Chapter 15 - Misha
“Everyone, take positions.” My voice cut cleanly through the comms, low and controlled, carrying across every channel without needing repetition.
I was stationed and ready, waiting for alignment from all ends to begin the attack.
Every muscle in my body was tense, and my mind was focused solely on the mission ahead of me.
I needed to be careful, and I needed to get my hands on Sidorov.
“North entrance secured,” Sera replied immediately, her tone sharp and focused.
I already knew there was no hesitation and no uncertainty in any of my girls.
Everyone had been waiting for this day for months.
The day we would finally be able to get access to one of the bigger players in the network and move forward in order to dismantle it once and for all.
And Sidorov was exactly that player.
“East perimeter clear,” Diane added, quieter but just as precise.
Both Diane and Sera were my second-in-commands in the operation, both of them just as trained as me.
Every single woman in our operation was a fighter, and if just us weren’t enough, Kliment had made sure his men were a part of the mission as well.
He too was here, but he was not forcing his way to the front, allowing me to handle things my way.
Despite that, his being there was support enough. I had faith in myself, and he had faith in me, too. That was all I needed.
“Surveillance has been looped, girls. You have a nine-minute blind window to get in and begin things without your faces coming in the picture,” came Aria’s voice through the line, calm and steady from her remote setup.
She was outside the location, sitting in a trailer with a few others, her eyes on everyone and everything.
She was our eyes and ears for the mission.
“Copy that,” I replied, my gun clasped tightly in my hands.
Nine minutes.
That was more than what we needed. I adjusted the grip on my weapon, my gaze fixed on the warehouse ahead.
It sat too still against the night, its exterior stripped of the usual chaos that clung to dock operations.
There were no stray workers around, and all evening we had sensed no loose movement.
There was no noise beyond the distant hum of water and steel.
It was too clean, and that only meant two things.
Either the players were too smart, too practiced, and too perfect to be seen, or this was nothing but a setup, and we had been fooled.
However, now that we were here, I was going to risk it all.
If it were a setup, we would pay the price, get out of here, and adopt another strategy to go forward.
And if it was not a setup, we would get exactly what we were here for.
Kliment had asked me to stay ready for anything and everything, and I was.
I exhaled slowly, steadying the instinct that told me something was off.
It was not the time to let my gut take over my mind. It was time to focus.
“We move now,” I said.
No one questioned it. No one ever did. We moved forward at last, finding the metal gates barricaded shut from the inside. That was confirmation enough that someone was inside at least. I looked for an opening, but there was none, which only meant one thing. Explosives were unnecessary.
“Katya,” I whispered into the mic.
“Yes, boss,” she replied from the other end of the warehouse.
“We have barricaded metal doors. You know what to do.”
“Copy that.”
Within seconds, Katya ran to the front, her black jacket already unzipped as she took out the explosives she was carrying.
With a motion of her hands, she asked everyone to move back, and we quietly took a few steps away from her.
She was an expert with this. It took her less than ten seconds to plant the bombs, and they exploded the moment she backed away.
“Now!” I shouted, and the girls made their way forward through the smoke and the haze.
Locks were overridden with a precision only a trained person could possess, and entry points opened like they had been waiting for us.
My team, along with Kliment’s men, flowed in behind me, shadows slipping into structure with practiced precision.
Every step was measured and every movement deliberate.
The warehouse was bigger than I could have imagined from the outside, and the silence that filled the place made me wonder if anyone had been present to even hear the bombs being used to pry open their gates.
Inside, the air hit differently. It was cold and sterile, and the usual scent of rust and decay was faint, almost masked, as if someone had gone to great lengths to erase evidence of use.
My gut immediately signaled once again, and I knew no one was here.
The place would not be this clean otherwise.
However, it was clear that whoever was here had left rather recently.
Which only meant one thing. They had known we were coming.
Fuck.
My jaw tightened slightly.
“Clear left,” Sera murmured.
“Clear right,” Diane confirmed.
“I have surveillance from inside. It seems as if no one is here,” Alina murmured, gaining access to the cameras inside the warehouse through our movement.
“Continue searching,” I barked into the comms, “We might find someone or something. Any person, any symbol, any sign, any files, or any kind of evidence. Pick up whatever you can get your hands on or anything that looks suspicious.”
A chorus of yes, boss echoed through the walls as everyone scattered.
We moved in deeper, everyone’s eyes scanning the plane now.
Crates lined the interior, stacked neatly, labeled with medical export codes that I had memorized weeks ago.
These were the same codes that had flagged inconsistencies.
The same ones tied to missing shipments.
I stepped closer to one, running my fingers briefly over the surface.
There was no symbol or marking over them. It felt as if they had never even existed in this world.
“They cleaned it,” I said quietly.
“They scrubbed everything,” Sera added, anger visible in her voice. “It seems as if they have tried to erase every single bit of evidence on purpose. Now we can’t say if they did it because they knew about our potential raid or because this is a part of their protocol.”
“They knew we were coming,” I finished. No one would go to the lengths of scrubbing away evidence otherwise. This must have taken hours.”
Everyone around me remained silent, trying to find a clue, some clue that would give us information.
“Misha,” Alina shouted from the comms, her voice panicked. “We have movement at the back exit. Run.”
“Contact, everyone to the back exit!” I shouted in turn, and a flurry of men and women immediately leaped towards it at the cue.
I turned immediately, my gaze falling on the two men who were inching the walls of the barricades to run outside.
Their tactical gear was enough to tell me that they were definitely not guards or fighters or anyone who might be a part of port logistics.
They were Sidorov’s men, and right now they were trying to flee, but it was too late.
We were already upon them.
“I want them here alive,” I ordered.
That was all the encouragement everyone needed, and all of us moved as one.
Sera cut left, intercepting the first man before he made it over the barricades.
Diane moved right, sweeping the second off his feet with brutal efficiency.
Katya and a few other girls were already upon them, weapons in their hands, holding them down before they could even think about moving again.
I closed the distance in seconds, grabbing the first man by the collar and slamming him hard against the nearest surface.
He gasped, panic flooding his expression instantly.
“Please, please, I don’t—”
“Wrong answer,” I said calmly. “Don’t act like you know nothing and have no information whatsoever because it will only take me one bullet to kill you.”
Behind me, I heard the second one struggling, muffled by Diane’s grip.
Some of Kliment’s men, including Viktor, had their grips on him, and he was handcuffed within seconds, completely immobile.
I knew this was not what I had come for, but something was better than nothing after all. I got whatever I could get.
“Bring them inside,” I ordered, and the two men were dragged inside while they continued to shout, beg, and plead for mercy. A part of me almost felt bad for them, knowing fully well that they had just been caught in the middle of war, but when you were a part of a bratva, you paid the price.
No one in this business was clean, and no one could escape cleanly either.
We didn’t move very far since interrogation didn’t require comfort.
It required efficiency. We dragged them into the center of the warehouse floor, forcing them to their knees.
Their breathing was uneven and frantic, eyes darting between us as if searching for mercy that wasn’t there.
I crouched in front of the first one, meeting his gaze directly.
“What’s your name?” He looked Russian, which was an immediate indicator that he could definitely be working for Volkov.
“Jared, but trust me, I know—”
I struck him once, forcing him to stop speaking. I was already annoyed with wasting an operation and had no time for dramatics or antics. The blow to his head was not hard enough to knock him out, but just hard enough to reset him. I wanted him to know I was in control and it would stay that way.
“Try again.”
“My name is Jared Kowski,” he choked out finally, calming down a little. It felt as if he knew there was no escape from this.
“Good,” I said softly. “Now we’re going to have a conversation, Jared.”
He shook his head rapidly. “I don’t know anything, I swear. I am just a middleman, and I had no idea the warehouse was shutting down and people were leaving. I just came to check up on a few ship—”