23. Nikolai
NIKOLAI
I came to with my face in Kira's hair and dust so thick in my mouth, I could barely breathe.
My ears were ringing and the room was sideways—or I was sideways—and it took me a few seconds to understand that I was lying on top of her on the floor outside my study with broken glass scattered everywhere around me.
"Kira." I pushed the debris off and rolled to the side and looked at her, out cold.
Her eyes were closed, face slack, blood running from a gash somewhere near her hairline.
I couldn't tell how bad it was with the lights out, so I grabbed her face with both hands and turned it toward me.
"Kira, wake up." But there was no response, even when I patted her cheek.
She was breathing but she wasn't waking up and the blood was pooling in her ear and running down her neck.
"Shit! Yakov!" I shouted, but my ears were ringing so loudly, I couldn't hear myself. I sounded muffled and distorted, like I was in a bucket underwater. "Vlad! Gregg!"
Slowly, my hearing started to clear and return.
The alarm system was screaming from somewhere down the hallway and I could hear the crackle and pop of fire eating through the walls in the direction the blast had come from.
They'd hit the east wing, which meant the bedroom, the hallway, everything between here and the front door was compromised.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, but the screen was shattered, spiderweb lines crawling across the screen from corner to corner.
Yakov didn't pick up when I dialed him, neither did Vlad, and Gregg's phone went straight to voicemail.
After the night we had, it was possible Gregg was still unloading, and Vlad too, but Yakov should've been close.
"Come on," I muttered, trying Yakov again. "Pick up the goddamn phone."
This was such a hard hit, and so fast after she'd made those calls, I knew Markin had been watching us. This wasn't triggered by her calls or our taking that shipment. They had been planning this a while, and they chose this moment because I was weak. My men weren’t here.
"Kira, we gotta move, baby," I grumbled, grabbing my gun from the floor where it had landed when I fell and checking the magazine. With only seven rounds, I had to be conservative. My backup was in the bedroom nightstand, which was in the part of the house that was currently on fire.
Kira was still unconscious on the floor and I couldn't carry her and fight at the same time.
So I dragged her into the office behind the desk and pushed the heavy chair in front of her so she was at least partially hidden if someone came through the door.
Then I moved to the doorway and leaned against the wall and listened.
I could hear at least two men moving in my direction from the kitchen.
I had the advantage of knowing this house inside and out, while they had to grope in darkness, but I was outnumbered and outgunned.
Without my backup pistol or extra rounds, I had to be perfect.
And if there were more than two men, I might be walking into my own funeral.
"Check every room. He's in here somewhere."
"What about the girl?"
"Forget the girl. Markin wants him dead. That's why we're here."
I sucked in a breath and bit back the rage I felt toward Markin, knowing the angrier I got, the less I would think straight. I tried to concentrate to get a feel for exactly where they were in this dark house.
The first one came around the corner, and I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him into the study.
He was young and fast and he got a hand on my wrist before I could bring the gun up, so I drove the butt of it into his nose instead.
The crack was sharp, his head snapping back, and I grabbed the back of his skull, slamming his face into the edge of my desk. He went down hard and stayed there.
But a second one was right behind him, stalking in with his gun aimed the wrong way.
"Where you at, you fucker?" he hissed, capping off two rounds that went wide and lodged in the wall.
I didn't even hesitate to lift my weapon and fire two rounds of my own toward the direction his shots had come from, and my second one hit him. I heard him grunt and his body drop.
The man to my left, whose face I crushed on my desk, was groaning, trying to get up, but the other man had gone down hard. I turned, kicking his gun away from him and putting my heel on his arm. I pinned it to the ground.
"How many of you came in here?" I asked him, acutely aware that if I kept talking, it would lead them right to me.
"Fuck you."
I pressed harder and felt something crack under my heel. "How many?" I snarled, leaning to press the tip of my gun barrel to his head.
"Six," he gasped through his teeth. "There were six of us."
I moved back to Kira and crouched beside her. The bleeding from her head had slowed but she was still out. With only five rounds and four more men coming, my odds were getting worse.
"Stay with me," I told her, even though she couldn't hear me.
"I'm getting you out of here." Fresh anger at Markin rose in my chest, an urge to remove him from the face of this planet in violent and painful ways.
He'd sent his men to plant bombs knowing full well that his daughter was here in this house.
And had she been in bed sleeping, he'd have killed her.
How did a man like that live with himself?
When more gunfire erupted, I snapped to attention, searching for the dead man's gun in the darkness. My hands swept over the flooring, pushing glass and papers out of the way, hoping to find it and arm myself more heavily, but voices sounded over the chaos.
"Boss! Where are you?" Yakov's bellow met my ears in a symphony of relief.
I shouted back, "I'm in the study! Kira's hurt!"
Footsteps hammered up the hallway—two heavy pairs—followed by Yakov’s deep voice booming over the alarm’s screech. “Boss! Hold on, we’re coming in!”
Gunfire exploded from the kitchen end of the hall, bullets ripping into the wall just feet from the study door and sending chunks of plaster exploding inward toward me.
I dropped lower behind the desk, shielding Kira with my body while I kept my pistol trained on the doorway.
The guy I’d pinned under my boot earlier let out another groan as he tried to push himself up, and it earned him a boot to the face, hard enough to finally knock him out.
Yakov barreled through the doorway first, his massive frame creating an ominous silhouette through the smoke that grew thicker by the second.
Vlad was right on his heels, though he hovered in the doorway while Yakov stalked deeper into the room looking for me.
Vlad's gun barked as he covered their backside.
Markin wasn't playing around anymore. This direct strike was aimed at killing me, and it felt like men kept pouring into my home to do just that. I had to get Kira out of here before the whole place went up and we were caught in the fire.
“We're here,” I called out, already scooping Kira into my arms. She was dead weight, her head lolling against my shoulder, and blood still seeped slowly from the gash at her hairline.
“She's bleeding… I need to get her out of here, guys.
" At times like this, they didn’t feel like my men.
They felt like my brothers. We were family, and they fell in line, shoulder to shoulder to fight my enemies to the death to save my life if need be.
Yakov jerked his chin toward the back hallway. “Garage is still clear for now. We’ll cover you. Vlad, take point. I’ve got the rear and the stairs.”
I saw Vlad nod at me, and as I got closer, he slapped his keys into my palm. “Take my car, parked up the block. This place is going up fast." Then he raised his shirt to cover his mouth and nose as he pushed into the hallway, now thick with smoke and the flicker of flames down the hall.
"Don’t let a single one live," I told them as I cradled Kira tight against my chest and followed Vlad out of the study.
The alarm still screamed, but the roar and the heat of the fire chewed at my skin, drowning out the noise.
Yakov pushed past me, shooting cover fire up the hallway as he ushered us toward the garage.
More gunfire ripped out from the living room, chewing into the walls beside us. Vlad returned fire without breaking stride and I heard a body hit the ground. “One more down!” he shouted back at me. “That leaves three.”
My pulse hammered in my throat. Kira’s blood soaked into my shirt, and every step felt like it dragged. If she died, I’d hunt her father down myself and make it slow and agonizing while I watched him die. It would be a suffering, miserable end for him.
We cleared the side hall and Yakov kicked the garage door open, then swept the space with his rifle. “Clear!”
Vlad spun and fired behind us, snarling, "Get her out of here now," as Yakov slapped the garage door trigger, but the door wouldn't open. We had no power.
Kira bobbled limply in my arms as Yakov hefted the heavy roll-up door open and cold night air rushed in, cutting through the smoke and ash.
The clean air felt like water in a desert as I darted into the night, trying to keep my eyes peeled for any more of Markin's men, but Yakov laid down suppressive fire as we ran, covering me.
When I got to Vlad's car, I yanked the passenger door open and eased Kira onto the seat as gently as I could. I buckled her in quickly, tilting her head to the side so the blood wouldn’t pool in her throat.
Her face looked too pale, though I knew head wounds bled more than others, but I was concerned.
“Stay with me, baby,” I muttered, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. “Just a little longer. I’ve got you.”
Then I climbed into the driver's seat and fired the car up. I punched the gas and the sedan shot forward. In the rearview mirror I caught muzzle flashes lighting up the garage entrance—Yakov and Vlad still fighting back hell so I could get clear.
But now my thoughts weren't on surviving this attack.
They were on saving the woman I loved. Somehow over the past seven weeks, Kira had wormed her way into my heart, and now that she was there, she was mine.
Markin had come to harm me and anything I cared about, and it looked like he had succeeded.
But I'd die before I let him take her life.
I kept one hand locked on the wheel and dug my cracked phone out of my pocket with the other, hitting the speed dial for Dr. Keller. When he answered, I barely let him get a word in.
“Dr. Keller,” I said, “it’s Nikolai. I need you now."
"Nikolai?" he said, sounding half drugged.
"Meet me at the safe house near Central Park. Can you be there immediately?" I checked the rearview mirror, not seeing anyone following, but as I raced away, I passed three fire trucks and a few cops headed that direction.
"Give me twenty minutes," he grumbled.
"Make it ten," I ordered, then punched the End Call button and dropped the phone.
My hand rested on Kira's knee and I squeezed it.
She had to survive. And it wasn't about whether or not her father wanted revenge anymore. He was the one who'd done this to her.
No, she had to survive because I needed her, and I hadn't realized how much so until I woke up on top of her and realized I might lose her.
"Hang on, baby, I'm getting help."