Darkness starts to eat at the sides of my vision, but the thought of dying at the hands of this piece of shit gives me one more surge of energy.
I swing my fist up, slamming my knuckles into his throat, just how Alina caught Petrov by surprise that first night.
Smart. Precise. Ruthless.
The asshole gasps and his hands clutch his throat.
Pyotr finally puts out the fire and punches the man in the face, knocking him off me. He staggers to his feet and reloads his shotgun before pointing it at the man.
The bastard runs at him and grabs the shotgun, forcing it upward just as Pyotr fires. The shot blasts through the ceiling, moonlight spilling into the hallway through the jagged hole.
“Fuck,” I breathe out as I roll onto my hands and knees, my head spinning.
I shove myself to my feet as the man slams the side of the shotgun against Pyotr’s face, busting his nose. With a clenchedjaw, I throw my arms around the man, one winding around his neck and the other clamping down on the top of his head.
I drag him back from Pyotr as blood pours down his face. The man thrashes, his elbows striking my torso. One blow hits me close to the knife wound, and my vision goes black for a second. But my arms stay locked in position.
With a shout, I twist—hard—until his neck cracks.
His body goes limp and collapses at my feet.
I stand there for a moment, breathing heavily. There’s nothing that I can do but let the smoke fill my lungs.
Pyotr coughs into his arm as he stumbles down the hallway. “We need to get away from this fire!”
I nod silently, listening to more reports in my right ear.
“We’re pinned down! We can’t move! We?—”
“No more traps out in the back! We’re out and they’re still coming!”
“They’re approaching the back second-floor hallway! We need people here now!”
My head throbs. It feels like I’m on the verge of collapsing.
But all I can think about is that I hope Alina and Dominik are okay.
She’s better off away from me. I just pray that I didn’t send them to their deaths.
What if Dominik couldn’t protect her?
She never belonged in our world. She’s too good, too innocent…
“Sir!”
A gunshot rings out, and searing pain rips through my hip, the force knocking me to the ground. Gunfire rages around me as I lay on the floor, fire steadily crawling its way toward me to consume me too.
To take me away from her forever.
44
Dominik
I doone last sweep of the house for anything else that could help us. There aren’t any more weapons, but I do find a portable radio in a bedroom drawer. I hold down the power button, and the screen blinks to life.
Now I just need to find the Bratva’s frequency.
While I’m searching, Petrov comes up to me. He’s silent for a long moment. Finally, he speaks.
