14. Sergey
SERGEY
I wake up face-down in the mud, the taste of blood and wet ash mixing on my tongue.
My left arm is numb. My right leg is on fire, or maybe that’s just what pain feels like after you run out of ways to describe it. The only thing that tells me I’m not dead is the cadence of my own heartbeat thudding in my throat.
I push up onto my good elbow. The grass is a muddy mess, slicked with rain and engine oil, stinking of burnt insulation and meat. Behind me, the safehouse is a blackened shell.
The fire must have finished its work hours ago—the windows are just empty holes and smoke still bleeds out in slow ribbons.
For a second, I think I might be alone. Then I spot Mikhail, twenty paces away, propped against a chunk of collapsed porch.
His shirt is soaked through with blood, and his face is pale, but his eyes are open.
He’s got a strip of cloth jammed into the wound on his shoulder, knuckles white where he presses down on it.
“Misha,” I croak. My voice comes out like ground glass.
He looks at me, and there’s no relief, just a slow blink like a reptile waking up after a long freeze. “You look like shit.”
“Likewise,” I say. I mean it as a joke, but Mikhail doesn’t smile.
I force myself to my feet and stagger over to him. Every inch I move, my body argues with itself. By the time I reach him, I’m shaking so bad I have to drop to my knees.
“Did you see her?”
I shake my head, then regret it as the world spins.
“They took her,” he says. “Saw her face in the window as they shoved her into a car.”
I close my eyes for a second, then open them again. “How many?”
“Two at least. Maybe more.”
I remember things through a haze. Veronica’s scream, the crack of gunfire, the hot rush of smoke as the house came down around us.
Mikhail tries to stand and grits his teeth as he pushes himself upright. “We have to move,” he says.
I want to tell him to rest, but there’s no time for that. We’re on borrowed time already. I stagger up next to him, using the burned-out porch post for leverage.
For a long minute, we just stand there, breathing. The rain comes down in lazy drops, each one sizzling when it hits the scorched wood.
“We need a name,” Mikhail says. “A location. Something to chase.”
I nod. “They didn’t kill all their own. Some of those motherfuckers ran when the fire started.”
He glances at me, then at the woods behind the safehouse. “Can you walk?”
“Do I have a choice?”
He doesn’t answer, just limps toward the tree line, one hand pressed to his shoulder, the other on a pistol he must have grabbed from one of our attackers.
The woods behind the house are a mess—broken branches, muddy divots, shell casings everywhere.
Blood trails in the grass, some of it fresh, some already turning black in the cold.
We follow the red, step by step, until we hear it: a wet, ragged breathing, the kind a man makes when he’s trying not to die.
I see him first, huddled behind a fallen tree. His jacket is torn, one arm dangling at a sick angle, his thigh, just above his knee, is soaked in blood. He sees us coming and tries to raise his gun, but he’s too slow. I kick it out of his hand, and it skitters into the mud.
I grab him by the collar and haul him upright. His face is pockmarked and mean, but there’s no fight left in him. Just terror and pain.
Mikhail crouches in front of him, voice as flat as a blade. “Where did they take her?”
The man spits blood. He says something in Russian, too fast for me to catch.
“Try again,” I snarl, and twist his broken arm until he howls.
Mikhail doesn’t even blink. “The estate. Orlov’s estate. Where is it?”
The man shakes his head, lips pulled back in a snarl. “You kill me anyway.”
“Maybe,” I say, and grind my thumb into the bullet wound on his thigh. He screams, and I keep the pressure until he starts to whimper like an animal.
Mikhail leans closer. “You tell us, and I’ll make it quick.”
The man believes him. They always do.
“North. Past the old mill, then west. High wall. Iron gate.” He gulps for air. “Many guards. No way in.”
Mikhail nods, memorizes it, then stands. I let go of the man’s arm. He falls back, panting.
“Anything else?” I ask.
He laughs, a hollow sound. “She’s a pretty little thing— Looks like an angel— Not for long.”
That does something to my insides. For a second, I want to rip his throat out with my teeth, but I settle for picking up his gun. He bares bloodied teeth at me, and I shoot without blinking.
Mikhail looks at me. “We move now,” he says.
I nod, shove the gun into the holster at my back, wipe the blood from my knuckles, and turn back toward the road.
It takes us fifteen minutes to get to the car. By the time we get there, my leg is numb and every breath is a chore. Mikhail doesn’t look any better, but he keeps going.
Inside the car, the windows are fogged and the seats are wet. I pull out the soldier’s phone, thumb through the contacts. There’s a thread of texts, most in code, but one stands out:
New rotation at dawn. Perimeter change. Be ready.
I show it to Mikhail. His mouth twists, but he doesn’t say anything.
“We don’t have much time,” I say.
He nods.
I start the car. The engine rattles, but it turns over. I gun it down the ruined driveway, past the corpse of the safehouse, and out into the night.
I glance at Mikhail. His eyes are forward, fixed on the road, blood leaking down his arm.
“We going to make it?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer for a long time. Then: “We don’t have to. We just have to finish it.”
That’s good enough for me.
The first glimpse of Orlov’s estate is the top of a limestone wall, pale as a gravestone against the predawn dark.
The rain’s gone, but the air is thick and so full of humidity it makes my gun hand slick.
Every step out of the car hurts, but I keep moving.
Mikhail is behind me, limping but silent.
He doesn’t let the pain show, not when it matters.
A makeshift bandage is tied tight around his shoulder to keep pressure on the wound. He got lucky. We both did.
But that luck feels like it’s running out.
We ditch the car under a line of poplars, tuck it deep into the trees, so no patrol will spot it from the drive.
The estate is a quarter mile away, but it feels closer.
The wall circles the whole compound, iron spiked at the top, floodlights at the corners.
A black iron gate blocks the only road in or out—two guards with body armor and subguns stand on either side.
Through the fence I can see the mansion: three stories, stone and glass, lit up at every window like a ship about to sink.
We move in parallel, using the tree line as cover.
The mud sucks at my boots. The bullet that hit my thigh punched clean through and left a shallow channel behind, every move scrapes against it.
I should have tied something over it. Later.
It’s not bleeding for now, and I need my full range of motion if we’re going to get past these bastards.
Mikhail moved his shoulder, easing up the bandage just a little for the same reason.
We watch the guards for five minutes. They don’t move, except to light cigarettes and talk. I can’t hear them, but I can tell from the body language that they’re bored.
Good. Bored men die easiest.
Mikhail gives me the signal. We move along the wall, keeping to the blind spot where two floodlights leave a patch of darkness.
He boosts me up. My hands slip once on the rain-slick stone, but I make it, dig my fingers into the mortar and haul myself up.
At the top, the iron spikes are cold enough to make my skin ache.
I wedge my boots in the gap and reach back for him.
Mikhail climbs one-armed, the wound in his shoulder bleeding anew. He never makes a sound. At the top, we straddle the wall and drop on the other side. It’s a clean ten-foot fall. I land hard, ankle screaming, but I keep my feet. Mikhail rolls and comes up crouched, gun out.
The grounds are a chessboard of gravel paths and clipped grass, with little squares of garden and stone benches.
We stick to the shadows and move fast. The house looms at the center and floodlights wash the facade in white.
I count three more guards on the lawn, two walking the perimeter, one smoking by the garden shed.
We’re not even halfway to the house when the first one spots us.
He’s quick, I’ll give him that—his gun is up, and he barks orders before I can even move.
But Mikhail is quicker. He fires from the hip and the guard drops, windmilling arms and all.
The sound of the suppressed shot is flat, almost disappointing.
The other guards turn, see their buddy on the ground, and it’s over.
We go loud.
I sprint at the closest one, tackle him into the gravel, and put my fist into his mouth until his jaw gives way.
His gun clatters out of reach, but he’s not even fighting.
Mikhail takes the next one down with two shots—one to the knee, one to the face.
The perimeter guards are running now, yelling into radios.
I pick up the dead man’s subgun, check the mag, and spray the next two shapes coming around the shed. They drop instantly, one of them folding like a bad deck of cards.
Mikhail clears the rest of the garden and starts to move up the path toward the house. He doesn’t look back to see if I’m following, but I’m not far behind him.
At the gate, the original two guards are standing by the intercom, shouting and gesturing. Mikhail’s picked up another gun. He lines up the first shot, drops one, then the other. Their bodies hit the stone like sacks of wet concrete.
We’re exposed now. No more point in being quiet.
“Move!” Mikhail hisses, and we sprint for the house. The doors are glass, but bulletproof—I find that out the hard way when the first burst I send at them just spiderwebs the surface.
Mikhail points left, and I know what he means: side entrance. Maybe the kitchen, probably the servant’s wing.
We run for it as rounds slam into the ground behind us, chewing up gravel and bits of limestone. I take cover behind a planter, head low.
Mikhail swings around the corner, fires twice, and the shooting stops.
We hit the side door in tandem. It’s unlocked—rich people never believe the bad guys will come to their back door.
The kitchen is sterile, white marble and chrome. There’s no one inside.
We move fast, guns up, clear the pantry, the staff corridor, a laundry room full of wet uniforms. The whole time, my heart is jackhammering in my chest. Every time I breathe, my ribs stab me from the inside.
We reach the main hall. It’s bigger than any room I’ve ever been in, floors of black marble polished to a mirror shine. Oil paintings on every wall, real ones, the kind you see in museums. There’s a chandelier the size of a small car.
Veronica would hate this place. Or maybe she wouldn’t.
I realize I have no idea what she would want.
At the far end of the hall, a double staircase curves up to a balcony. Two men stand at the top, both in body armor, rifles braced on the banister. I duck behind a column as they open up, rounds hammer into the marble just above my head.
Mikhail slides along the opposite wall, moving fast, to draw their fire.
He pops up, fires three shots, and drops one of the men.
The second one keeps shooting, but I’m already moving, low and fast across the open floor.
I make it to the bottom of the stairs, wait for the pause in fire, then bolt up the left side.
The shooter leans out to see where I went, and I take his leg out with a burst. He goes down hard and his gun clatters down the steps.
I finish the climb, check the landing. All clear. Mikhail is already at the top, reloading. His left hand is soaked in blood, but he doesn’t even look at it.
We move down the corridor, doors on both sides. I kick the first one in—bedroom, empty. Next one: office, bookshelves, a desk with a laptop open and still running. There’s a phone on the desk. I take it, just in case.
More footsteps from the end of the hall. Four men, two abreast, moving like they know what they’re doing. I glance at Mikhail. He grins, a flash of teeth, and we both open fire at the same time.
It’s close quarters. The air fills with cordite and dust and bits of plaster.
I go dry on the subgun, toss it, switch to my pistol.
The first two drop, the third is hit but keeps coming.
He barrels into me, slams me into the wall.
I grab him by the head and slam it into the crown molding, once, twice, until he stops moving.
Mikhail takes the last one with a knife—clean, fast, straight under the chin. He leaves the body twitching on the floor.
We clear the rest of the hall, but there’s no sign of Veronica.
My adrenaline is burning out, replaced by a sick, dizzy panic. I check every room, every closet. Nothing. The place is empty except for the corpses we’ve left behind.
Mikhail is breathing hard now, the blood loss catching up to him. He leans against the wall, head down.
I shout, “Veronica!” The name echoes down the marble, bounces back to me as if the house is mocking us.
I wipe blood from my face. My hands are shaking, but not from fear. I don’t have any left. I look at Mikhail, and for the first time, he looks scared.