The mansion erupted into chaos.Gunfire echoed off marble floors, shouts in Russian barked orders, the smell of cordite burning the air.Kai moved like a blade through water—controlled, deliberate, every breath a trigger pull.One man lunged from a side room with a knife.Hogan dropped him mid-stride, blood spraying across pale walls.
“Keep it tight,” Bateman ordered, his voice calm over the chaos.
“Police incoming,” Marsh warned, tension sharpening his words.“ETA seven minutes.I’m rerouting traffic lights, buying you time.”
“Copy that,” Surge gritted out over the comms.
They cleared the west wing, room by room.Dev’s team cut down resistance in the east, voices clipped and efficient.From the south, Luca cursed in Italian before blowing another door with a charge.Then Tane’s voice bled through, trembling with fury.“We’ve got them.Women, kids.Jesus—”
Surge picked up, voice like a growl.“We’re getting them out.They’ve been caged down here like fucking animals.”
Fury rippled through the teams.Ty snarled, “Where’s the handler?Somebody’s gonna pay.”
“Alive,” Bateman snapped.“We need them breathing for Tane.”
“Bring me a souvenir,” Dev muttered darkly.“Our interrogator’s hungry.”
“Fucking oath I am,” Tane’s low and unmistakable voice came over the comms, filled with the promise of pain.
Up the stairs now, marble slick with blood and dust.Torch’s explosions still rocked the front drive, his laughter manic in the comms.“Boom.Still here, motherfucker!”
Second floor resistance hit harder—automatic fire shredding plaster, ricochets sparking stone.Kai ducked and rolled, firing clean through a guard’s chest.Hogan pressed tight to his side, their movements synchronized, brutal, efficient.
Then a cry cut through the comms.“Man down!”Dale’s voice, ragged.
Ty’s laugh followed a second later.“It’s just a scratch!”
“Scratch my ass,” Oren shot back, furious.“You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.Sit the fuck down before you drop.”
Marsh’s voice thundered over the channel.“Call out all injuries.Now.”
Reports came back quick and clipped—Ty grumbling about his arm, Ricky admitting he caught shrapnel in his calf but was still moving, Niko growling about a graze across his ribs.Luca muttered he’d taken a slice to his shoulder but was fine.The roll call steadied the teams, everyone knowing who was still in the fight and who needed watching.
“Third floor locked down,” Luca reported, voice tight.“Heat signatures bunched together.Looks like where they’re keeping the rest.”
“On it,” Surge replied, his breath heavy from the fight.
Kai’s pulse tightened.Every step forward dragged them deeper into the hornet’s nest.He followed Bateman up the grand staircase, Ricky covering the rear.The roar of battle below faded to the thunder of boots and the pounding in his skull.
The comms were a storm—rage, orders, fury, purpose.It felt like war all over again, the kind that carved scars into bone.
Then it happened.
A burst of fire ripped across the hall.Kai spun, too slow—and then felt cold steel bite against his throat.A man had risen silently behind him, one arm crushing his chest back, a knife pressed hard under his jaw.He staggered in shock, vision tunneling, the blade nicking skin as the grip tightened.Hogan’s shout ripped across the comms, raw and desperate.“Kai!”
Kai froze, muscles locked as the knife pressed harder against his throat.Gunfire and shouts blurred to static in his ears, the world narrowing to the hot breath of the man at his back and the sting of steel breaking skin.
