“Not alone,” I remark.
His jaw tightens. “You arrogantublyudok,” he mutters.Arrogant bastard.
Gunfire erupts again as one of his men attempts to rush the entrance. Mikel drops him with a single shot.
Ivan’s gaze sweeps across the room, calculating distances, exits, and remaining enforcers. The smug confidence that colored his voice earlier has vanished completely now, replaced by a colder, more practical tone. He begins backing toward the far wall. I move faster.
Two more shots crack through the warehouse as one of his men fires blindly from behind a forklift. The rounds ricochet off the steel frame beside me with a violent metallic clang before embedding themselves in the crates behind.
I step around the forklift and fire once. The man collapses.
Across the warehouse floor, the fight is already ending. Three of Ivan’s men lie motionless between the crate rows. One more crawls toward the loading bay with a crimson trail following him across the concrete.
The remaining soldier throws his weapon down. “Stop!” he shouts, dropping to his knees.
Mikel’s rifle remains trained on him as he approaches.
Ivan sees the change in momentum at the same time I do. And then he runs.
The movement is sudden enough that even I lose half a second reacting.
He bolts toward a narrow service door along the back wall, already reaching for the handle as I start across the warehouse floor.
“Stop him!” I shout.
One of my men fires. The bullet punches through the metal frame, inches from Ivan’s shoulder. The door slams open, and he dives through it.
By the time I reach the doorway, the yard beyond is already alive with movement. An engine roars to life somewhere behind the adjacent warehouse. Headlights flare. A vehicle tears out of the service lot and vanishes into the access road before anyone outside can intercept it.
I stand there watching the empty stretch of pavement where the car had been. Ivan knew this place too well. He prepared an exit long before the meeting began.
Behind me, the warehouse grows quieter as the gunfire fades. My men secure the remaining prisoner and check the fallen bodies.
Mikel walks up beside me a moment later, lowering his rifle as he looks out into the yard.
“Son of a bitch planned his escape,” he remarks.
I drag a hand across the back of my neck, watching the open doorway where Ivan disappeared. “Of course he did.”
“You want us to pursue?”
I shake my head once and turn back toward the interior of the warehouse. “No.”
Because chasing Ivan right now accomplishes nothing. Rowan matters more.
The captured man sits on the floor near the center aisle now, his hands bound behind his back with a plastic restraint, while Karp stands to the side of him. Blood runs down his face from a cut near his hairline. His breathing comes in fast, uneven breaths as he watches me approach.
I stop a few feet in front of him. “Where is she?”
He stares up at me without answering. Mikel steps forward and drives the butt of his rifle into the man’s ribs. The crack echoes through the warehouse. The man gasps, folding forward.
“Try that again,” Mikel mutters.
I crouch so the man has no choice but to meet my eyes.
“Rowan,” I repeat calmly. “Where is she?”
The man hesitates just long enough for fear to break through whatever loyalty he thought he had.
