Smoke rolls as the doors give way and we pour through.
I’m first across the threshold. Alex is to my right. Our men flood in behind us in two files, tight and controlled. The first shots come from the shadows—short, panicked bursts that tattoo the wall to our left. I return fire without hesitation. One man drops. Another staggers and vanishes behind a stack of crates.
“Left hall,” Alex says. We move as one. He cuts the angle; I hold the long lane. Our men fan out, pairs peeling from the spine and snapping to cover—pillar, doorframe, machine carcass, pallet stack. Their discipline is clean. The sound is ugly. Close-quarters gunfire always is. Concrete takes bullets and spits dust in your teeth. Metal screams when it’s hit. So do men.
I don’t allow myself to hear it. I keep Cassandra’s face in front of me. Bound. Gagged. That’s my ammunition. Every step I take is a promise. Every shot I fire is a vow.
We move methodically and fast. Alex clears corners like he was born to do it—gun up, wrist locked, eyes already moving to thenext threat before the first one hits the ground. I go through the center of rooms the way a storm goes through a field. I don’t waste motion. I don’t waste rounds. I step over a man who tries to grab my ankle, putting a round in the floor next to his ear. He’s not my problem anymore.
“Two more,” Orlov calls from rear-left.
“Mark,” I say. A red dot dances for a heartbeat on a door just ahead. The door catches two rounds and dies with the man behind it, hinges shearing, handle clanging across the floor.
The rafters rattle. Dust falls. The building trembles with us. I hear a voice in Russian—orders pitched high, panic bleeding through. Another voice answers from deeper in, low and certain. Ivan. I change direction toward that voice without looking at Alex. He changes with me without hesitation.
We reach a long corridor with a seam of light at the far end. The light is open space, not office. Warehouse floor. I hold up two fingers. Our men stack, reload, check. Alex touches my shoulder, ready. I nod. We break the corner hard, fast, and low.
Muzzle flashes flicker and fade. Sparks shower from a beam that takes a burst meant for us. We split, our line blooming into a kill fan. My men fire measured pairs and then move, just the way I taught them. I run for the left cover and slide in behind a forklift. Bullets ping all around us.
“Eyes up,” Alex shouts.
I look up and see her.
Cassandra stands pale on the catwalk; fingers locked on the rail. She’s not gagged anymore, but her mouth is red and raw from the tape. Her eyes find me. She’s alive. The relief hits so hard,I have to stop my hands from shaking. I push forward and fire until the man shooting toward the catwalk folds backward.
Movement to my right. Ivan. Blood on his cheek. Rage in his face. He’s moving with intent, trying to draw us in. He slices between crates to my far right, and I adjust my angle, sending rounds to pen him in. He cuts left to avoid Orlov’s line. I move. Alex herds from the other side. The net closes.
Ivan misjudges which of us will reach him first. It isn’t me. It’s his brother.
They slam together, bodies heavy, blood against blood. The sound is meat and bone. Ivan fights like he always has—dirty and fast. Alex fights like he learned to survive men exactly like his brother. He also learned how to end them.
Alex takes a headbutt and answers with a short hook to the ribs that chops the breath out of Ivan. Ivan reaches into his pocket and pulls out a knife, the blade glinting between them. He pins Alex with his weight and drives with the blade. Alex turns and traps Ivan’s wrist, nearly snapping his arm at the elbow. Ivan screams and kicks free.
I circle to position, dropping anyone who tries to help Ivan. I don’t break the ring. This is Alex’s fight. He needs to do this with his own hands, or it will fester like a wound that will never close.
Alex gets some space and sets his stance, gun raised. Ivan is on his knees, chest heaving, eyes bright with the kind of malice that would rather burn down a church than admit a sin. The moment is there. Alex sees it.
He hesitates.
“Alex,” I say.
Every muscle in him shakes with the resistance of not pulling the trigger.
Ivan doesn’t hesitate. He surges forward, hitting Alex low, the blade skittering across the floor. Both men dive. Alex palms Ivan’s head and drives it into the concrete. Ivan slams an elbow into Alex’s ribs so hard the sound cuts through the noise of the chaos. Alex grunts, losing a breath and his gun. That’s all Ivan needs. He lunges and reaches, his fingers closing on the weapon.
“Down!” I shout, following my own command.
Ivan doesn’t aim at Alex. He raises the gun and swings it past me and Orlov, pointing up at the catwalk.
Cassandra.
Her body goes still. Her eyes are the whole world for one second.
I launch without thinking.
The shot cracks the air. Heat tears my side open, white and angry. The force stuns me. I taste copper.
Despite the pain, I keep my gun up, putting the sight where it belongs. The world contracts to a dot and a breath.
