As I come up the stairs, someone suddenly shoots at me, and I plaster myself against the wall, returning fire.
A bullet hits my left forearm, but it’s so close to the surface that it goes right through. Pissed off, I push forward and shoot the fucker as I reach the top of the stairs.
I’m surprised when there aren’t any other men waiting to stop me, but I can hear them shouting. Some are ordering others to find me, while a couple are saying that they’re leaving.
Not wanting to miss my chance, I dig in the dead guy’s pockets until I find his phone, and seeing it needs a fingerprint to unlock the device, I take a wild guess and press his right thumb to the screen.
It opens, and as I walk down another hallway, I dial Rosie’s number, which every single capo has memorized.
My body aches something fierce, making me grind my teeth as I breathe through all the pain.
It only rings twice before her voice comes over the line. “Yes?”
“It’s Georgi. Track the number.”
“Sweet Jesus!” she shrieks in my ear. “It’s Georgi,” she shouts before lowering her voice and asking, “Are you okay?”
A man comes down the hallway, and moving faster than him, I fire two shots before he can get one off.
“No,” I answer as I continue walking. “I’m dropping the phone in case I’m intercepted. I don’t want them to catch on that I managed to call you.”
“I have your location. Jesus, you’re only twenty minutes away. The guys are coming. Hang tight.”
When I reach the body, I shove the phone into his pocket.
Focusing all my attention on my surroundings, it’s just in time as another fucker darts into the hallway. He moves so fast, I barely register him before years of training take over, and I pull the trigger.
The bullet slams into his chest, and he drops hard, his body crashing into a narrow table that splinters across the carpeted floor.
Every step forward takes me deeper into the mansion, my focus stripped down to one single purpose. Find Nina and haul ass out of this house of horrors.
As I reach the end of the hallway, I notice a foyer ahead of me. A man suddenly lunges from where he was hiding behind the wall. A knife glints in his hand, and as he slices across my chest, I grab hold of his forearm and twist hard while slamming the handle of my gun into his face. The impact makes him stagger, and before he can recover, I wrench the knife from his hand and shove it into the side of his neck.
As he goes down, I quickly rush into the foyer, glancing at the front door.
Just then, it opens, and several more men come hurrying into the mansion.
Fuck.
I run for the nearest door on the opposite side of the foyer while they open fire.
Bullets crack through the air, slamming into the walls, and as I dive through the doorway and hit the polished floor of what looks like a formal sitting room, the gunfire increases dramatically.
I barely take in the velvet furniture as I take cover behind the nearest sofa.
Bullets shatter glass behind me, and bracing myself on one knee, I quickly dart up and shoot at whatever moves.
One man drops in the doorway and another stumbles back, clutching his throat, while a third fucker takes a bullet right in the dick before I also bury one in his head.
The fourth guy makes it inside the room, and knowing I can’t stay behind the sofa and run out of bullets, I lunge to my feet and meet him head-on.
We grab at each other and slam into a table, hard enough to make an expensive bottle of whiskey topple over. I catch it mid-fall and smash it against the fucker’s head, knocking him out cold. As he goes down, I fire a shot into his chest before running to the doorway.
How much fucking time has passed?
As I cautiously walk back into the foyer, a scream echoes through the mansion, and recognizing the sound I’ve heard every fucking night, I hurry up the stairs, taking two at a time.
Reaching the second floor, I hear her cry, “Please, Ivan. I’m begging you.” Her voice sounds hysterical, and it has me pushing my tired body harder than ever as I take another flight of stairs up to the third floor. “Just give Simi to me.”
