I’ve just started firing my second gun when a bullet pierces the wall just above my head, making me duck. Shouts of pain and fury from both sides echo in my ears, and the gunfire is so loud that it makes my head pulse.
“The other trucks are unloading in the back! They’re storming the back of the house!” one of my men reports over the radio.
My blood runs cold as I hear more commotion throughout the house coming from the other side.
This entire house is a battlefield.
“We need men from the second floor to get down to the first floor. Men in the prison, stay where you are,” I order in Russian before slamming my foot against the chest of an enemy racing up the stairs toward me with a knife in his hand.
He flies backward and hits the ground at the foot of the stairs, the back of his head striking the hard floor with a sickening crack.
I hear footsteps behind me as four of my men join me on the stairs, firing downward as the swarm tries to fight their way upstairs.
They trip and fall over each other on the bottom part of the stairs, crawling over bodies to try to gain ground. One of them grabs my leg and pulls, making me lose my balance and fall onto my back. The edge of the stairs jabs my spine sharp enough to knock the breath out of me.
“Pakhan!”
I lift my gun and fire at the dark-haired man who has a death grip on my ankle. My gun clicks. Empty.
He grins and starts to crawl up the stairs toward me, his finger moving to the trigger of his handgun.
But I’m faster.
I rip my switchblade free and slash it across his throat.
He chokes and sputters, blood spurting out of the gash in his neck, covering my clothes.
I kick him off me into another man running up the stairs, sending them both rolling all the way down to the ground floor.
Simeon reaches me and grabs my hand, hauling me to my feet. “Are you okay, sir?”
I nod before looking down at the foyer. The sons of bitches have breached the rooms attached to the foyer. The fight at the back of the house hasn’t spilled to the front yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
“Upstairs! Go!” I shout at my men who are standing on the stairs above.
There are too many. We’ll die on these stairs if we don’t get moving.
We all turn and run up to the second floor. Just as we reach the top, Simeon lurches forward and hits the ground, taking a bullet in his spine.
A curse breaks from me as I kneel next to him, grabbing his arm to try to help him to his feet. If I can just get him out of the open.
“Come on,” I tell him.
“I can’t,” Simeon sputters out, blood flecking his lips. His arms tremble as he tries to lift himself off the floor, but his legs don’t move an inch. “I?—”
Before he can finish his sentence, I hear a gunshot, and his blood sprays across my face, warm and shocking. I release him and stumble back.
Someone grabs me and drags me forward, guiding me down the hallway and into a room on the left.
Fuck.
“Deploy a smoke grenade! Blind the fucks,” I grit out, fury rising in my chest that I don’t want to quell.
“Deploying smoke!” Eduard shouts in Russian to warn our men to take cover before pulling the pin and tossing it down the hallway toward the top of the staircase. “Smoke has been deployed on the stairs, and youwillget shot if you come up here.”
I reload my guns, breathing through the pain ringing through my back.
“We should fall back to the end of the hallway,” Eduard suggests.
