Iliya sits in the passenger seat, alert and ready to help me get the girls back. He’s mostly healed now, so I don’t have to worry about him. I've come to realize he's far too important to me; even beyond his ability to protect me is his loyalty. And I've lost far too much lately to let go of someone else I care about.
Our conversation died away hours ago. We’re both on edge, too worried about the girls, too caught up in our mission to think about anything but our singular goal: to rescue Leah, Eliza, and Suzie. Taking my brother out and taking back my foothold from him is our secondary objective.
Finally, I see it: Andrei’s Bentley as it pulls up across the street. My brother and his bodyguards leave, but one guard remainsto ensure nothing happens to the car and no one goes in who shouldn't.
I give the command with a single word of text on my phone and send it. Half an hour later, a woman walks down the other side of the street with Athos on a leash. I don't see her give the command, but my dog suddenly goes nuts. I can hear him barking, though most of what’s happening is blocked by the cars parked along the other side of the street and the shadows of dusk.
The commotion has its desired effect—the guard leaves his post.
Without a word, Iliya slips out of the car and across the street. A truck rumbles by, temporarily blocking the sight of my second-in-command. For a moment, he's lost, and then I see him drop something on the ground by the rear tire. He's so smooth, you would have to know what he's doing to see him press something under the wheel well as he retrieves the item he dropped and straightens.
He's back in the car only a few moments later, just before the guard returns to his station.
We wait another ten minutes before driving off. A few turns, and we're a few blocks over, pulling up to the curb where a young woman waits with Athos. The dog jumps into the car first as the young woman opens the door, reaching his enormous head over the center console to give me a lick on the cheek before he settles, and the young woman slides in beside him.
“Well done,” I tell her.
“Thanks, Boss.” She grins from the back and gives Athos a big pat before scratching his ear. “That was fun. Athos enjoyed it too.” She grins in the rearview mirror, and my dog’s smile nearlymatches his trainer’s, with whom he’s been since Eliza and Leah moved into my home.
“Did it work?” I ask Iliya.
He has a retro-looking device in his hands, and he's peering at it, fiddling with the dials and a switch. He doesn't answer until a small dot pops up on the analog screen.
“Got him.” And for once, my second smiles at me.
This old-school tracking device was something we had to dig out of a storage unit in Jersey, but my brother will never check for it. And it's just what we need to follow him to the place where he's holding the woman I love.
“That fucking bastard,”I swear under my breath.
I know this warehouse. I know it because I sold it only six months before to a corporation based out of Amsterdam, which I can now see is one of my brother’s shells. Once I wrestle my Bratva back from him, I'll have to untangle many, many threads. I don't even know how far back my brother’s betrayal goes, or how complicated the weave of his web is.
But that's a worry for another day. We're here to save Leah, Eliza, Suzie, and my unborn heir. That's all that matters tonight. Without them, there is nothing else.
We wait just out of sight, engines off, breath fogging in the frigid night air. The yellow glow from the warehouse windows illuminates broken concrete and tangled weeds. Iliya maps theapproach in the dirt with a stick, his voice low and clipped, eyes darting between the shadowed faces gathered around.
“We go silent. Two teams,” he murmurs. “Pakhan, you and I from the east. Oleg, Micah, you’re with us. The rest of you, circle wide—cover the north loading dock and the yard in the back. No gunfire unless they spot us. We get eyes on the hostages first. Understood?”
A chorus of whispered affirmatives, tight and terse, follow. My pulse hammers with anticipation, every sense honed to a razor-sharp edge. My brother’s treachery has brought us here to this ugly threshold between vengeance and rescue.
When I give the word, we move, boots crunching lightly on snow-covered gravel, hugging the shadow-laced facade. I count heartbeats, passing the rusted fence, the stacks of crates, and the moldering old boxes. The night is thick with the scent of oil and river silt, the quiet punctuated by the distant rumble of a passing train.
A signal from Iliya—two fingers, pause. Then, the tiniest glint: a motion at the roofline. Before I can curse, the sound of muzzles firing splits the silence. Bullets ricochet off metal with vicious sparks, and we dive for cover behind an old shipping container.
Shit!
The look Iliya shoots me from the shadows as bulletspingloudly on the other side says much the same.
Shouts crackle through the dark—a warning, a challenge. Iliya jerks his head, signaling for the others hunched with us to scatter. They obey in a flurry of adrenaline, pressing flat against the unforgiving concrete, metal, and wood.
More gunfire. A bullet strikes the concrete too close, biting into the ground near my knee. I haul myself up, grip tightening on my weapon. Somewhere behind me, Micah curses in rapid Russian, low and blistering. We inch along the wall. Iliya is making the motion to provide cover for those of us scrambling for the door.
Gunfire explodes behind us, and we run, keeping low. Iliya raises his gun and shoots in one smooth motion, and a shadowed figure on a corner of the roof tumbles out of sight. I peg another one who goes down with a shout. Other cries ring out above us, before us, behind us. The night becomes a mix of flying bullets, shrapnel, shards of wood, metal, and concrete, snow, and dust, throwing everything into confusion.
We reach the door, and the gunfire dies as abruptly as it began, leaving only the metallic ring in my ears. For a moment, no one moves. The silence is heavier than the chaos—a suffocating hush broken only by our gasps for air.
When the dust clears, we are surrounded by my brother’s men, my former men, their guns trained on Iliya and me, the only ones who remain standing.
“Blyat,” Iliya mutters behind me, and though I don't say it, I feel the same.
