Midnight Sanctuary (Bugrov Bratva #2)(72)
Before she can gather herself, the door pushes open and Nikolai walks in, catching me with my hand in the cookie jar. Alyssa gasps, pushing me away as her face turns beet red and ripping the sheets up over her lower half.
Nikolai looks pretty close to blushing himself as his eyes dart from side to side without ever landing on either Alyssa or me. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
The only one who seems remotely at ease is me. I’ve stamped my mark pretty clearly now and I’m almost glad my brother is around to see it. I lick a finger and Alyssa’s jaw drops. “Stop,” she hisses.
I ignore her and turn to Nikolai. “I thought I told you to give us some privacy.”
“If I’d known why, I’d have stayed clear, trust me,” he says awkwardly. “But this is important. Evanoff is trying to reach you. He said he called a few times but you didn’t answer.”
“Fuck,” I mutter as I pull out my phone. Sure enough, there are three missed calls from Dominik that had gone unnoticed because of my preoccupation with the red-faced temptation in front of me.
I sweep out of the room as I dial him back. Dr. Grigory is chatting with a few young nurses in the hallway, but they disperse quickly when they see me come out of the room.
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you,” Dominik intones the moment he picks up.
“I was indisposed. What’s happening?”
“I know where Boris and Artur are hiding.”
45
URI
I leave Nikolai behind with Alyssa. Pain in the ass though he may be, he’s the only person I trust to protect her the way that I would. To his credit, he doesn’t even seem disappointed to be left out of the impending fight. He takes it on the chin with a somber expression and a nod.
“Kill the bastard,” is all he says to me.
I intend to.
Dimiv and I make our way to the meeting point where Dominik said he would be waiting. Evanoff has thirty men with him, which brings our number up to ninety. Any more and we risk drawing unwanted attention from the authorities as we move around the city.
I drive my jeep up alongside Dominik’s and roll down the window. “Well?”
“We follow the road down until we reach the house. There’s open land on two sides and dense forest on the remaining two. Surrounding it is a no-go; we’re blocked off from the west point.”
I nod. “Is there a gate? Security? Cameras?”
“Low gate, nothing the trucks can’t pass over. Little in the way of exterior cameras, but the place is teeming with Sobakin soldiers. They’re on edge. Boris is in there; I have no doubt.”
I nod, licking my lips in excitement for what’s to come. “Then we go in guns blazing. I’m not interested in prisoners.”
Dominik holds up a finger. “They’re going to see us coming.”
“Let them,” I growl. “I want them to know that death is on their doorstep. Follow me. We’re going in.”
Engines rev behind me. On my count, I bark into the radio and we go ripping down the road, a tidal wave of dark-tinted cars coming down on Sobakin’s hideout like a plague. As we approach the gate, I can see the furor of his men as they start to understand what’s coming for them.
The sentries at the outermost points start scrambling for walkie-talkies or running to sniper positions. The few bullets they manage to spray in our direction go bouncing harmlessly off the armor-plated exteriors. I step on the accelerator and start speeding towards the gate.
Dimiv grabs hold of the roof handle of the jeep and braces himself for impact. We both know I’m not going to stop until we’ve blasted through that cheap piece of metal. It’s almost insulting that Sobakin would think he’s safe here. He thinks a few armed men and a five-foot gate will protect him from me?
He’ll learn soon just how wrong he was.
The few guards foolish enough to have stayed in place this long jump out of the way just in time. We crash into the gate and it shatters under my hood, its black frame splitting in two and screaming in protest as my wheels flatten it into corrugated tin.
I duck low as heavier waves of bullets start peppering the jeep. They do no more damage than the first barrage, but they do confirm that we’re into the thick of the hornet’s nest now.
I spin the jeep around, kicking up a dust storm that allows me to drive in a little further until we’re practically at the door of the modest two-storey house.
Dimiv and I pop out on the safe side and take up positions. I pick off three, four, five Sobakin soldiers when they rear their heads above the low wall lining the roof. When the coast is clear, I pick out a path up and shimmy up the gutter until I’m high enough to slip in through a second-floor window.
The room I land in is weirdly empty. Through the walls, I can hear the thump of gun recoil and the groans of men as they’re decimated by my Bratva and Dominik’s. I pause and wait with my ears perked, but it seems I’ve snuck in unnoticed.
Or at least, that’s what I thought. But as soon as I take a step toward the door to venture further into the house, it bursts open. I don’t even wait to see who I’m shooting. I raise my gun and unload a trio of shots.
Two bodies hit the ground, bleeding from new holes in their foreheads. A third man spins back out of the room with a scream.