She tried harder to get to the door anyway. From the long way down the cavernous warehouse and with that short barrel on the handgun, Matryona might take a few shots before she managed to hit Dree.
Industrial shelving units rose in front of her. She flipped over and wiggled between them, blocking Matryona’s line of fire.
Outside the garage door at the far end of the warehouse, the wind roared like a tornado was touching down.
Two tornados, actually.
Kir, Matryona, and the other two guys turned away from Dree toward the whirlwind.
She scooted faster even though the side door was probably thirty yards away, desperately trying to escape during the chaos because she wasn’t going to get a fourth chance.
Outside the tall rolling door of the warehouse, a sleek black helicopter touched down, and the prop wash from its rotors sprayed dirt and gravel from the parking lot into the warehouse like a massive dust storm.
And then another one landed.
Kir and Matryona threw up their arms to cover their eyes.
People leaped out of the helicopters.
Gunfire cracked at the far end of the warehouse, and bullets pinged off the cement and steel, ricocheting through the air.
Dree stayed where she was.
Maybe those jerks would all kill each other.
Chapter Thirteen
A WAREHOUSE OUTSIDE OF NICE, FRANCE
Maxence
Maxence leaped out of the first helicopter before the skids touched the gravel parking lot.
Casimir jumped down beside him, landing lightly on his toes, his handgun pointing at the ground in front of him.
Before they’d left the yacht, Twist had led them to a small closet behind his computer equipment and begun distributing guns.
Maxence hadn’t asked questions.
Micah had been texting frantically for the prior several minutes, his thumbs moving over his screen interspersed with mumbled comments into the dictation box. “Okay, they’re in. We’ve got two more guys going.”
After Twist made sure Maxence, Arthur, and Casimir were versed in gun safety and knew how to load their weapons with the occasional sarcastic glance between him and Micah, Twist wrapped two more handguns in towels and packed them into a backpack.
At first, Maxence was confused as to why Twist would require two extra weapons, but you never knew with Americans. Maybe he could shoot with his feet.
When they walked out on the floating wooden dock, two more exceptionally tall, fit men were standing on the back of a yacht two boats down, waiting for them. Maxence recognized Blaze Robinson and Logan Bell, two other American scholarship kids from Le Rosey making their way in the world without a fortune to back them up.
Blaze Robinson was another Midwestern American like Twist, dark-haired and dashing with a strong jaw and cheekbones reminiscent of generations of Norwegian farmers. His pale, Nordic blue-fire eyes were another genetic remnant of his Viking ancestors who’d looked to the sea and new lands.
The other guy, Logan Bell, was yet another American who had managed to grow an inch taller than the rest of them, topping out at six-foot-five, and he had the robust, muscular physique of a Nebraska corn-fed Angus bull. His sandy-brown hair fluttered in the breeze, and his bright emerald eyes snapped with a green fire of excitement.
Twist handed over the backpack. Blaze glanced inside and grinned.
It was interesting how Twist and Micah had been able to drum up two more tall, strapping men with a taste for havoc at a moment’s notice. Maybe they shouldn’t call them the scholarship kids. They were more like the scholarship mafia.
After the seven of them had assembled, Arthur arranged for a second helicopter to also meet them on the helipad on the roof of the Monaco Yacht Club, and no one asked any questions about where the helicopters came from or why Arthur was able to call them.
The short flight lasted ten minutes, with Arthur texting Twist, who was riding on the other helicopter, the whole time.
