I should leave. Should trust that someone else would handle this. Should make the strategic choice that kept me alive to fight another day.
But that was Sophie screaming under a black hood. Sophie being dragged off stage by men who'd just murdered an old man in cold blood. Sophie who counted to four when she was scared and tried so hard to be strong and was so obviously, desperately alone.
Mine, the irrational part of my brain insisted. Mine to protect. Mine to save. Mine.
I was moving before the thought finished forming.
Drew the knife from the sheath at my spine—seven inches of folded steel, gift from Kostya when I became Pakhan, kept razor-sharp because a dull blade was a useless blade. The weight was familiar in my hand. The balance perfect.
Charged toward the stage. Kostya was shouting something behind me. Didn't matter. Nothing mattered except closing the distance between me and those soldiers.
The first soldier was dragging Sophie down the stage steps. Hadn't seen me coming. Too focused on his prize.
I slammed into him from the side. My knife went into his throat just below the jaw. Felt the resistance of tissue, then the hot spray of arterial blood. He dropped Sophie, grabbed at his neck. Useless. He was already dead, just taking a few seconds to realize it.
The second soldier spun toward me, raising his rifle. Too slow. I was already moving, already inside his guard. Two shots center mass from the Glock I'd drawn with my left hand. He went down hard.
The third soldier had Sophie over his shoulder. Was running toward the north entrance, toward the smoke and the destroyed doors and whatever extraction point the Belyaevs had planned.
I chased him.
My legs burned. My lungs screamed. Didn't matter. He was fast but I was faster, motivated by something beyond strategy or survival.
I tackled him from behind. We went down hard, concrete slamming into my shoulder, Sophie tumbling free. The soldier recovered fast—training kicking in, twisting under me, throwing an elbow that connected with my ribs. Pain exploded. Air left my lungs.
He was good. Trained. Vicious. He had six inches and forty pounds on me. Should have been an easy win for him.
But I'd spent eight years learning to fight. Not because I liked violence—I hated it, hated the chaos and the loss of control—but because being Pakhan meant being able to protect myself when control failed.
I broke his arm first. Grabbed his wrist, twisted, used leverage and angle to snap the radius. He screamed. I didn't stop. Dislocated his shoulder with a savage wrench. He tried to headbutt me. Missed. I got my hands around his neck, found the position Kostya had taught me, and twisted.
The crack was loud enough to hear over the gunfire.
He went limp. Dead weight. I shoved him off me, gasping, my ribs protesting every breath.
Sophie was screaming under the hood. Kicking blindly, not knowing who had her, not knowing if she was safe or in more danger.
I scooped her up. Threw her over my shoulder. She immediately started fighting—landing kicks to my ribs that made the pain spike sharp and bright.
"Stop fighting me," I growled in Russian. Then English. "I'm getting you out of here."
She didn't stop. Kept fighting. Couldn't see, couldn't know, just knew someone had grabbed her and instinct said fight.
I ran.
Smoke burned my eyes and throat. The auction hall was chaos—gunfire, screaming, people running in every direction. Sophie's weight across my shoulder was maybe a hundred and ten pounds but felt like more when she kept kicking my ribs.
I ran toward the east exit. Weaved between overturned chairs, stepped over bodies I didn't let myself look at too closely. My shoulder throbbed where I'd hit concrete. My ribs protestedevery breath. Didn't matter. Just had to move. Had to get her out.
Another kick to my ribs. Harder this time. The pain was sharp enough to make me stumble.
"Stop," I gasped. "I'm trying to help you."
She didn't stop. Couldn't hear me or didn't believe me or was too far gone in panic to process words. Just kept fighting. Her hands found my back, my shoulders, clawing for purchase, for leverage, for anything that might help her escape.
A Little's worst nightmare—being grabbed, hooded, carried into danger while unable to see or understand what was happening. Every instinct she had was screaming that she was being taken, being hurt, being—
Gunfire erupted to my left. Close. Too close. I ducked instinctively, felt the displacement of air as bullets passed over my head. Someone screamed. Not Sophie. Someone else.
