CHAPTER 21 #2
The estate loomed out of the dark like something rotting from the inside out.
It was enclosed with tall walls, and imposing gates.
Arran and I had three teams with us, and they had already scouted the place.
Three exits. Two cars in the long winding drive.
No one guarding externally and no signs of cameras or any kind of security system.
Kozlov had obviously become complacent and over confident in his ability to hide. Worked for us.
“Wee bit clichéd, is it no’? The Russian Pakhan hidin’ out in the old, abandoned mansion?” Arran said, and I turned to him with a shake of my head.
“Let’s just get this fucker,” I sighed.
Arran and I moved in from the front, two teams at our back.
The other went in from the rear. Fast and controlled.
We were all armed and ready for a fight.
Arran and I were spoiling for one actually.
We both wanted to make Kozlov pay for what he put Cara through.
She was ours. Any man who ever laid unwanted touch on her again would lose their fucking hands. That was a promise.
The first shots came before we even reached the front door.
Gunfire cracked through the night, sharp and immediate.
My men returned fire up above instantly.
They weren’t just hired muscle. They were carefully chosen, highly skilled, and knew what the fuck they were doing.
That was a part of why Rafe ran the family so much more successfully than his arse wipe of a father ever did.
One of Kozlov’s men – the one who fired at us - dropped from a window above, rifle in hand. He didn’t even get a second shot off before we had put him down.
“Move,” I ordered loudly and we pushed inside, smashing the doors open with a battering ram two of our men had brought from the car.
Inside was silent. It was likely grand once, with marble floors, high ceilings, and gaudy, gold touches dotted around, but now it was gutted, stripped down of anything of value and left to dust and rot.
Footsteps thundered as we moved through it, clearing rooms, exchanging fire in tight corridors.
We moved as one, every man knowing his role, efficient and vigilant.
Two more of Kozlov’s men appeared around a corner in the wide hallway upstairs, shooting blindly. I lifted my gun and took out one, then the other was picked off fast by my men, at my back.
“One down in the kitchen,” Dom came over the comms.
“Two more upstairs,” Arran spoke up. “Couldnae shoot for shit,” he added like he was disappointed they went down so quickly.
I knew he loved a fight, preferably with fists and blades over guns.
I just hoped he wouldn’t get one that night.
I couldn’t stand the thought of him getting bust up and Cara seeing it.
She had been subjected to enough violence in her life.
By the time we cleared the first hallway, the air stank of gunpowder and blood – a smell so familiar to me it almost felt like my comfort zone.
“There has te be more,” Arran muttered, checking his weapon as we moved down a second long hallway.
Movement ahead of us had us both ducking into alcoves opposite each other. I hugged the wall and peered around the corner, just as a bullet whizzed by me way too close for comfort.
“You ready?” I uttered almost silently to Arran.
He held his gun in both hands, raised and ready to go. Knowing the drill, I ducked out again and started to fire. As soon as I stopped and took cover, Kozlov’s men popped out to return fire and Arran was ready. He took them both out in a heartbeat, before they even got a shot off.
“Christ, this isnae any fun,” he complained as he walked down the hall and kicked at the lifeless bodies, both with a shot perfectly centred on their foreheads.
Arran was the best shooter I’d ever seen.
His accuracy was like no other. He’d once told us it was because his father had put a gun in his hand before he even started walking.
By three he’d been learning to shoot. He’d been raised to be an assassin or something equally as terrifying.
Even with his skill though, he favoured a knife, and his accuracy and efficiency with a blade was more terrifying still.
“Stop complaining. You can’t go home to Cara injured. She’ll lose it,” I reminded him.
“Fine, but we’re gonna have te hit the gym when we get back. I need to work off this buzz somehow.”
We followed the sound of movement to the end of a long corridor. A vast set of closed double doors awaited us. Knowing Kozlov had to be behind them, I didn’t hesitate. I kicked them open with one violent hit.
“Excellent entrance, pal,” Arran announced as he strolled into the room like he didn’t have a care in the world. Sometimes I forgot how insane he could be when he was riding the adrenaline high.
Kozlov stood at the far side of the room, with just one of his men beside him.
They were both armed, Kozlov with his gun in a holster at his hip, and his guard holding it loosely at his side.
The second he started to raise the gun in panic to our entrance, Arran fired and dropped him fast. Another perfect head shot.
At this point I was fairly sure he had made a game of it to entertain himself.
“Dario, isn’t it? Rafe’s second?” Kozlov asked calmly as he turned from the window to face us. It was as if he had been expecting us.
He was dressed in dress trousers and a button up shirt, which was odd considering he had been in hiding for weeks. He nursed a tumbler of clear liquid in his hand, and he didn’t even try to go for his gun.
I stepped forward slowly, gun steady as I took him in. The room around us was likely once an office, but now it was devoid of everything but empty shelves in the walls, a desk, and a single, well-worn armchair.
“You’ve been hard to find,” I told him, ignoring his question. He obviously knew who I was.
He smiled faintly as he looked me over, not even sparing a glance to Arran, who had moved away from me, covering more of the room.
“I was hoping for your brother,” he said, and I didn’t correct him. It was a common misconception among the families that Rafe and I were actual brothers, and we never corrected anyone because Rafe felt it made us look stronger for people to believe that.
“He’s busy.”
“Recovering? I heard he met with a bullet.” Kozlov tilted his head. “Or is he hiding? Shaken after the shooting, is he?”
Arran shifted slightly beside me, obviously as pissed off as I was with this bastard’s bullshit about Rafe.
“Can I gut the prick yet?” he asked me as he sent a stone cold, chilling smile to Kozlov. He looked unhinged, and if the heavy swallow Kozlov took, was any indication, it was working.
Kozlov seemed to shake himself, setting down the glass he held on the windowsill behind him, then he looked to me again.
“Such a shame. I really did think that Rafe would come himself,” he piped up. “A man like him… you’d think he’d want to face me.”
“He wanted you dead,” I specified.
“And he sent you instead.” Kozlov’s smile sharpened. “Doesn’t say much for his strength or integrity.”
I didn’t react. That was what he wanted, but he was talking crap and I knew it. Arran knew it. If we’d have let him, Rafe would have dragged his half-dead-self there to end this thing in person, in a heartbeat.
“You know why I did it,” Kozlov continued, just like some trite villain, monologuing. “Your family tore through ours. Took our leaders, our brothers. You made an example of us instead of fighting like real men.”
“You attacked first.”
“And we paid for it!” he snapped. “So I returned the favour.”
My grip tightened on the gun. I was so close to just putting a bullet through his smug face, but it would be too easy. He had to die much harder than that.
“His sisters,” he went on, voice turning cold. “They were a message. Pain for pain.”
Arran moved slightly at my side and I glanced at him, sure he was about to launch himself at the fucker. Maybe he was about to get the fight he had been waiting for. At least I knew Arran would make sure Kozlov died bloody and painfully.
“They didn’t deserve that,” I said quietly, trying to keep a hold of my calm.
“They deserved worse,” Kozlov bitterly threw back. “The younger one, thinking she knew everything, and her whore sister. I’d have enjoyed making them hurt, even without the vengeance.”
The room seemed to narrow and my calm was slipping fast. I could see Arran from my peripheral, almost vibrating with the force it took for him to stay where he stood.
“I really thought Rafe would come though,” Kozlov went on, sounding genuinely disappointed.
“I wanted him to see it in my eyes when I told him how the older one screamed. The look of terror in the eyes of the blonde as she realised I was about to end her. They were both so innocent looking….so perfect to destroy. I wanted him to know…”
The door behind us burst open and one of Kozlov’s men burst in, or more accurately, fell in. He was bleeding all over, a desperate, crazed look in his eyes as he stumbled in, firing wildly. His misplaced loyalty was clear to see as he tried in vain to defend the scum bag before us.
Everything shifted in a second. I turned instinctively, raising my gun as Arran moved faster, the bullet ripping through the silence as the wounded man fell to the ground, out cold. Another point to Arran and whatever game he was playing.
But I looked to the dropped body too long and it gave Kozlov the opportunity he’d been waiting for.
I saw him move from the corner of my eye and I started to swing round, But Kozlov already had his gun in his hand, and raised at me.
I saw it coming and knew I wouldn’t clear the shot in time.
I tried to divert my fast movement, rolling my body toward the ground
Then Arran moved. The knife came from nowhere and left his hand in a blur. I hit the ground and rolled back up to my feet just in time to see the blade hit Kozlov clean, straight through the throat.
The shot went wide, landing in one of the wooden bookcases, as he choked, collapsing backward, the gun clattering uselessly across the floor. It was less than a minute before silence descended. Heavy. Final. Arran never missed.
I stepped forward, looking down at the body, blood pooling beneath his head, his eyes already empty, his chest still. He was dead, just like that. Arran exhaled slowly behind me and I turned to see him looking over my shoulder at the mess below.
“Well,” he said quietly. “That’s… unfortunate.”
I didn’t answer. I felt ill. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. He died way too easy.
“Boss?” one of our men called from the hall.
“Clear the rest,” I ordered. “No one leaves.”
I heard the footsteps moving away but I kept my eyes on Kozlov. Cara would never be the same after what she endured. Gia was gone. And this was all he got. A blade. A second. Nothing.
Arran stepped up beside me, voice lower now, “Doesnae feel right, does it?”
“No,” I uttered. “He should’ve suffered.” I looked down at the body one last time. “He should’ve begged for his end.”
“Aye. I’d have enjoyed that,” Arran nodded.
We turned and walked out of the room. Behind us, men began the work of cleaning up what was left. They knew the procedure. There wouldn’t be a trace of what happened in that shit hole by the time my men left. But I’d remember and I would regret, always.
Outside, the cold air hit hard. I paused at the top of the steps, looking out over the dark grounds.
Arran glanced at me from where he stood at my side.
“Yer welcome, by the way,” he snorted. “He was about to turn ye into Swiss cheese.”
“I saw,” I replied flatly. “Maybe I should have taken the bullet though. He deserved to suffer in holding for as long as we could keep him alive and in agony.”
“Rafe’ll understand. He’s dead. That’s what we wanted.”
“Maybe,” I shrugged, but it hadn’t been what I wanted.
I wanted to make him pay. For Gia. For Cara.
Cara, who still woke up screaming. Who flinched at shadows.
Who would carry that night for the rest of her life.
She deserved justice and what just happened – that wasn’t justice. I had failed her and I had failed Rafe.