—and then the windows are shattering.
There’s no time to think. I dart behind the desk, taking cover. Maksim joins me instantly. “Fuck,” he summarizes.
“Fuck,” I agree.
Glass breaks all around us. The windows, the walls—everything comes crashing down like a house of cards. I lose sight of Rurik, my gaze caught by the chaos of all my employees scrambling, screaming.
Then I see Kazimir fall.
It takes me a few more seconds to assess whether he’s dead. But no, thank fuck, it’s just a flesh wound. He’s clutching his arm, knocked off-balance by the blow, but he’s completely exposed now. One more shot, and he’ll end up just like Slavik.
“Like hell,” I say. “Maks, cover me.”
“Cov— Hey! Where the hell are you going?!”
I crawl on the glass shards. They dig into my clothes, slicing through the skin underneath. It stings, but it’s nothing compared to real pain. To loss.
I am not losing a good soldier today.
I drag myself to the spot Kazimir collapsed, then yank him back with us behind my desk.
“Thanks,” he wheezes. “Thank fuck for mahogany, huh?”
The rain of bullets goes on for thirty more seconds. It feels like an eternity.
In that eternity, I think of Mia.
She needs me. I can’t fucking die—sheneedsme.
Our family needs me.
I cock my gun, and then it stops.
We wait. Hold our breaths, keep still, not a muscle twitching on our bodies.
Then I see it.
Rurik’s body, on the floor… with a bullet hole between the eyes.
22
YULIAN
Twovorydead. Two of my highest ranked men, gone. Just like that.
I bite my tongue until I taste copper. It’s not nearly enough to keep my rage in check, but between that and my bleeding wounds from crawling on glass shards, I can at least hold on to clarity. To the present.
“Maks,” I bark, “send our men hunting. I want every rooftop checked.”
“Already sent word,” Maksim says. “If he’s still around, we’ll get him.”
But he won’t be. I know it in my gut. This thing with Desya won’t end unless I’m the one to pull the trigger. To finish what I couldn’t twenty years ago.
God knows we’re all paying for it.
Suddenly, Rurik’s words echo in my head.“We’ll die, all of us, like flies. Because of you.”
Leave it to that old fucker to literally die on his hill.
