.
He shakes his head at me slightly, a silent command to stay still.
As if I had any intention of stepping out.
I couldn’t move right now if I tried. Chairs scrape.
Boots hit the floor. Through the slit in the pallets, I watch them approach, guns out and pointing towards us.
My heart hammers so violently I’m genuinely afraid it will give us away before they even reach us.
They’re close now. Three feet. Two—
The deafening sound of a gunshot fills the air. I flinch, hands flying to my ears as another shot follows. Then another. And another. Until the sharp cracks blur together, punctuated by the heavy, sickening thuds of lifeless bodies falling to the ground.
The men closest to us curse as they spin around, guns swinging towards the new threat. Dimitri.
I catch sight of him stepping out of his hiding place beneath the mezzanine, and the sight of him is almost surreal.
He looks steady and calm, his face pulled into the coldest glare I've seen on a person outside of Aleksei as he continues firing his gun in controlled bursts that force the men to scramble for cover. Outnumbered doesn’t seem to mean anything to him.
He advances anyway, tip of his gun smoking, shot after shot driving them back.
The men fire wildly in return, the warehouse erupting in chaos.
Bullets suddenly rip into the pallets, ricocheting with sharp metallic snaps before clattering to the concrete floor. I jerk back as splinters spray through the gap, my breath snagging in my throat. Beside me, Vanya mutters a low curse and draws a gun from the small of his back.
Then Aleksei emerges from the shipping container, already firing, his face frozen in that same cold expression he turned on me earlier.
He shoots with ruthless calm, his shots accurate and fast. More men drop to the ground, dead, before they can react.
The ones still standing shout to each other in disbelief, their voices pitching up in shock as they realize they’re under fire from two sides.
“It’s an ambush!” someone screams in panicked Italian. “Get out, get out—”
They scatter for the door, but Dimitri and Aleksei chase them with gunfire at their backs, cutting them down as they run.
“Stay here.” Vanya’s clipped voice pierces through the noise. I stare at him, wide-eyed, wanting to grab him, but he’s already stepping out from my side with his gun raised.
My chest aches so sharply it steals the air from my lungs. Every instinct screams to follow, to pull him back and keep him safe, but I’m frozen, forced to watch as he disappears into the storm of bullets and shouting.
I press myself harder against the pallet stack, my muscles trembling. The narrow crack in front of me blurs with tears, but I don’t dare look away.
He’ll be fine.
I cling to it like a lifeline. He’ll be fine, he’ll be fine, he’ll—
A stray bullet whizzes past, punching through the wood inches from my face and showering me in splinters. Pain flares hot as one slices my cheek. I drop to my knees, hands over my head, a terrified scream tearing out of me that vanishes entirely beneath the thunder of gunfire.
The cold concrete bites into my knees, but the air feels hot, thick with the smell of gunpowder and sawdust. My whole body shakes uncontrollably as I curl in on myself, pressing my hands hard over my ears, trying to block it out.
But there’s no blocking this out. Because the gunfire doesn’t stop.
It rolls on like a violent storm, so loud it rattles my bones.
Around me, the pallets splinter under stray rounds, chunks breaking away, dust choking my throat.
This isn’t cover anymore. It’s a grave waiting to happen.
I press my palms to the floor and start crawling, dragging myself out from behind the stack, every nerve screaming at me to move faster. The rough concrete scrapes my knees raw, but I keep going, head down, breath coming in short, panicked bursts.
I’m halfway across when something strange at the warehouse door catches my eye.
A man—one of theirs—slips in from outside.
He’s hunched, blood streaking his face, his movements frantic.
But he isn’t shooting. He isn’t even looking at the fight.
His hand is moving inside his coat. My gut twists as a feeling of foreboding washes over me.
The object he pulls out is small and dark and oval-shaped, and my brain identifies it before I can even process it. I've only ever seen one in movies. Time slows as he yanks the pin and throws it straight into the middle of the warehouse.
“Grenade!” someone screams, the word cutting clean through the chaos.
I whip my head towards Vanya—but he’s already looking at me. For a heartbeat, everything else disappears. His blue eyes lock on mine, wide with a fear so deep and raw it doesn’t look like him at all. My chest caves in on itself.
Then he moves. Breaks into a full sprint, barreling towards me like sheer will is enough to outrun the blast radius. His mouth opens, my name forming on his lips, but I can’t hear it, can’t hear anything over the blood rushing in my ears.
He doesn’t make it to me. The grenade detonates with a deafening blast that rattles my teeth. The shockwave slams into me, yanking me off my hands and knees and throwing me back to the concrete so hard it drives all the air from my body at once.
Everything goes white, then black, then nothing.
I come back in pieces.
The first thing I’m aware of is the thick, crushing silence and the high, distant ringing somewhere deep in my skull. Smoke hangs in the air in heavy, drifting curtains, dust still falling. I blink and blink again, and the shapes around me slowly stop swimming.
Then I see him. Vanya. He’s on the ground, thrown clear by the blast, his body completely still as debris rains down all around him.
A crack splits the air above me, and I tip my head back and watch the roof beams give. One by one, then all at once, the structure folds in on itself in a cascade of steel and dust and a roar that shakes the floor beneath me.
My lips part in a silent scream, my throat burning, locked tight around a sound that refuses to come.