Russian. Of course it's fucking Russian.
"They've seen us," Kira translates unnecessarily, her voice tight with controlled fear.
The first shots shatter the air around us, not aimed fire but suppressive bursts designed to keep us pinned while the shooters close the distance. I push Kira behind a shipping container just as bullets spark off the metal above our heads.
"How many?" I ask, checking the Glock 19 I'd insisted we both carry despite Kira's protests that she was perfectly capable of handling herself without firearms.
"Six, maybe seven," she replies, but her voice sounds strange—distant, disconnected.
I risk a glance at her and see something I never expected: Kira Petrov, the ice queen of the Bratva, is freezing up. Her hands shake slightly as she grips her weapon, breathing rapidly and shallowly.
"Kira," I say sharply. "Talk to me."
"I..." She stares at the gun in her hands as if she's never seen one before. "I've never... in the field, I mean. I've never..."
Never been shot at. Never been in actual combat. All her training, all her preparation, and she's never faced live fire from someone actively trying to kill her.
The realization hits me hard. I've brought a brilliant but essentially civilian woman into a gunfight with professional killers.
More shouting in Russian, closer now. They're coordinating, flanking us. In maybe thirty seconds, they'll have us surrounded.
"Stay down," I order, checking my ammunition. Seventeen rounds plus one in the chamber. Not enough for sustained fire, but enough to create an opening if I'm smart about it.
"Rafa," Kira says. Her voice is small, vulnerable in a way I've never heard before. "I'm sorry. I thought I could?—"
"Don't." I lean over and cup her face with my free hand, forcing her to meet my eyes. "You're brilliant and brave and stronger than any of them. But this isn't your world, and that's not a weakness."
"It is if it gets us both killed."
"It won't." I press a quick, fierce kiss to her forehead. "Because I won't let it."
The sound of boots on gravel tells me we're out of time. I rise from cover just as the first shooter rounds the corner of our container.
Training takes over—not the kind designed to end lives, but the kind Gio drilled into me when he explained that a man who can't walk can't chase you. I fire low, catching the shooter in the upper thigh. He goes down hard with a shout, weapon clattering away from him across the asphalt.
The second man appears before the first stops screaming. I shift position fast, placing a round through his shoulder—the joint rather than center mass, deliberately calculated. Theimpact spins him sideways into the container wall and he slides down it, arm useless, cursing in Russian but very much alive.
Someone screams—high-pitched, terrified. It takes me a moment to realize it's coming from behind me, from Kira, who's watching me work with the same wide-eyed focus she brings to solving code problems, except that nothing about her expression right now resembles calm.
"Rafa!" Her warning shout snaps me back just as a third shooter appears, already in position, weapon trained directly on me.
Time slows the way it does in moments of absolute crisis. I see the man's finger tightening on the trigger, can calculate that I'm too far out of position to reach cover in time, can understand with perfect clarity what's about to happen.
Instead, I throw myself sideways—not toward safety, but toward Kira.
The bullet tears through the air where I'd been standing, but I'm already moving, already between them and her, already accepting that absorbing what's coming is a choice I don't even have to think about. The round catches me across the left side, a burning graze that knocks the breath from my lungs and spins me partially around—not a kill shot, not even close, but enough to feel like I've been hit with a length of rebar.
I hit the ground hard, rolling through the pain, bringing my weapon up on instinct. The third shooter is already adjusting his aim. I fire from the ground, catching him in the knee. He buckles forward with a sound that I'll hear later, in quieter moments, for longer than I'd like.
Silence settles over the alley like smoke, broken only by the ragged breathing of three men who'll walk with a limp for the rest of their lives—and ours, rougher and faster than I'd prefer.
And the distant wail of sirens.
"Are you hit?" Kira's hands are on me immediately, running over my arms and torso with clinical efficiency that only barely masks their trembling. When she reaches my left side, her breath catches.
"Graze," I manage, though the burning has sharpened into something more demanding of attention. "Feels worse than it is."
"It's bleeding."
