Roman shatters beside me.
“She died on Easter Sunday,” Vadim continues. “Bled out on the altar while the choir sang hymns about resurrection. Do you know what her last words were, Romochka?”
Roman’s gun arm is shaking so badly now, his whole body vibrating with grief and rage that has nowhere to go except straight through his uncle’s skull.
“She said, ‘Please tell Roman his mama loves him,’ and then she was gone.” Vadim’s smile stretches into something grotesque. “And I walked out of that church and came to find you hiding in the crypt, and I pulled you into my arms, and I said, ‘It’s over, malchik, you’re safe now,’ and you believed mebecause what else could you do? You were twelve and terrified and covered in your family’s blood, and I was the only one left to hold you.”
Roman fires.
The shot goes wide, nerve damage and shaking hands, and twenty years of trauma fracturing his aim at the worst possible moment, the bullet punching into the wallpaper six inches from Vadim’s head.
Vadim draws faster and fires twice.
The first bullet catches Roman’s Kevlar and drives the air from his lungs in a sound that makes me want to scream.
The second punches through his already-destroyed shoulder, and he goes down hard, Makarov clattering across marble while blood spreads beneath him in a widening pool that grows fast.
I’m already firing.
My first shot hits Vadim center mass, and the Kevlar stops it, but he staggers backward with air driven from his lungs.
His soldiers open up, and the world becomes chaos—automatic fire and crystal exploding, and the chandelier shattering into a thousand expensive pieces while I dive behind an overturned chair and return fire with everything I have.
Luka bursts through the service doors with his team, taking down three of Vadim’s soldiers in rapid succession while Galina appears behind him with a pistol in her ancient hands.
I track Vadim through the smoke as he reloads behind a fallen column, his attention fixed on me.
He’s going to shoot me.
Roman sees it too.
From the floor, bleeding out, barely conscious, he launches himself forward, and he tackles me sideways as Vadim fires.
The bullet passes through the space my head occupied half a second ago.
Roman lands on top of me, covering my body with his broken one, blood from his shoulder soaking through my tactical vest while his weight presses me into the marble and his arms cage me against the floor.
“Moya,” he snarls against my ear. “Mine, Anya, ty moya, I won’t let him touch you, I won’t let anyone touch you, ya ubyiu ego, ya ubyiu vsekh—”
Iwill kill him, I will kill everyone.
I roll us, putting myself on top.
“Nyet,” he growls, trying to reverse our positions, but his arms won’t cooperate, and his shoulder is screaming, and I pin him down with my weight while I bring up my Glock.
Vadim’s reloading.
Looks up.
Sees me aiming with Roman’s hand closing over mine on the weapon, his damaged fingers barely able to maintain pressure but refusing to let me face this alone.
“Vmeste,” he breathes from beneath me. “Together, solnyshko. We end him together.”
Vadim’s smile stretches with amusement, which I find personally offensive, given the circumstances, the blood on the marble, the bodies scattered across his dining hall.
“Doctorushka, you don’t have the stomach to—”
I pull the trigger.
