The upstairs hallway runs the length of the house with doors on both sides. Three of them stand open and show empty rooms beyond. The fourth door at the end is closed and light leaks out from underneath. I hear footsteps moving around inside and the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. It makes me curious but very alert.
There really is someone here. Now to see if it's our man.
I position myself on one side of the door while Vuk takes the other side. Nenad hangs back a few feet with his gun aimed at the doorway while I count down silently using my fingers, and when I hit zero, Vuk slams his boot into the door next to the handle.
The frame splinters and the door flies open. We rush inside as one unit. I sweep my gun across the room looking for targets, but the space is empty except for an old mattress against one wall and a wooden chair lying on its side. The window is wide open and cold air pours through it, so I cross over to it and lean out to look at the alley below. But there's no sign of anyone down there and no way to tell which direction they went.
My stomach drops because I know what this means.
"We need to get out of here right now." I turn back toward the door, but I'm already too late.
Gunfire erupts from the hallway and bullets tear through the doorframe. Nenad screams and goes down clutching his leg as blood spreads across his jeans in seconds. I throw myself behind the mattress and return fire at the muzzle flashes in the hall.
It's a goddamn ambush. Someone knew we were hunting Lebedev here and they set us up.
Vuk and I take cover as best we can while trying to keep the men in the hallway away from Nenad, but they're in full fucking tactical gear coming with automatic weapons. Unless we get a head shot, neither of us stands a chance of beating any of the four of them. And Nenad might just be a goner anyway.
More shooting starts up from downstairs and I realize we're trapped between two groups. They let us get inside and split up before they closed the trap. I hear Boris yelling from somewhere below and then his voice cuts off in the middle of a word.
I lean around the mattress and fire three rounds at the closest attacker. Two miss, but the third catches him in the shoulder and spins him around. Another man steps over him without breaking stride and keeps advancing. These aren't amateurs or street thugs hired for quick cash. They're hired hands, personal security, maybe, or trained insurgents. We're fucked.
My clip runs empty and I reach for a spare from my jacket, but before I can reload, something hard slams into my back between my shoulder blades. I pitch forward onto my hands and knees and my gun goes flying across the floor.
Someone kicks me in the ribs and I feel bones snap under the impact. Then hands grab my arms and yank them behind myback. Plastic zip ties cut into my wrists and tighten until I lose feeling in my fingers. Another kick lands on my spine and makes my vision go white.
The shooting finally stops but my ears are ringing from the noise. I hear Nenad's groaning and know he's alive, but who knows about Boris downstairs? Boots move across the floor around me and I hear someone giving orders in a thick Serbian dialect.
"Get him up." Someone to my left speaks in a harsh tone, and I blink my eyes hard against a bright light someone is shining into my face.
Fingers dig into my hair and jerk my head back, and I see Vuk kneeling a few feet away with a gun barrel pressed against his skull. Blood runs from a cut above his eyebrow and drips onto his shirt, and Nenad is still on the floor behind him.
Motherfuckers knew exactly how to draw us right to them and surround us. It's like they've been studying me as long as I've been studying Lebedev—that, or they have someone on the inside.
A man walks into my line of sight and stops directly in front of me and I recognize Miloš Popovic from television commercials and billboards. He's been running for a spot as deputy in parliament. His face is everywhere.
"You must be Vadim Gravitch." Miloš smiles down at me. "I've been looking forward to meeting you." Somehow, I don’t really believe a word he's saying.
I spit blood at his feet and watch it splatter across his expensive polished shoes. "Where the fuck is Lebedev?"
"Somewhere safe." Miloš crouches down so we're at eye level. "Did you really think we would just hand him over? You Russians always underestimate us." He stinks too, like some expensive cologne he probably slathers on so his whores go home smelling like him.
"Either kill me or let me go." I hold his gaze without blinking. "I don't have time for speeches." I'm not afraid to die. I haven't been since I was nineteen years old and I took my first life. It's living with fuckers like him in charge that really scares me.
"You have all the time in the world right now." Miloš stands back up and gestures to his men. "Pick him up."
Two of them haul me to my feet and my ribs scream in protest. Blood drips from my mouth onto my shirt and the floor. Miloš steps closer and shoves the barrel of his gun under my chin hard enough to force my head back and jar my teeth against one another. God, wouldn’t I love to kick this son of a bitch in the nuts.
"Pay attention because this is important." His breath smells like expensive whiskey and cigars. "Go back to Russia and tell your cousin that war has already started. Andrei Lebedev killing your cousin was just the beginning."
"Beginning of what?" I force the words out past the gun barrel pressing into my throat.
"The complete destruction of your family." Miloš grins and his teeth are unnaturally white. "You are all so stupid, you haven't seen it yet. Victoria, Yaros, even your precious heir, Dominic, all things we did with a little help. You'll be begging for mercy before I'm done with you."
If what's left of the Kozlov organization has aligned with the Serbians, there's no telling how fucked we really are. I knew Yaros Veche was trying to keep Kolar on the line, but we won that battle… But this? There's no telling how bad this will get if the Veches, the Kozlovs, and the Serbians ally against us.
"You're lying to save your own ass." I spit out some blood and lick a tooth that hurts. Probably busted loose from that blow I took. This bastard is trying to get under my skin. I can't let him.
"Think about it." Miloš pulls the gun away from my throat. "Every attack for the past two years follows the same pattern. The Kozlovs and Veches want your territory and we want Russians out of the Balkans. We all get what we want."
