Igive Sergei a call after a late-afternoon fuck. When I brought Mira back from her classes at Greywood, she started working on her homework in our room. She looked so damn adorable, lazing on the bed and scribbling furiously in a notebook with a pile of textbooks surrounding her, I couldn’t resist. I should probably start being a bit more considerate if I want to keep fucking her every day… but I also don’t see that happening. I literally cannot get enough of her, and I don’t think I ever will. My cock is always semi-hard around her, and getting to full mast doesn’t take more than observing Mira being herself. Quirky, sexy, cute as fuck.
Leaving Mira in bed, where she’s catching her breath, I head out to the hallway and dial Sergei’s number. He picks up on the first ring.
“And?” he asks without preamble.
“She did it. The meeting’s a go. Her piece of shit stepfather threatened her into also attending, so she’s going to be my priority when we’re there. I’ll have your back, of course, but not before hers.”
I decide to go with straight up honesty from the get-go and tell Sergei exactly where we stand. My loyalty to him hasn’t diminished, but my loyalty to Mira is superseding any loyalty I’ve felt before,ever.
“I see,” Sergei says after a moment. Tension raises the hairs on the back of my neck as I wait for his condemnation, his dismissal, or even worse, a threat to come after me. He could perceive me as being a liability now that I’ve fallen for a woman—many mob bosses forbid love altogether in their ranks. “Well, it sounds like you’re becoming a man. I’m glad to hear it.” The relief that blasts through me at his words is incomprehensible. I don’trequireSergei’s approval, but having it is a very nice benefit.
“Thank you,” I say quietly. “I think I know what you meant when you said that Kira turned you into a man.” Loving Mira is changing me for the better.
“Don’t get sentimental on me now, Dorian. Save it for your woman.” Sergei chuckles lowly. “Progress with the Serpents?”
“We’re raiding their last stronghold tonight. It sounds like they might have a hand in trafficking rings—we’ll get all the info we can on that.”
“Good,” Sergei says, his tone faintly tinged with approval. “I suppose I’ll be seeing you in two weeks. Try not to get killed between now and then.” He pauses for a long moment. “Does your woman love you back?”
I gaze at my bedroom door, not surprised that Sergei’s already caught on to the depth of my feelings. “She cares for me, otherwise she wouldn’t have reached out to Clyde or agreed to his condition. I don’t know if she loves me.”
“Give it time. You’re obviously on the right track. Well done, Dorian.” He hangs up without further chit chat. I head back into my bedroom, and my gaze instantly falls to Mira. She’s pulled on the shirt that I discarded and is sitting cross-legged on the middle of the bed, chewing the end of a pen as she reads over her notes. Even dressed down, she looks beautiful—especially since she’s just been freshlyfucked. Her eyes are glazed from the three orgasms she got, and she practically glows in the sunlight filtering through the window.
I climb onto the bed and take a seat beside her, pulling my laptop from the bed stand and opening it, deciding to get a bit of work done before I split at 5 p.m. Mira offers me a lazy smile that I reciprocate, and the two of us fall into comfortable silence, each plugging away at our work for the day.
The compound where intel suggests that the remaining Serpents are hiding out is a warehouse in a shitty, largely abandoned part of the city. I can hear the low thump of bass pulsing from inside the building even before I enter.
Seamus and Connor are with me, all of us armed up to the gills in tactical gear. Bullet proof vests, multiple guns and knives, even night vision goggles hanging from our necks. We’re prepared to go in and end these fuckers once and for all. I expect there’ll be a brief torture session to extract the information we need from the Serpents still left alive, but other than that, this should be a simple op.
“Right, lads,” Seamus says, pulling a gun out of his back pocket. “Let’s make this nice and easy. Everyone dies except for the top dogs—we all know who they are. Odds are they’ll be drinking in the back, so our first step is to kill everyone in front.”
“No quarter asked, no quarter given,” Connor mutters, nodding.
“Fuck asking for quarters; kill ‘em all,” Seamus replies with a grin. Without further preamble, he points his gun at the metal front door and blows off the lock.
After that, everything happens quickly. Connor slams his shoulder into the door, forcing it open with a loud creak, and we come face-to-face with about two dozen Serpents who are evidently indulging in a private stripper party.
The dim warehouse interior is illuminated by grimy overhead lights, their flickering glow casting long shadows across cold steel beams and piles of crates stacked haphazardly against the walls. Women sway and twirl on the laps of men, and in any spaces not occupied by sleek black duffle bags scattered across the stained concrete floor. A few poles are positioned under the harsh lights, where strippers perform their routines to the beat of music playing from portable speakers. The air is thick with cigarette smoke, along with the scents of stale sex and sheer desperation.
The presence of the strippers escalates our mission’s complexity; we can’t just open fire when we might accidentally hit one of the girls.
Seamus throws a grenade to the left side of the large warehouse, where there’s a roundtable of Serpents guffawing over their drinks. A flash is followed by a deafeningboomas the grenade explodes, sending a plume of smoke billowing upward. Blood sprays out from the explosion, painting streaks across the concrete floors and metal walls. The music abruptly cuts off, and every bastard in the warehouse scrambles for the nearest weapon.
Connor starts shooting before they can, using his semi-automatic rifle to take them out. Enemies start to drop like flies, and the cadence of the music is replaced with screams from the girls as they run to the walls, huddling up together.
I scan everyone who’s in the compound, looking for the two men that we need to leave alive. I spot one of them standing at a makeshift metal bar near the back, looking like a deer caught in headlights.Fucker doesn’t even have a weapon. He really didn’t expect us to find him.
Intel suggests that he’s one of the leaders of the Serpent’s ground-operation in this city, peddling drugs on the streets and demanding safety payments from local small businesses. Apparently, they also kidnap homeless girls and send them to a nearby city for another operation they have their hands in.
Time to take out the trash.
Connor, Seamus and I get to work, systematically killing every man, taking gunfire and returning it threefold.
Connor releases a grunt as a bullet grazes his arm, but he doesn’t slow down or even pause to check the wound. He’s a fucking machine with a single goal; destroy the enemy. His eyes are bright, eager, and filled with bloodlust.
Seamus, on the other hand, seems giddy—not because of bloodlust, but because he always sees these ops as good fun. He smiles and evenlaughseach time he gets a kill, taunting the Serpents every chance he gets.
It takes less than ten minutes to subdue the enemy. The girls are smart enough to stay out of the way, and the Serpents are too focused on us to use them for leverage. When the last visible body has dropped, Seamus sheaths his weapons and makes his way over to the girls, getting to work on calming them down.
