Nikolai is the first one of my men through the gates. His grin is lit up by the moonlight, white and excited. “Nice work, brother,” he calls ahead.
But I’m frowning. Something prickles at me. Something wrong in my math, my approach. I’m wracking my brain, trying to figure out what it—
Wait.
Didn’t Stepan say there were four guards at the main entrance? I’ve killed one, two, three…
I turn in time to see the forgotten guard sprinting into the house.
“Blyat’，” I growl. “He’s going to alert them all. Let’s go!”
We’re racing towards the house when I see the windows overhead being opened. “Take cover!” I roar. But my voice is drowned out by the scream of gunshots.
In the midst of all the chaos, I hear a high, shrill scream.
Her scream.
Polly.
33
URI
Only one question matters now: did I come this far just to watch her die?
The answer is obvious.
Hell.
Fucking.
No.
With my heart in my throat, I follow my sister’s scream, charging as fast as I can through the house in search of her.
My men fan out around me, covering me while I sprint up to the second floor. A man runs out from behind a door, taking me by surprise, and I just barely manage to elbow him in the face. I hear the crunch of cartilage and he falls backwards onto his spine.
I bend down and press my gun against his forehead as I snarl, “Talk or you die. Where the fuck is your boss?”
His eyes are wide with terror. “Down the hall! The last room on your right.”
“Good man.” I give him an approving nod and then pull the trigger. He flops backwards, his blood spilling out onto the wool carpet.
I’m tearing down the hallway when another pair of men emerge from a room on the left. I dodge a bullet by a hair’s breadth and answer back in kind. My shot misses the first soldier but it hits the second one in the chest.
I’m turning to get a better line of attack on the lead man when another scream distracts me.
“Aargh! No!”
My blood goes cold. Polly. It’s definitely her. I’m so close—but there’s still one bastard rushing at me and two others following behind him. They’re like ants pouring out of the woodwork, endless and inhuman.
I feint to the side and get my bare hands on the man closest. I twist him around and use him as a human shield. He twitches spastically as he takes a hail of bullets that was meant for me. When the onslaught stops so the shooters can reload, I make my move.
One falls to a bullet of mine. Another catches my elbow in his windpipe and flails backwards as he struggles to draw in a breath he’ll never catch. The third, when he rises up to take aim again, gets my knife hurled into his open mouth.
Dead. Dead. Dead.
But it’s not enough. Not fast enough, not soon enough, not enough enough—because I still don’t have Polly.
I leave the corpses behind and keep rushing down the hallway in the direction of her scream. The last door is closed. I put my shoulder into it, but it doesn’t yield. So I back up, unload a clip into the locking mechanism, and then try again.
This time, it gives way.
I burst into the room in an explosion of wood splinters and hot metal fragments. I’m just in time to see Oleg Agapov throw one foot out an open window. He’s got an arm wrapped around Polly’s neck in a chokehold and her face is turning a nasty shade of blue. She’s clawing at his arm with her nails but he seems oblivious as he tries to drag her through the window with him.
Not on my fucking watch.
I cross the room in a single stride, grip Oleg’s fingers where he’s clamped down on my sister’s throat, and tear them backwards. Shit breaks, lots of it, his bones cracking like popsicle sticks in my grasp. His scream is music to my ears.
Caught awkwardly with one leg on the windowsill, Oleg collapses. Polly wrenches herself free and stumbles to the corner of the room, her body going slack as she slides to the ground and buries her face in her hands.
I haul Agapov up by the collar and send my fist flying into his nose. He takes the first punch like a man.
The third, fourth, fifth, tenth, though? Not so much.
His mouth is a mass of blood and spit and both his eyes have already swollen shut by the time more footsteps join us.
Polly screams but then I hear Nikolai’s voice. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just us.”
I turn to Nikolai and Dimiv, who’re standing by the door with a handful of men behind them. I drop Oleg in disgust. “Cuff that mudak and bring him. I’m not done with him yet.”