It was dead there. Business as usual. Nothing suspicious.
That fake intel not being sold and shared threw off all my guesses, and I wasn’t sure what to try next. Feeding a mole with leads to set them up for capture should’ve been foolproof. Now, I just felt like a fool to fail.
“We may as well head inside and make sure everything’s going as expected here, huh?” He reached for his door handle.
“Yeah. May as well.” I tried to shake off the funky restlessness that had been bothering me for too long. All this time I’d been in charge of finding the mole and addressing the concerns of Giovanni fucking with our drug operations, I’d been growing more and more annoyed.
What am I missing?
Who’s taking intel to Roberto fucking Giovanni?
Why can’t I figure this shit out?
I exited the car with Oleg, shaking my head and wondering how I could take off the edge of frustration that coursed through me. What I could do to stay sane and sharp, not preoccupied with this negativity in my head. As soon as I finished checking on this warehouse, my best option to let off some steam was to work outat my building, then pore over all the reports and findings about what the spies picked up on.
Iwillfind this asshole.
Even if I have to change my tactics and look in the family.
We headed away from the car. The water remained calm like a mirror reflecting the moonlight. No sounds came from the city, this far from being uptown. Near the water, and at this hour, we wouldn’t suffer the distraction of life bustling by, with commerce and pedestrians clogging up the area.
But it was…
I furrowed my brow, glancing at Oleg.
“It’s quiet,” I murmured.
Tooquiet.
Machinery moved around in the warehouse. The hums of engines reached us through the walls. What was missing was the chatter. The talking among coworkers and the shouting of orders from supervisors.
“It ain’t right,” Oleg agreed, not losing his expression of consternation.
Nothing was right. That was my opinion and I was entitled to it. Nothing was going right with my investigation into who the mole was. This quietness unnerved me, though. My senses were heightened. My heart pumped faster. Without having to consciously think about it, I reached for my gun as Oleg and I picked up the pace in our approach.
He, too, removed his gun from its holster under his jacket.
By the time we reached the back door, eyes open and ears straining to listen, it was too late.
Someone had been watching us, probably from the moment we’d parked and stalled before exiting the car.
The swift whips of a bullet shot careened through the air, just missing us.
Snipers.
Oleg reacted immediately, taking cover for me and pushing me to rush into the building first. He fired back in the direction of where the sniper’s shots had come from.
Anger lit a fuse inside me, and I gritted my teeth. The power had been cut in the warehouse. Barely any Orlov workers were in here, moving packages and getting trucks ready for distribution.
Men lay on the cement floor, heaped into piles of the dead or wounded.
“It’s a fucking ambush,” I growled to Oleg. Reaching one hand back, I grabbed his sleeve and yanked him forward. Pulled in with me, he was forced to give up shooting out at anyone who’d be following us in with bullets aimed our way. As he stumbled inside with me, he pivoted and aimed his gun forward. Scoping our surroundings, we scanned for the first threat.
Too many had been waiting for us. Masked men streamed out from hiding spots. From behind stacked cargo units and shelves of packages, they announced themselves. Guns up. Masks hiding their faces. Dressed in black and clearly here to assassinate and kill, they were ready.
But so was I.
I was born to kill. To defend. To do everything I had to in order to serve my father and the family I would always be a proud member of.
