"Lev," I shout into the radio.
"Go ahead, Boss," Lev’s voice crackles in my ear. He’s at the tower, patrolling the lobby.
"Where is she?"
"She’s in her office. I have men at the elevators."
"Keep her there," I order. "Lock the floor down. Don't let her leave that room. If she tries to walk out, restrain her."
"Understood. What’s happening?"
"Arthur Blackwood sold us out," I say, grabbing my keys. "I'm going to the Estate."
The gates of the Blackwood Estate are open.
They hang crookedly off their hinges, metal twisted, rammed open.
I pull my car onto the gravel driveway, tires crunching over the stones. The mansion looms ahead, dark against the gray sky.
Climbing out of the vehicle, my gun is already drawn.
The front door is ajar.
I step into the foyer. The smell hits instantly. It’s thick—iron and smoke in the air.
The first guard is lying near the staircase. Two shots to the chest. Clean. Professional. He never even unholstered his weapon.
I step over him and feel a flash of anger, not at him, but for him. He was a good soldier. He deserved a fight.
I move deeper into the house.
The second guard is in the hallway, slumped against the wainscoting. His throat has been cut.
The silence in the house is heavy. Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard settles with a groan. I check the rooms. It’s a slaughterhouse.
I kick open the door to Arthur’s study, gun raised.
Empty.
But it isn’t the emptiness of a crime scene. The chair isn't overturned. The lamp isn't broken. There’s no blood on the carpet.
On the desk, a glass of whiskey sits half-full, the ice melted. Next to it, a coaster.
Neat. Too neat.
A man being dragged at gunpoint knocks things over. A man fighting for his life leaves a mark.
Arthur left this room like a man walking out to a business meeting. He didn't fight. He finished his drink, stood up, and walked out the door with the men who killed my guards.
I push open the kitchen door and find the third guard, Mikhail.
He’s barely twenty-two. I recruited him myself from the streets of St. Petersburg because he was fast and needed to support his mother. I remember giving him his first paycheck. He’d looked at it like it was gold.
Now, he’s propped up against the island, clutching his stomach. Blood pools around him, thick and dark on the tile.
"Boss," he wheezes when he sees me. He tries to lift his gun, but his hand twitches uselessly.
I holster my weapon and slide across the blood-slicked floor to kneel beside him.
