Chapter 44
JULIAN
Yang has Lee’s bodyguards in the sights of multiple automatic weapons.
Lyra is bound to a column ten yards to my left, her expression a mix of relief and fear.
I flick my eyes to Lee. She keeps her weapon raised, her trigger finger twitching.
“Don’t even think about it, Lee,” I say. “Yang is alive, as you can see. Your coup failed. The men behind you are Triad enforcers and Bratva lieutenants. This ends one of two ways. Time to choose.”
“You are so arrogant, Julian,” she says. “And that will be your undoing. And you, Yang, are an old fool. You shouldn’t have gotten cocky when that first shot didn’t do the job.”
Then she does just what I’d expected.
She aims directly at Yang.
Yang says nothing, he only smiles.
There’s a flash, then a loud POP.
Yang stands with his gun raised, the scent of gunpowder filling the air.
“I suppose I’ve always been one to push my luck,” he says.
Lee’s arm drops. She looks down at her stomach, where a red stain is spreading across her pristine cream blouse, confusion on her face.
Then the rage returns.
With her remaining strength, she lets out a feral scream and raises her arm again.
I don’t hesitate.
I move my aim from Alex to Lee. The round hits her square in the forehead. She drops to her knees, then into a heap.
The room erupts.
Lee’s men open fire as soon as they realize what happened. Yang’s strike team returns the barrage with coordinated precision. The warehouse fills with thunder, a sensory overload of muzzle flashes and ricocheting concrete, all wreathed in the sharp, metallic scent of gunpowder.
Two of Lee’s men go down in the first six seconds. The third and fourth try to make a break for it, covering for one another as they slip back. They vanish out of sight for a moment, likely to reload.
Then one of them pops out of cover, spraying a barrage of suppressing fire. I hear Sophia scream, but I can’t tell if it’s because she was shot.
I look around for Alexander but can’t spot him. He’d been right in front of me, his head inches away from the barrel of my gun, but now he’s gone. I try to spot him from my cover position, but he’s nowhere to be found.
If he escapes…
I push the thought out of my head. I’ll get him. But first, I need to make sure Lyra’s safe.
I move through the chaos of the gunfire, keeping low and squeezing off rounds when I can.
I draw closer to Lyra. But before I can get to her, I spot Sophia on her knees in the open, just a few feet from Lee’s body.
One would think getting her to safety would be Alexander’s top priority.
But he’s clearly more worried about himself.
Sophia looks like she’s hyperventilating, her hair is in her face, her hands trembling at her sides. I spot Lee’s pistol on the ground in front of her.
For one stupid, sentimental second, my protective instincts kick in. She’s a woman. She’s unarmed. She’s in the middle of a goddamn kill zone with no idea what to do.
I need to get her somewhere safe. She’s in over her head, scared out of her mind. I’ll figure out the rest later.
“Sophia!” I shout. “Get to cover, now!”
She looks at me, her expression dazed, almost dreamlike. Then she looks at Lee’s body before glancing around the room. I’m guessing she’s looking for Alexander.
I can practically see the calculations at work in her mind, trying to decide whose side she’s on, how she’s going to survive.
When she turns back to me, her eyes are hateful and narrowed.
Shit.
She lunges for Lee’s pistol, fumbling as she places it into her hands. This woman has likely never fired a gun in her life, but she’s about to use one now—on me.
“You did this!” she shouts. “This is all your fault!”
She raises the gun with shaky hands.
I move.
I pivot to the side just as the gun goes off.
The shot goes wide, and I’m not about to let her get another one off.
I charge toward her, placing one hand on her wrist, the other on the gun.
She holds onto it with surprising strength, but I’m able to easily wrench it out of her grip and toss it aside.
For a moment, I expect her to fight back, to scream and thrash, to call out for Alex.
But she doesn’t. Instead, she just collapses on the ground and lies on the concrete, her cheek pressed against its cold surface. Then she starts to sob.
More gunfire. I move out of the way, taking cover and scanning the scene. Yang’s men are moving in on Lee’s two remaining soldiers.
More shouting. More gunfire. A few casings clatter to the ground, and then there’s silence.
It’s not over yet. Not until I see my brother—dead or alive.
I hear a scuffle behind me. When I turn around, the world stops.
Alex has reached Lyra.
He must’ve moved when my attention was on Sophia, while Yang and his men were finishing off Lee’s guards.
He’s behind her. He’s pulled her up to a standing position, his hand fisted in her hair, her head pulled back at an angle that exposes her throat. The other hand holds a gun pressed against her temple.
The man I’m looking at isn’t my brother anymore.
Whatever was left of Alexander Volkov, the boy fishing on the deck in upstate New York, is gone. The man looking at me now is desperate and out of options. His eyes are wild, his pupils blown. There’s blood on his shirt, though I can’t tell whether it’s his or not.
“Drop it, brother,” he says, his voice cracking, the adrenaline ripping through whatever humanity he has left. “Drop the gun. Drop it right now, or I’ll put one through her head. I swear to God I will.”
I don’t drop the gun. I don’t move at all. Every muscle in my body is still.
Alex is panicked, wild.
But I’m pure focus.
If this has to end with a bullet in my brother, so be it.
“Alexander.” My voice is low and calm.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see my men, as well as Yang’s, form up around us. One word from me and Alex would be filled with lead. But the risk of harming Lyra is too severe. There’s not a chance in hell I’m taking that risk.
Lyra’s body is tense against him. Her expression is one of defiance, but I can see the panic in her eyes. I can see her body shaking with fear. Seeing her like that… I want to tear my brother’s throat out with my bare hands.
“Drop it!” he yells.
“Alexander, listen to me.”
“There’s nothing to listen to!” He twists her hair and jerks her head back further. Lyra gasps slightly but knows better than to react.
He presses the pistol harder against her temple. I can see her swallow, see her pulse pounding.
“Alex, brother, I’m going to put this in as plainly as I can. There’s nowhere to go. There are a dozen men here. Lee is dead. Dobrov is dead. You planned, you executed, but it failed. It’s over. And right now, there is no version of this where you walk out of here unless you put down the gun. Now.”
“I don’t give a damn. I don’t care about walking out.
I don’t care about the council or the company or any of that bullshit.
Right now, all I care about is taking everything from you, the way you took everything from me.
I’m going to show you that for all your hard work, you couldn’t keep the one thing safe that you cared about most of all. ”
I take a slow breath.
“Alex—”
He lets out a snort of a laugh.
“What do you think Dad would say? Your job was to protect me, wasn’t it? But right now, your little brother has a gun to your woman’s head, and it’s all your fault.”
Even now, he’s blaming me. But I put that aside. Nothing matters but getting Lyra out of his hateful clutches.
I look at her. She’s using every ounce of strength she has to keep it together.
And then I look at Alex.
“Drop the gun,” I tell him again, more firmly this time. “There’s no reason anyone else has to die today. You’re my brother, Alex. Drop the gun and we can sit down, talk about what’s next. But right now, you need to move that gun away from her.”
He shakes his head.
“No. I can’t.”
One shot. I could put a round between his eyes and end it all, with my brother dead on the warehouse floor.
I don’t want it to come to that.
But as I stand with my gun pointed at him and his at me, each passing second whispers that it will.
It must.
I won’t let him hurt her.