“Okay.” He sighs before wiping some blood off his cheek from a deep cut. “Scouts have seen their patrols spreading throughout the area.”
My stomach lurches.
“How far?” I question him.
“Five miles. They’re probably looking for stragglers. People fleeing from the fight.”
Five miles.
My men wouldn’t run away like cowards.
But what about Alina and Dominik?
Did they make it to the farmhouse in time? Have they been found? Dominik will be the second most wanted on their kill list.
There’s an explosion out in the hallway, making Pyotr and I dive to the ground and cover our heads.
“What the fuck?”
I look up toward the doorway and freeze at the sight of fire crawling along the walls.
A grenade.
Someone set off a grenade inside my house.
I hear screaming before men on fire run past the door, the flames scorching them alive. My guts twist at the sight.
“The estate is falling sir,” Pyotr tells me as a grave expression fills his face. “The men positioned downstairs are either deador got pushed up here. Matvei and the others up on the roof reported more men storming the grounds.”
He might as well just tell me that we’re fucked, but I’m not going to give up that easily. We’re not all dead yet, and this isn’t the only hallway on the second floor. There’s a whole other side with additional weaponry and traps set.
“Second and first floor—fall back to the rear hallway now. Roof team, start picking them off. You’re our last line,” I say in Russian into the mic of my earpiece.
Some men who aren’t in the middle of the fights for their lives respond to me, but there’s also a lot of silence. Good men have died, and the fight isn’t over yet.
I walk past Pyotr, feeling blood trickle down my back and down my side. The wounds sting but if I’m feeling pain, I’m still alive.
That’s all that matters.
I storm out into the hallway, faced with the sight of a lot of bodies on fire. Black marks stain the walls near my bedroom where the explosion went off, and the wood is so splintered that I’m able to see glimpses of the ground floor through it.
Two men leap through the fire crawling its way down the hallway, advancing on Pyotr and me.
Pyotr lifts his shotgun and fires at one of them, blowing the man right off his feet and sending him into the flames.
I fire at the other man, but he dodges the shot. Pyotr is too slow to reload to shoot him, but he’s fast enough to slam the butt of the gun against the man’s face.
Teeth and blood fly out of the man’s mouth as he stumbles to the side. He’s resilient or riding high on adrenaline because he lunges at both of us the next second, taking us both down to the ground.
Pyotr lets out a furious growl as nearby fire licks at his arm, burning his exposed skin. He releases his shotgun to pat out the flames on his sleeve.
The man grabs the front of my shirt, yanking me toward him so that his free hand can strike me in the cheek.
I retaliate with a heftier punch. I’ll knockallthe teeth out of his fucking mouth.
The man shoves me down hard enough for the back of my head to hit the ground, stunning me from the impact. He secures his hands around my neck and presses down as much as he can, cutting off my air supply.
My head aches and pounds from lack of breath, my lungs feeling like they’re on fire too. The heat in the hallway is already suffocating enough as it is, smoke rolling across the ceiling above me.
