"Second location's coming up." Lev's voice breaks through my thoughts from the back seat, and I force myself to focus on the present instead of drowning in the implications of my new reality. I flick a glance at him in the rearview mirror and see sympathy in his eyes. At least it's not pity.
The second safehouse materializes through the trees ahead, and my chest tightens when I see the warm glow of lights inseveral windows. Someone's home, which means this wasn't for nothing.
I ease off the accelerator and guide the car off the main road onto a narrow track that leads to a clearing about fifty meters from the building, then I kill the engine and the lights and we sit in darkness while I study the structure and count the visible occupants through the lit windows.
"Three visible inside. Could be more." Lazar's voice is barely above a whisper and his hand moves to the door handle. "How do you wanna play this?"
"Quick and quiet—no guns unless absolutely necessary." I open my door and step out into the cold, and my boots sink slightly into the snow-covered ground. "We'll go in through the back and clear the rooms systematically. If Marat's here, we take him alive for questioning. Everyone else is expendable."
Lev and Lazar nod and we move through the trees toward the safehouse as a team. The snow muffles our footsteps and the cold air burns my lungs with each breath I take. My heart rate kicks up slightly as we approach the building, and I can hear voices inside speaking in casual tones. The back door is unlocked, which tells me whoever's inside isn't expecting trouble. That gives us the advantage.
I count down from three on my fingers and then pull the door open and step inside with Lazar right behind me. The warmth of the interior whooshes over me and makes my skin tingle as blood rushes back to the surface.
We're in a narrow hallway with doors leading off to either side, and the voices are coming from somewhere ahead. I move forward with my footsteps barely audible on the wornfloorboards, and my hands are ready at my sides in case someone pops out from one of these doors.
The first guard appears in a doorway to my right, and his eyes widen when he sees me, but I'm already moving. I close the distance between us in two strides and drive my elbow into his throat with enough force to crush his windpipe. He makes a choked gasping sound and his hands fly to his neck, so I grab his head and twist hard until I hear the crack of vertebrae separating.
The man's body goes limp, and I lower him to the floor as quietly as possible, stepping over him into the room from where he came.
Two more guards sit at a table playing cards, and they both look up when I enter. The first one reaches for his weapon, but I'm faster. I grab the edge of the table and flip it toward them and send cards and glasses crashing to the floor.
The second guard stumbles backward, and I'm on him before he can recover. My fist connects with his jaw, and I feel bone crack under my knuckles. He goes down hard and doesn't get back up. The first guard has his weapon out now and he's bringing it up to aim, but Lazar appears behind him and wraps his forearm around the man's throat, applying pressure until the guard's struggles weaken and then stop entirely.
The house erupts into chaos as footsteps thunder from other rooms and shouts echo through the hallways. I move toward the sound and meet another guard coming around the corner. He swings at me with a knife, and the blade whistles past my face close enough that I feel the air displacement. I catch his wrist and twist until I hear bones snap, and he drops the weapon with a scream. My other hand closes around his throat, and Islam him backward into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster. His head bounces off the surface and his eyes roll back, and I let him drop.
Lev appears from a side room, dragging another unconscious guard, and drops him at my feet. "Clear on this side… Living room ahead has two more and someone barricaded in the back bedroom." Lev eats this shit up. It's exactly what he loves doing and why Yuri put him in charge of enforcing.
We move as a unit toward the living room, and I can hear panicked voices arguing about what to do. I don't give them time to decide. I kick the door open and the frame splinters, and the door swings wide to reveal two men scrambling for weapons that sit on a coffee table just out of reach.
I cross the room in three strides and grab the first man by his collar and drive my knee into his stomach. He doubles over, and I bring my elbow down on the back of his neck and he crumples. The second man gets his hands on a pistol, but Lazar is there kicking it out of the man's grip as he follows up with a punch that sends teeth flying across the room.
The barricaded bedroom door rattles and I can hear furniture being moved on the other side. I approach it slowly and press my ear against the wood and listen to heavy breathing and whispered prayers coming from inside. My jaw clenches because I already know what I'm going to find when I break through this door, and it's not going to be Marat.
"Move the furniture away from the door and come out with your hands visible," I order, but I'm not sure I even want to do this. It's senseless at this point. "You have ten seconds to comply."
There's a pause and then the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. The door opens a crack and a man's face appears in the gap and his eyes are wide with terror. He's in his fifties with graying hair and a face I don't recognize—not Marat. My shoulders tighten in frustration.
"Who are you protecting?" I push the door open wider, and the man stumbles backward into the room.
"I don't know, man… Please. I don't want to die. I'm just a witness…"
"Wrong answer," I growl, stepping into the room to close the door behind me, and the man's face goes pale as he realizes what's about to happen.
Five minutes later, I emerge from the bedroom and wipe my hands on a rag Lazar hands me. The cloth comes away stained dark red, and I drop it on the floor and move back through the house, checking each body again.
None of them are Marat.
This entire operation was protecting someone completely unrelated to Inessa's case and we just slaughtered seven men for nothing. The waste of it makes my jaw clench, but I can't leave witnesses who can identify us and report back to whoever hired them.
"That was excessive." Lazar isn't wrong. All of that was a waste of energy and life.
I turn to face him and let him see the cold fury in my eyes. "How did we get such shit intel?"
Lazar holds my gaze but doesn't respond, and I can see the same frustration I feel mirrored in his eyes.
"I don't know, Boss," Lazar mumbles, and I'm ready to choke him too. But Lev intervenes.
"We gotta get out of here, okay?" He pushes me toward the door, knowing me too well to let me do what I want to do.
