And then the first door handle begins to turn.
16
MAKSIM
The door doesn't justopen; it disintegrates.
Wood explodes inward, the frame cracking like a gunshot before the gunfire even begins. Splinters snap loose, whipping across the room like shrapnel. The first breath of outside air rushes in, bringing smoke and cold—lake damp, pine, and gun oil.
Then the sound hits: boots crunching on gravel, shouted commands, the sharp crack of rifles aligning their angles.
I'm already in motion.
The kitchen table is solid oak, heavy enough to matter. I hook my hands under its edge and heave. It flips onto its side with a groan, becoming a low barricade. Coffee cups skid, tip, and shatter—ceramic popping underfoot—as the smell of spilled coffee blooms hot and bitter across the floor, mixing with dust.
Ivan drops down beside me, pistol raised, eyes hardened.
We have maybe two seconds before the first man clears the threshold.
Two seconds is a lifetime if you don't waste it thinking about dying.
The first attacker comes through quickly, fully equipped—helmet, vest, rifle raised. He's trained and moves as though he expects us to be scrambling, panicking, late.
He's wrong.
My first shot catches him high in the throat, just above the ceramic plate of his vest. The armor is useless there. He makes a wet, surprised sound and collapses backward into the doorway, blood blooming dark down his chest rig.
The second man trips over him.
My second shot hits him in the face before he can regain his balance.
The cabin erupts into chaos.
Gunfire cracks inside the small space, deafening in the enclosed room. The walls spit out splinters as bullets punch through. Plaster dust hangs in the air like fog. The sharp, metallic bite of cordite crawls down my throat and lingers.
I don't have room for thoughts—especially not the kind that turn into words.
There is only the next shape, the next angle, the next breath.
Three more men appear through the broken door.
I take down two. Ivan handles the third—clean, centered, without hesitation.
I catch a glimpse of him as I reload.
His face is calm in a way that twists my stomach. Not gentle-calm or morning-cabin calm, but the other kind. The cold heir who watched men bleed in his father's house without blinking. That version of Ivan is present now, wearing his skin like armor.
His hands don't shake.
He isn't a soldier, but he's been trained. Not in the Kennel, not the way we were trained, but he knows how to aim a weapon and put a round where it needs to go. He knows how to avoid wasting motion.
We move together without speaking.
When I shift left to cover the breach, Ivan slides right to widen the angle. When I slap a fresh magazine in, he fires in the pause, buying me the half-second I didn't have.
Four years of orbiting him—three steps behind, one step to the side, always watching—have honed my instincts into something useful in a fight: rhythm, timing, and the ability to anticipate his movements before he makes them.
I've fought alongside other men, but this is different.
