Page 112 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

The sentence man has no sentences left.

Elena is under the table with Leonid, her dress dark against the floor and her hair fallen around her face. Blood marks one sleeve, not hers unless someone is already dead. Her eyes meet mine once through the table legs.

She’s scared, and she’s still working.

“Leonid,” I bark.

“Scanning,” he snaps back.

A bullet bites into Leonid’s laptop case, and he jerks hard but keeps crawling. I fire through the gap under the table, and the man near the wall drops with his gun still in his hand.

Dima shouts from the elevator doors, “Two more outside.”

“Hold the lift.”

He plants himself in the opening and fires into the corridor.

I catch Elena by the back of her coat and drag her hard against my side. She comes with the chair half under her, one hand clamped over the signed pages.

“Folder,” she snaps.

Leonid shoves the stack into his laptop case and hooks the strap over his shoulder, bleeding from one knuckle as he crawls after her.

“Ilya. Service door.”

Ilya hears me from the stairwell because he’s still inside the room, covering the far exit with one of my men. He backs three steps, fires once into the stair, then shoulders the side service door open.

“Clear.”

“Take them.”

Elena looks at me once, furious and white-faced, and I shove her toward Ilya before she can turn stubborn on me. Leonid goes after her with the case tight to his ribs. Ilya pulls them through the service door into the side dispatch office off the back corridor, his man backing in with his gun up. The door shuts almost all the way, leaving a narrow crack so they can still see into the main room. Ilya holds the threshold.

I turn and find Karpov. He has reached the wall, and he keeps Moretti in front of him with one hand fisted in the back of the man’s jacket. His gun is out. Sweat runs from his temple into his collar, and the careful face he wore for months is gone.

He calls over the gunfire, “This could’ve been clean.”

I put one round into the wall beside his head.

He flinches.

“Keep talking,” I say. “I know where your mouth is.”

“I served your house,” he says, rage thick in his throat, “before she ever sat at your table.”

“You opened my house,” I say and fire past Moretti’s shoulder into the man behind Karpov.

Karpov winces, shoves Moretti sideways, and ducks behind a stack of equipment cases near the wall.

Moretti stiffens. “What are you doing?”

“Surviving,” Karpov says.

“You’re done,” I say and shove the table hard with one hand.

The heavy center section shifts just enough to throw Moretti’s balance. Dima fires from the elevator side. I move on the same beat. Karpov shoots. Pain burns across my ribs, shallow, hot, useless. I hit him before he gets another shot.

We go into the wall together. He brings the gun up between us, and I slam his wrist against the steel support until the weapon drops. He gets a knee into my thigh. I headbutt him. His nose breaks. He reaches for the knife at his belt, and I catch his hand before he clears it.