I don’t hesitate or announce myself. I start shooting.
The first man drops before he even knows I’m there with a clean shot to the back of the head. He crumples, dead before he hits the ground.
The second one is turning when my next shot catches him in the throat and he goes down choking, clutching at the wound.
Then they scatter, returning fire, and suddenly it’s a close-quarters firefight in the narrow basement corridor. Bullets ping off concrete walls and one grazes my already-injured shoulder. I bite back a roar of pain, but adrenaline is a hell of a drug. It keeps me moving and focused.
Another man goes down as I catch him center mass as he tries to flank me. His weapon clatters to the floor.
Then another dying due to a headshot. Perfect aim despite the agony in my shoulder, if I do say so myself.
But there are more coming. I can hear them on the stairs—boots thundering, radios crackling. I’m outnumbered and wounded. Even worse, I’m running out of ammunition.
And then I hear it.
Gunfire.
From inside the safe room.
My heart stops.
Someone got through and they’re in there with Vera.
I don’t think, fighting my way to the breached door with a fury that makes my previous rage look like a mild irritation. Two more men go down under my fire. I’m not even aiming anymore, just shooting anything that moves between me and that door.
I burst through the opening?—
And freeze.
Because Vera is standing behind an overturned table, wild-eyed and terrified but very much alive, firing through the breach at Konstantin’s men.
Her aim is fuckingterrible. She’s clearly never held a gun before in her life and the shots are going wide, hitting walls, the ceiling. One ricochets off the concrete floor.
But the surprise of it—the sheer fucking gall of my wife shooting back—is enough to throw them off.
And she looks… God, she looksmagnificent.
Dark hair streaming behind her like she’s been in a windstorm. Gunpowder smeared across her cheeks like war paint. Those brown eyes bright with fury and fierce determination. Her hands are clumsy but she doesn’t lower the weapon.
She’s beautiful. Absolutely, devastatingly beautiful.
One of Konstantin’s men goes down clutching his leg, and whether that was intentional or luck, I have no idea, but I use the distraction to take out another clean shot to his partner’s chest.
“VERA!” I roar. “GET BACK!”
She whips around, gun still raised, and for a terrifying second I think she might shoot me. Then recognition flashes across her face and her face looks both relieved and overjoyed.
“Dimitri!” she cries out.
“What the hell are you doing?” I drop another attacker. “You’re going to hurt someone!”
“I thought that was the point!” she yells back and fires again. The shot goes so wide it hits a light fixture, and glass rains down. I curse.
“Not yourself!” I’m moving to cover her, putting myself between her and the remaining hostiles. “Or me! Aim for—JesusChrist, Vera, where the fuck did you even learn to shoot?”
“Oh, I didn’t!” She fires twice more. One bullet embeds itself in the doorframe three feet from any actual target. “This is my first time ever shooting. I used to watch my high school ex-boyfriend playCall of Duty! I didn’t think it would be that hard!”
Despite everything, I almost laugh.
