29. Victor
VICTOR
Danika and I move through the villa's lower level quickly and quietly, our footsteps barely audible. The corridor ahead is dimly lit by flickering overhead bulbs. The air smells of gunpowder and blood that's already been spilled.
We're about halfway down when I stop us.
"What?" she asks, looking around.
I undo my bulletproof vest. "I forgot I had this on," I say, taking it off. "Come here."
She doesn't move, so I approach her and put it on her.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
"I'm giving this to you so you live."
"What about you?"
"Well, you better cover me then," I say and help her strap it on.
"Does it feel okay?"
She nods and looks up at me. "You sure?"
I nod. "This all falls apart if anything happens to you, Danika."
We hear noise, and I nod and gently stroke her cheek. Then we start moving again.
I glance at Danika as we approach a junction.
She's pressed against the left wall, her gun raised, eyes scanning ahead.
I mirror her position on the right, my pistol steady in my grip.
We move without speaking, our communication reduced to subtle hand gestures and quick eye contact.
She holds up two fingers, then points right. I nod.
Two guards ahead.
She waits, letting me take the lead. I move first, stepping around the corner in one motion. The first guard is glancing back, his attention focused on something farther down the hall. I fire twice, and the silenced shots punch through his skull. He drops without a sound.
The second guard turns, his eyes widening, but Danika is already there. She fires a short, loud burst, and the man's chest explodes in red. He collapses backward, his weapon clattering to the floor.
I glance at Danika, and we're already moving, stepping over the bodies without hesitation. We continue scanning for movement. My pulse is steady, and my adrenaline sharpens my focus rather than clouding it.
Besides my brothers, I've never moved with someone like this. I like it.
"How many do you think are left?"
"Too many," I say, reloading my pistol. The empty magazine clatters to the floor, and I slam a fresh one home.
Danika drops her gun and picks up one of the weapons from the recently deceased men, along with his extra magazines.
We continue moving and reach the stairs.
She glances at me.
"Up we go," she says.
We move up the stairs, and I feel a bit nervous as the walls feel like they're caving in on us. If someone appears in the doorway, we don't have anywhere to go.
We make it to the top, and I pop my head out.
"Anything?" she asks.
I shake my head. "Empty."
"He's still here," she says.
I nod and move out into the kitchen area. Danika follows behind me, our guns sweeping the area.
"Stay here," I say and come out of the kitchen into a living area.
I look around and motion for Danika to come.
We keep moving, and suddenly, the area around a large column to our left erupts with noise. Footsteps, shouts, the metallic click of weapons being readied.
I spin around, my gun rising. Men are advancing, their weapons raised, their faces twisted into angry scowls.
"Down!" I shout, grabbing Danika's arm and pulling her behind a concrete pillar.
We move simultaneously, breaking from cover. I go right, firing as I move. One man drops, then another. I press my back against the wall to reload as Danika takes out another guy.
Two left.
I drop my empty magazine. But before I can slam a fresh one home, a heavy boot kicks it out of my hand.
A guard flanks me, raising his rifle point-blank at my chest.
I don't have time to think. I lunge, grabbing the hot barrel of his rifle and shoving it upward just as it fires into the ceiling. We grapple, slamming hard into the wall. I throw an elbow into his throat, but he's massive, his hands reaching for my neck.
Suddenly, a loud gunshot echoes from the left.
The guard goes limp, dropping his rifle. I turn and see Danika standing entirely out of cover, her gun still raised. She saved me. But the last remaining guard pivots, leveling his weapon at her exposed position.
He fires.
Danika cries out, her body jerking violently backward as she hits the floor.
"Danika!" I yell, and the world goes blood-red. I snatch the dead man's rifle from the ground, pivot toward the shooter, and squeeze the trigger over and over. My bullets slam into him, knocking him back until he crashes face-first into the door I know Dimitri is behind.
I drop to my knees beside her.
"Are you hit? Are you hit?" I ask, my voice ragged.
She doesn't respond immediately. She's flat on her back, her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth open in a silent, desperate gasp for air.
Panic seizes my chest. I check the Kevlar and find a compressed bullet lodged deep in the fabric, right below her right breast. The impact didn't penetrate, but I'm sure it hurt.
"Jesus," I breathe, knocking the hot slug away.
Danika finally sucks in a painful breath, coughing as her lungs get the air they need.
"Good thing... you gave me... that vest, huh?" she says, wheezing.
I help her sit up, but she winces sharply, clutching her ribs with a groan. "I think he might have cracked a rib," she breathes, forcing herself to her feet with my help.
For the first time in a long time, I'm at a loss for words. If something had happened, I would never have been able to live with myself.
We take a moment to look around, and I notice my left arm stings. I glance down to see blood seeping through my shirt. A bullet has grazed me, nothing serious, just a hot, sharp sting that I barely registered in the heat of the firefight.
"Cutting it close here, Victor," she says, looking at my graze.
"Too fucking close."
She nods. "Come on."
We step over the bodies, our attention on the door in front of us.
"Now what?" she asks as we move forward. "Should we knock?"
I smile at her. "I have an idea."
"I am not climbing through anything," Danika says.
"No, I'm going to storm in holding up our dead friend here," I say, pointing down at the man lying lifeless against the door, "and disarm Dimitri."
"That's crazy," she says as I bend down to lift the guy up.
"I know, but I thought you liked that about me."
She rolls her eyes. "Everything goes right to your head, huh?"
I shrug as I grab the dead man's pistol and then grunt as I lift him.
"What should I do?" she asks.
"For the love of God, shoot the door open. This fucker is heavy."
She steps back, aiming at the lock, and fires. She then kicks the door inward, and I charge through, holding the corpse up like a shield.
The dead man's body jerks as two bullets slam into it from Dimitri's gun. I shove the body forward, dropping it to the floor, and raise my pistol. I fire once, hitting Dimitri square in the shoulder.
He howls, dropping his weapon and falling to his knees.
I step forward to finish him, pulling the trigger again.
Click.
The gun jams.
Dimitri sees it.
Clutching his bleeding shoulder, he scrambles backward across the floor of what looks like a high-end home gym, desperately reaching for his dropped gun with his good hand. I can't unjam it in time.
But Danika steps into the doorway, raises her pistol, and fires a single shot into the floorboard, an inch from Dimitri's reaching fingers.
"Don't even think about it," she says, breathing heavily through her cracked ribs.
Dimitri freezes, his eyes wide with terror as he cowers against a weight bench like a rat.
"Didn't mean to disrupt your workout," I say, stepping farther into the room and unjamming my gun.
Danika moves beside me, her gun raised, her expression cold.
Dimitri looks at Danika and starts speaking in rapid Russian, his words tumbling over each other in a desperate attempt to save his life.
I don't understand any of it, but I can tell he's begging, pleading.
I assume he's trying to leverage her loyalty to the Bratva, to Ivan, to anything that might save his worthless life.
Danika's expression doesn't change. She stares at him with the same indifference she showed the men we killed in the hallway.
I step forward, cutting off his words. "Shut the fuck up," I say, my voice dark and commanding. "You are no longer allowed to speak to her."
Dimitri flinches, his mouth snapping shut. He clutches his bleeding shoulder, his body trembling.
I begin to pace around him, my gun never wavering. My anger is a living thing now, coiling in my chest, tightening with every step.
"I've been waiting for this," I say and look at him. "Let's talk about what you've done."
He doesn't try to speak. He just looks at me and then shifts his attention to Danika.
"There's the Siberian Ice," I say, breaking his focus on her. "Human trafficking. The shadow empire you built under your brother's nose, using his name, his reputation, and his resources since you can't do it alone."
Dimitri stiffens at this and spits blood on the floor next to him. "Just business."
I stop pacing, my jaw tightening. "Business?" I repeat. "Just business?"
"Yes," Dimitri says, his voice growing stronger. "Your father knew. Nicolae Ionescu funded half of it for that girl. You think your family is innocent? You're all the same. We're all the same."
I feel the rage bubbling up, threatening to crack the control I've maintained thus far, but I force it down.
"That girl's name is Elena," I say. "My brother's fiancée. The woman your son kidnapped, drugged, and did God knows what else to."
Dimitri looks at me. "That wasn't me, and besides, you took payment for that. You killed my son."
"Damn right we did," I say. "It was my brother Adrian, actually, who had the honor."
"Fuck Adrian and fuck you," Dimitri says, finding his courage.
I walk over and kick him hard in the ribs. He gasps, doubling over, his body curling in on itself.
"You took the money," I say, kicking him again. "You drugged women and sold them," I continue, kicking him again. "You let your son, Maxim, do whatever he wanted to Elena."
I bend down and stare at him, holding back from killing him because it would be too easy. "And then you tried to kill my family by letting your own brother think we were the aggressors."
I strike him with the butt of my gun. A gash appears over his left eye and starts bleeding.
Dimitri looks at me as he sits up, blood trickling down. "Please," he says. "I can fix this. I can make it right. Give your family whatever you want."
I stare down at him, my finger resting lightly on the trigger. "No," I say. "You can't."
I raise my gun, aiming at his other shoulder, and fire.
Dimitri screams, his body convulsing as the bullet tears through his joint. He collapses back onto the floor, his cries filling the space.
He turns his head toward Danika, his eyes wild with desperation. He starts speaking again, his words a frantic jumble of Russian.
She laughs.
"What did he say?" I ask, looking at her.
"He'll give me anything I want if I help him. He'll forget all about this if he lives," she says, not looking at me, just keeping her eyes fixed on Dimitri.
I look back at Dimitri as he slowly bleeds out, his frantic pleas to Danika falling on deaf ears.
After a few moments, I look back at Danika, and then she looks at me, her blue eyes meeting mine.
She nods and raises her gun, aiming at Dimitri. "Together?" she asks, her voice calm.
I walk up beside her, my gun raised at that piece of shit on the ground. "Like everything from now on, Danika."
We both fire.
The synchronized shots tear into Dimitri, his body jerking violently before going still. Blood pools beneath him, spreading across the floor in a dark red puddle.
I take another step and empty the rest of my magazine into his body, each shot a release of the pent-up rage I've carried for weeks.
For Elena.
For Adrian.
For my family.
When the slide locks back, the empty clicking noise is the only thing I can hear.
I stand over Dimitri's ruined body, my chest heaving, my arm throbbing. The rage is gone now, replaced by a hollow sense of relief.
It's over.
I lower my gun and look over at Danika.
"Let's get the hell out of here. You ready?" I ask.
She lowers her weapon and smiles, a beautiful, relaxed expression amid the blood and destruction.
"With you, I always am," she says.