"Hold every entry!" I roared. "No one gets upstairs!"
Gunfire and chaos. Elena burst in with Stella, hysterical. Stella cried. I felt my chest tear, but I had to stay sharp.
"Don!" Dmitri's voice crackled. "They broke through the first-floor line! They're coming up!"
"Stop them!"
I ran to the stairwell and opened fire. Bodies went down—one, two, three—but there were too many. My men bled. Walls were spattered with blood. Shell casings pinged and rolled. Half an hour of hell. Then the firing thinned. Then it stopped.
"They're all down!" Artyom gasped in the hallway, blood on his face.
I leaned against the wall, panting. "Count thecasualties."
"On it."
I stepped to the bedroom and knocked. Elena opened the door, pale, holding Stella, who'd been crying with red-rimmed eyes.
"It's over." I hugged them both. "You're safe."
But it wasn't over. My phone rang. Sergey, one of my top men in New York.
"Don, New York was hit."
My stomach sank. "What?"
"Salvatore hit three of our locations simultaneously," Sergey said fast. "He's splitting us, Don—trying to pin you here."
"Fuck!" I growled. "How bad?"
"Two houses destroyed. Dozens wounded, two dead. We took out a number of his men, too."
I closed my eyes and breathed slowly. Salvatore had played it smart: split attacks to stretch us thin.
"I need to go to New York," I told Elena. "They hit our turf. I have to be there."
"And us?" Her voice went small.
"Come with me. I won't leave you here."
She bit her lip and looked at Stella. "My studio—"
"Fuck the studio!" I nearly shouted. "Elena, did you see what happened?"
"I know!" she answered, raising her voice. "But Igor, I can't just abandon everything I built—my work, my friends, my life."
"What about your life?" I snapped. "What about Stella's life?"
"Stop it." Stella sobbed between us. "Daddy, Mommy, stop yelling."
We both froze. She was a child with giant, tear-streaked cheeks.
"I'm sorry, baby." Elena hugged her. "I'm sorry."
I inhaled and steadied myself. "Please. Come to New York with me."
She shook her head, and tears fell. "I can't. This is where I rebuilt myself. I can't run away to New York."
She wasn't wrong. Her concern made sense.
