Page 74 of The Pakhan's Secret Baby

"My family is exactly why I'm going," I tell him. "Just fucking drive."

I shoot Krispin a text to beef up security at home, but I don't get an immediate response. When I look up, I see the warehouse. Bullet holes stitch across the loading bay doors in a ragged line, dozens of them, and the concrete around the entrance is chipped and cratered from heavy fire. The metal door on the east wall hangs open on one hinge, and Igor and Mikhail are standing beside a black sedan across the street. They cross to us as Devid parks.

I'm out the door moving toward them as soon as the car is stopped. "Show me," I tell Igor. It takes a second, but Devid is hot on our heels as we storm across the street.

Igor leads us through the east door where we see the first body a mere ten feet inside. One of our men lies face down on the concrete with his weapon still in his hand. He never got a shot off. The blood beneath him has spread into a wide pool thatsoaks into the cardboard stacked along the wall. God, does it make my blood boil.

"Over here," Mikhail says from behind a row of shelving. Two more of our men are slumped against the far wall. One took rounds to the chest and the other to the head. Their skin has already gone ashen without much blood left in their bodies.

"Where's the fourth?" I snarl, ready to destroy Gusev and every single one of his men.

"Back corner," Igor says, leading me past the shelving to a support column near the loading bays. Our fourth man is propped against it with his hand pressed over a wound in his side, barely conscious. His shirt is soaked through and his breathing comes in shallow gasps. With only a few left at this location, I'd say Gusev knows we're weak. And five against whatever crew he has coming back to get me isn't a lot. This is dangerous.

"Get him out of here and to a doctor," I tell Igor. "Now."

Igor and Mikhail sling the man's arms over their shoulders and start moving him toward the east door, while Devid and I stand in the middle of the warehouse surrounded by my dead men and the wreckage of what Gusev's crew left behind. I'm not giving up. He can come for me if he wants, but after tonight Gusev will know who owns this city. This has gone on long enough.

"Rashid, we should go," Devid says. "You know this is a trap. You know they're coming back for you." He grabs my arm by the elbow and tries pulling me like he's going to force me out the door, but I don't need his protection. I jerk away, snarling at him.

"Keep your hands off me." I start moving back toward the entrance, determined to see this through. I know Devid is only doing his job as my protection. He wants to play savior and I'm not having it.

"Rashid, please. You're my friend and?—"

He's still talking when the first shots come through the loading bay doors. Metal shrieks as rounds punch through it and sparks shower across the floor. Devid and I hit the ground at the same time, and the air fills with the sound of bullets ricocheting off everything else in their path.

"Can you see how many we're dealing with?" I shout at Devid.

"I can't see them," he yells back, crawling behind a concrete pillar. "They're firing from across the loading area and there's too much smoke to count."

I roll behind a pallet of crates and come up shooting through the gaps in the bay door. Muzzle flashes light up the darkness outside and the return fire rips through the walls around us. A light fixture explodes above my head and rains glass down on my shoulders, and rounds chew through the crates beside me, making splinters fly past my face.

"East door!" I shout at Devid. "We have to get to the east door!"

Smoke continues to fill the high ceiling of the building as flames start licking up everything in their path. They didn't just come in shooting; they set the fucking place on fire too.

"They'll cut us down before we make it," he shouts back from behind the pillar.

I fire another burst through the bay door and hear someone scream, but the shooting doesn't stop. More rounds tear throughthe building as the smoke gets thicker. "Devid, the building's on fire," I shout.

"I can see it," he calls back. He already has his shirt up over his mouth, trying to block the worst of the smoke from getting to his lungs.

The flames climb the south wall and catch the wooden pallets stacked against it. The heat reaches me within seconds, but the thick black smoke is getting worse. The shooting from outside starts to taper off and I realize what they're doing. They're pulling back. They're not trying to kill us with bullets anymore. They're penning us in and letting the fire finish it.

"East door, now!" I shout, and Devid breaks from behind the pillar. I fire through the bay door to give him cover, then sprint after him, but the smoke drops lower and the heat on my back is blistering. I can barely see him ahead of me through the haze when a section of burning shelving collapses across the aisle in front of us, twisted metal and flaming debris blocking the path to the door. The flames roar up from the wreckage and the smoke forces me to my knees.

"We can't get through," Devid shouts from somewhere ahead of me in the smoke. I can't see him, and my lungs burn so bad I can't breathe. I drop to my knees, sucking in cooler air, but my head is spinning now.

"Boss," I hear, but then the world goes dark.

27

EMORY

The guard at the basement door is one I haven't seen before, a rotund man with a shaved head who stands with his arms crossed and his back against the wall. When Rashid left I couldn't sleep. I lay awake stewing over the way I had treated my father and how easily I was able to relate to Rashid, but how easily Batya's mistake made me angry. I never tried to see it from his side at all, and I feel bad for that.

So I want to speak to him. I approach the guard carefully, hoping he'll step aside, but he shakes his head before I even open my mouth.

"No visitors," he grumbles, flexing his biceps as if that's going to intimidate me. It's annoying, but I don't back down.