Page 99 of Marrying the Savage

“Office,” I shout.

Nikolai hears me. So does the man on the catwalk.

The mercenary captain turns. He’s older than the others, maybe mid-forties, dark beard, close-cropped hair, no panic in him at all. He raises his weapon with both hands, not hurried, not sloppy.

I throw myself behind a steel support beam as the shot cracks past my shoulder.

I fire around the beam twice. He ducks back, and the bullets spark against the railing where his chest had been half a second earlier. He’s fast. Not young-fast. Professional-fast. The kind of fast men learn from surviving long enough to know exactly how little time exists between mistake and death.

Below, someone screams.

One of mine.

I glance down and see a guard collapse near the loading dock, blood splashing across the gray floor beneath him. Another Volodin man drags him back by the collar while bullets chew through the crate in front of them.

The attackers press harder.

Too hard. Too focused.

They are not here to scare me. They are here for something.

The captain moves again. I catch the flicker of him between two stacks of pallets on the upper level and go after him, keeping low, gun up. He fires once, misses because I shift right instead of left, then disappears into the narrow passage between the catwalk and the old storage rooms.

I follow. The noise changes in the passage, the gunfire below becoming muffled by corrugated walls and old insulation. The air up here is hotter, smelling of dust, oil, and cordite. My shoes strike the grated floor with careful, quiet steps now.

A shadow moves beyond the open storage door. I stop before crossing the threshold.

I can hear someone breathing behind the door. He is waiting at the wrong angle, too eager, convinced I will step into his sight line because most men do.

I shoot through the thin wall beside the door.

After his body hits the floor inside with a dull sound, I enter. Empty shelves. Broken chair. A small desk covered in dust. The dead attacker lies near a stack of old tarps, one hand still clutching a knife he did not have time to use.

I turn his wrist with my shoe.

No tattoo. No family mark. No Sokolov crest.

Nothing.

I frown. Who are these men?

My phone vibrates once in my pocket.

Not a call. A message.

Mikhail: Back office breached. Two inside.

I’m already moving.

The captain appears at the far end of the passage, exactly where I expected him and faster than I prefer. He has changed weapons. Short rifle now. Black. Unmarked. Expensive.

He fires. I slam into the wall as rounds cut through the metal near my ribs, sparks jumping in the narrow space. One grazes my coat, tugging fabric but missing flesh. The sound is deafening in the corridor.

I return fire as I move.

Not at him. At the overhead light.

Glass bursts above him. Darkness drops over the passage in fragments. He shifts instinctively, adjusting to the sudden change.