She stirs then awakens. In the pale moonlight, I watch confusion cloud her features.Then fear.
"Nikolai? What?—"
I press my finger gently to her lips. "Listen to me. I need you to take this." I press the gun into her hands and guide her fingers around the grip. "Do you know how to use it?"
She nods, her eyes wide and dark in the shadows.
"Good. Now get under the bed. Stay there. Don't come out for anyone but me. If someone else finds you, you point and you squeeze. Do you understand?"
"Nikolai." Her voice trembles. "What's happening?"
A floorboard groans somewhere below us.
I lean in and press my lips to her forehead. "I won't let anything happen to you," I tell her, and I mean it with every dark and violent piece of my soul.
I help her slide off the bed and onto the floor, then watch her disappear into the darkness beneath the frame. The gun gleams dully in her trembling hands and the sight kills me. Mysolnyshko, terrified in the dark. My heart cracks, but my rage quickly follows. Because I will rain down fire and brimstone on anyone who comes after her.
I cross to the dresser by the door and reach behind it to find the handgun right where I stashed it. It’s fully loaded with a silencer twisted into the barrel.
I move through the bedroom door and peer into the hallway. The darkness here is thicker, the moonlight not reaching this deep into the lodge. But I know every inch of this place. Every shadow. Every hiding spot.
Another sound. More movement. A confirmation that my men outside are dead. Because there is no way the intruders would make it past them if they weren’t.
But it doesn’t explain why the security alarm wasn’t triggered. Unless they forced one of my men to disarm it before they shot him.
I slip through the bedroom door.
The hallway stretches toward the main staircase in a river of black. I move along the wall, my shoulder brushing the stone walls, my breathing controlled. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Slow and steady. Because there is more at stake here than I could ever have thought when I came up with this plan months ago.
At the top of the stairs, I stop and listen.
I hear movement below. More than one set of footsteps, trying to coordinate their approach.
I descend one step. Two. My bare feet make no sound on the thick carpet. Below, the great room opens up, the Christmas tree we decorated together standing sentinel by the windows, its lights glowing in the dark.
A shadow moves at the base of the stairs.
Dressed in black, he moves with trained precision. But he's looking the wrong direction.
I raise my gun and put two bullets in him, the sound suppressed by the muzzle. He manages to get two rounds off and the shots crack through the silence like thunder. But he misses. And it’s too late. He’s dead before he hits the floor.
I reach the bottom of the stairs, step over the body and keep moving. The kitchen doorway looms ahead, a rectangle of deeper shadow.
Somewhere else in the house, I hear movement. A rush of feet.
He comes around the corner fast, already firing his weapon.
I feel the bullet kiss the air beside my ear. But I manage to get off three shots and all three hit his center mass. He stumbles, hits the kitchen island, then slides down.
I'm on him in three steps and drive my knee into his chest, pinning him to the cold tile floor. Blood bubbles from his lips, his eyes already going glassy, but there's still defiance there.
"How many of you are there?" I demand.
He laughs or tries to. It comes out as a wet gurgle. "Fuck you."
I press my knee in deeper. "No, fuck you."
His lips peel back from bloody teeth. "You really think..." He coughs, crimson spraying across his chin. "You really think you were going to have a merry Christmas with her?"
