Vuk jerks his chin up at me as I slide the phone in my pocket, and I nod at him, giving the signal. It's time to move in.
He raises two fingers in the air and points them in two quick bursts at the house, and I watch Nenad rise from his crouching position. We start moving toward the house with our guns raised, but every step feels foreboding. I'd like to think it's just nerves after what happened last time, but my gut is roiling. It doesn't feel right. Something feels off.
It's just too quiet.
But we move forward almost nearing the porch when I hear a beeping noise and realize what's going on. It's definitely another setup. But this time, because I'm more aware, I'm able to save us any fatalities.
I grab Vuk's shoulder and pull him back just as the explosion rips through the building, narrowly missing him. We were barely on the porch steps, and the force throws us backward into the street.
I land on my back hard, knocking the wind from my lungs, and roll to my side to try to cough. My ears ring and I can't hear anything except a high-pitched whine. Smoke pours from the shattered windows and flames lick at the doorframe. I manage to roll onto my side and push myself up.
Vuk is lying nearby. His face is covered in blood but he's moving. Nenad is farther down, holding his arm at an odd angle as he sits up and rubs his head. We were close to being killed. Ten seconds earlier and we'd have been in that house when that bomb went off.
"Where's Jovan?" I ask, and I shout because the ringing in my ears makes it impossible to focus. But Vuk must not hear me. He sits up, looking around dazedly.
I get to my feet unsteadily. The ringing in my ears fades and I can hear shouting. People coming out to see what happened. I turn in a circle looking for Jovan, but he's not here. After losing Boris, my heart is hammering. The idea of losing another man guts me. These men look to me for guidance and protection. I hate that I could fail them so easily.
"Where's Jovan?" I ask again, and I grab Vuk by his jacket and haul him upright. "Did you see where he went?"
He shakes his head and winces. Blood runs down his face, dripping onto his shirt.
"Find him." I shove Vuk toward Nenad and grunt, "Check the perimeter."
The men search but Jovan's gone. He's nowhere in sight. Either he was in that house or he got out and ran, but we can't find him. Sirens cut through the noise, announcing the police and fire department are on the way, and I know we need to leave. I whistle sharply and gesture for the men to fall back. They converge on me in the alley where we started, and I notice Nenad has a bit of a limp too.
"We can't stay." I wipe soot from my face. "Police are coming."
"What about Jovan?" Vuk asks, seeming concerned. And I understand that concern, but if we stick around here, we'll be arrested. The police will take one look at our weapons and see that burning house and we'll be blamed. We have to leave.
"If he's in there, he's dead. If he's not, we'll find him later." I start walking toward the cars, but my mind is really getting messed up. I'm walking away from a burning house where one of my men has most likely been killed. It doesn't sit right with me. It makes me regret taking that intel because hindsight is twenty-twenty and now that I know it was a trap, I start rethinking every choice I made leading up to it.
But when we round the corner at the end of the alley to head to the cars, Jovan is standing talking to two men I recognize immediately as men who were with Miloš in that last attack. He doesn't see me at first, and I hold up my fist to halt the others.
Vuk stops by my side and sees where I'm staring, and Nenad leans on the corner of the building as he tracks our line of sight.
"What the hell's he doing talking to them?" Nenad asks, but I know exactly what he's doing. It makes perfect sense now.
Miloš has known every move we'd make ten minutes before we made it. We've been given intel on where Lebedev's been hiding multiple times, but every time we've gone searching for him, he was gone—warned or never there to begin with. This whole time, I thought he was just that good at evading us, and the whole time, I've had a mole on my team.
"He's a fucking rat…" Vuk grunts, but it's worse than that and I know it.
"No… He's a mole, and he's gonna fucking pay." Just as I finish my sentence, the man looks up in our direction and his eyes lockwith mine. He says something. I watch his lips move, and the Serbians look up at me too, then bolt.
"Follow him," I order as Jovan takes off running. "And track every fucking thing he does from here out. Got it?" I say, but Vuk is already taking off, and Nenad is limping after him. Jovan thinks he'll get away with feeding me bad intel while working with that bastard Miloš? Well, he has a rude awakening coming.
With him out of the picture now, I should be able to hunt Lebedev down easily, and then Miloš Popovic is next.
No one double-crosses me and lives to tell about it.
16
DANICA
The lunch rush has finally died down and my feet are screaming as I slide into the booth across from Mina and she pushes a plate of fried potatoes toward me. The smell makes my stomach growl. I can't believe how hungry I am.
"When's the last time you ate?" She steals one of the potatoes off my plate.
"Breakfast. Vadim made scrambled eggs before he left this morning." I find myself smiling though I'm not really sure if I like what it means. Vadim and I have been playing this game of tug-of-war, back and forth with how hot the chemistry is and how cold I feel toward him sometimes.
