Chapter 36
CHAPTER 36
ARTEM
T he silence of the estate shattered with the sharp crack of gunfire.
The sound jolted me from my sleep. Instinctively, I reached for Viktoria, but she wasn't there.
She should have been in bed next to me, fast asleep, but she was gone. My heart pounded as more shots were fired.
I grabbed the pistol that was fixed to the bottom of the bedside table and checked that it was loaded.
First, I had to find Viktoria; I had to get her safe, secured, and then I would deal with the intruders.
My phone buzzed on the table. I grabbed it to see a message from Gregor.
Gregor: The compound has been compromised.
No shit.
Gregor: Damien says there is a guard they paid off, so they got past all of security until they reached the house you're in. I'm sending backup, once the others are secured.
I didn't bother with getting dressed.
After dinner, Viktoria and I had more wine and talked late into the night.
When I brought her to bed, she was more than a little tipsy.
So instead of ending the night deep inside her like I planned, I slid on a pair of sweatpants and just held her while she slept.
Now she was gone, and this house was compromised.
Keeping her safe was my top priority, and I had failed.
I moved silently across the bedroom, praying to any god that would listen that she was in the bathroom.
Finally, someone above was paying attention.
I opened the bathroom door to a disheveled and scared Viktoria.
"What was that noise?" she asked, even though she knew. Her eyes were wide and scared, her fists balled in the hem of the oversized T-shirt I had put on her to sleep in. Even now there was something so satisfying about seeing her wear my shirt.
I placed my finger on my lips to tell her to be silent as I grabbed her hand.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked in a hushed, tense voice.
I didn't answer her. There wasn't time to talk this out and ask her what she would like to do. I needed her to be quiet and to understand. She wanted information, she wanted to fight, and I just didn't have the time to give either to her.
Viktoria needed to understand that when I had the luxury of time, I would explain my decisions to her. When I didn't, she needed to follow orders and trust that I would give her an explanation when it was time.
I pulled her back into the bedroom, opening the massive walk-in closet. She fought me harder, but I didn't care. With the hand that still held the gun, I moved aside a picture frame and typed in the security code.
This was why I had chosen this room to be the master. The rooms upstairs had better views, more luxurious bathrooms with soaking tubs and even sitting areas I knew Viktoria would have loved.
However, this was the bedroom that had the closet with the faux back that held the panic room.
"What are you doing? We need to call the police, we need to—" Her words were cut off when I pushed her into the small room. It was large enough to hold a small table and provisions if she needed. Best of all—it could only be opened from the outside.
She tried to push her way out, but I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her close.
"I'll come and get you as soon as it's clear."
"And what if you're dead?"
"The second I lock the door, Gregor's security team will be notified that someone is in the safe room. If I die, they'll come get you."
She opened her mouth to say something else, so I kissed her hard on the mouth.
I kissed her like it was the last time I'd ever get a taste of the indignation on her sweet lips.
I poured every ounce of love I had for this woman into it.
"Let me protect you, princess," I said, pressing my forehead to hers when I broke the kiss. "I can't fight these men if I don't know you are safe. Please stay here."
I didn't know how many men were downstairs. I didn't know how quickly backup would get to me. My cousins had to secure their families before they could come help me. While my brothers should have still been on the compound, Marina was Kostya's priority, and I had no idea if Pavel was even here.
She gave me a loaded look that told me she had so many things to say and she was not happy. But she took a step back, her arms crossed over her chest as she sat on the wooden chair.
"Thank you," I said with relief as I closed the heavy iron door and tapped in the code to lock it.
Now that she was secure, I had business to attend to.
There were more pops of gunfire in the house, probably against the men that I had guarding it, and maybe even the first round of help from Gregor's men.
I sucked in a deep breath, pushing down my fear for Viktoria, my anxiety for what could happen, and the anger at myself for telling Gregor's men to kill Solovyov's men on the property, knowing they would track their phones.
Then I pushed down the white fiery rage at the intruders' audacity in attacking the Ivanov family in their own home.
Some men swore rage made them more effective. I said it made men stupid. If I let my rage overcome me, then I would focus on a single target while another came at me from the side. No, I didn't need fiery rage. I needed cold, still, calm.
With my heart beating steadily, I grabbed another gun from the bedroom and put another magazine of rounds in the pocket of my sweatpants. They'd be looking for me, and it wasn't going to take them long to make it to this room. I'd be damned if I was going to let them get that close to Viktoria.
I stalked out of the bedroom, not bothering to duck for cover before I needed it. They ruined any chance for stealth, so they knew I was coming.
Ready or not, here I come, fuckers.
I was halfway down the hall when a man in a black ski mask turned the corner and I placed a bullet between his eyes.
Two more followed, and I dropped them just as quickly.
There were shouts. Someone must have realized I was fighting back. The loud crack of my GSh-18 semi-automatic pistol was not the same hollow pop pop of the semi-automatic rifles they had chosen.
I knelt down next to one of the bodies and examined their weapon. A cheap rifle that could be bought at any American discount chain. Theirs would use almost an entire clip of spray and pray to take down a single person. My rounds would pierce their armor in a single shot if I ever bothered with a body shot.
Ripping the mask off, the assailant's appearance confirmed my suspicions.
The assailant was a boy, no older than twenty-three, with symbols of the local gang tattooed on his neck.
This was Solovyov's doing, but he wasn't using his own men.
He had hired these men as cannon fodder. He wasn't trying to kill us. There was no way these men were going to win, and he didn't mean for them to.
He was trying to distract us…fuck.
Shaking my head, I covered the man's face again. I felt bad for them. I really did. They had all signed their own death warrants, and for nothing. Solovyov wasn't the kind of man who even had the decency to make sure the people these men left behind got their pay.
My sympathies went out to them, but it changed nothing. They had broken into my home and put my woman in danger. They could not be allowed to live.
The shouts got closer. There were at least two men running this way, maybe more. I got up and pressed myself to the wall and waited. Letting them come to me was the easiest way. They were untrained and had cheap weapons, but I was still outnumbered.
"He has to be back this way. I heard he was seen with a new bitch, I want first when we run a train on that?—"
He turned the corner and I put a bullet in his throat before he could finish his sentence.
It only took this one cocky shit for any sympathy I had for these men to die. He fell to the floor, his hands going to his throat to stop the spray of blood with every breath he failed to take.
Another man ran up behind him and completely froze. The untrained moron stopped and stared, watching like he didn't understand how his friend was shot.
Fuck, maybe I was doing the gene pool a favor. I shot that one in the chest, one bullet clean in the heart, an instant death, an honorable one. Not that he deserved it.
I waited a beat and when I didn't hear more footsteps running after them, I stepped around the corner out of my cover, kicking the guns away from the one I was leaving to bleed out. The mouthy one was still gasping for breath, so I bent down, pulling the mask off his face so I could look into his eyes.
"Soldiers, even ones who don't belong in the war, get an honorable death. Assholes who talk shit and threaten to rape my woman get to bleed out slow, and suffer."
There was genuine fear in his eyes as I locked down all of my emotion again and continued on my path.
There were several men in the foyer, all dead. Two of my men and four of Solovyov's cannon fodder. Once this was over, our dead would be tended to, his would be disposed of.
The front door was still closed, locked even. They hadn't come through there. That left only two options. The back door from the patio was one, but unless they took a rowboat or something to cross the lake, that was unlikely. They must have come in through the tunnels.
Shit.
There were several tunnels, and each had multiple winding paths. Solovyov wouldn't have wanted to leave it to chance. He would have hired enough men to follow them all, payment upon completion of the job, of course. As if any of them were going to live.
Still, it meant this home wasn't the only one breached. I was on my own. I checked the magazine again. This one had another thirteen shots. Then one more magazine, so that was thirty-one, plus the other gun. I had forty-nine shots, that had to be enough.
A loud crash sounded in the dining room. Pressing myself against the wall, I crept to the swinging double door and pushed it open just a crack. There were five of them I could see. Two of them were throwing the porcelain plates, smashing them to shards against the wall and floor. Completely ransacking the place.
Did they think anyone would believe this was a simple home invasion? They must have.
Another one was breaking crystal glassware, one was pilfering all the silver, and the last was sampling all my liquor before grabbing a few thousand-dollar bottles of wine and putting them in his bag.
Whatever Solovyov wasn't going to pay them, it must not have been enough.
The temptation to say something cocky before opening fire was definitely there, but I was outnumbered and I had no idea how many others were in the house.
This wasn't fun, this was work.
I fired three shots in quick succession, first killing the two that were smashing plates and then the one who was about to put his dirty thieving hands on a bottle of Russian vodka. It was becoming increasingly difficult to get the good shit into the States beyond Customs, and I didn't want to have to pay another bribe.
The other two stopped, staring at me for a second and then scrambled to get to their guns.
I fired another two shots into each of their chests.
More voices called out, more were coming. It sounded like a lot.
The dining room that was once the portrait of elegance and charm was now ransacked. Broken dishes and bottles littered the floor, there were bullet holes in the walls and even the windows had been smashed, from the inside.
I had a feeling it was going to get a lot worse.
There was no more sneaking around, no more catching any of them off guard. It was time to make a stand and have the pigs come straight to the slaughter.
I grabbed the bottle of vodka, unscrewed the top and took a long swig before knocking over the dining room table, glass shards, china, and wood splintering and shattering. Then I grabbed one of the legs and pulled the table over to a wall, creating a makeshift foxhole.
This wouldn't have done shit if Solovyov had sent his men, but this solid oak table was more than capable of withstanding the toys these untrained children were armed with. Hell, the table might still be usable after this.
The first one ran in screaming like Rambo, shooting his gun in a rapid-fire hail of bullets that mostly embedded into the ceiling, sending plaster dust raining down. The fool was just swinging it all over the place.
I ducked behind the table and waited ten seconds for him to burn through the entire clip.
The second that telling click sounded, I popped up and shot him. He may have been the first in the room, but he wasn't the last. The second I popped up, more bullets came flying, this time toward me. Most of them missed.
Most of them.
I took a hit in my upper arm. It stung like a bitch, but I still had my full range of motion.
One of them was almost smart…almost.
While I was exchanging fire on one side, he ducked low and made his way to the other side of the table, flanking me as I reloaded. Too bad he didn't count on my second gun.
One more head shot, but not before he got in a shot of his own.
This one grazed deep into my side. Fucker. At least it didn’t penetrate my stomach. Stomach wounds were the worst. They were messy and if the bullet hit the intestine, the chances of dying from infection went up significantly. It was a slow and painful way to go.
I couldn’t let them get off any more shots.
Viktoria needed me alive.
For her I would live, though I would die before I admitted to Gregor that I now understood his change in priorities.
I slid the second magazine into place and got my feet under me, still crouched down behind the table. The bullet wound in my upper arm hurt like a bitch, but it was nothing compared to the one in my side. I was bleeding from both, far too much.
A man with less to lose would have stayed down, waited them out from behind cover, picking them off one by one and praying help got there in time.
I had something to lose that was far more valuable than my life.
Her life.
I stood and started firing one after the other, watching them all drop. I didn't stop until all of them were dead and I had to lean on the table to stay steady.
The sound of wood splintering echoed through the destroyed room. I sagged, exhaustion dragging me down, not sure how much more I could take. I only had three shots left in one gun, two in the other.
If I had to grab a piece-of-shit rifle to kill them all, that was what I was going to do. I might die, but I was going to take all those motherfuckers down with me.
"Artem, you alive?" Kostya called, and I sighed with relief.
Backup was here. I just needed to make sure none of them had gotten to Viktoria.
"Holy fuck, what happened here?" Pavel said, coming into the room, looking at the bodies littering the floor. "What are you, John Wick?"
"They were untrained and poorly armed, but yes," I answered, unsteady on my feet. "You should see what I can do with a pencil."
Kostya let out a low whistle. "No doubt, brother."
"You need medical," Pavel said.
I held up my hand to stop him from rushing to me. "Clear the house first. And the tunnels."
He looked at me for a moment like he was going to argue, then nodded. "Fine, but you stay here. Mikhail is on his way."
The second they left, I went the other way, heading for the master bedroom.
It took me far too long to reach it, and the room was spinning around me, so it took two tries to type in the code. When I had the door open, Viktoria stood there, tears streaming down her face.
"My god, Artem!" she screamed, rushing to me.
Her hands fluttered over my wounds, pressing hard against the one in my side. Blood soaked between her fingers—my blood—but she didn't pull away.
Her face, always defiant, was twisted with something I'd never seen before.
Fear. Not for herself, but for me.
"Don't you dare die," she commanded, her voice thick with emotion. "Don't you dare leave me."
Those words hit harder than any bullet.
In her panic, in the heat of the moment, she'd revealed more than all our conversations ever had.
Not Stockholm syndrome. Not manipulation. Something real.
I slumped against the doorframe, my strength fading from me, blood pooling at my feet. My response was weak but resolute. "You're safe…that's all that matters."
"No, it's not all that matters, you stubborn bastard," she sobbed, pressing harder against my wounds. "I can't lose you. I won't."
I collapsed under my own weight.
I had lost too much blood.
My eyes never left hers as darkness crept in around the edges of my vision.
If I was going to die, then as long as the last thing I ever saw was her eyes—filled with tears for me, caring for me despite everything—I would die a fortunate man.