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Levon twisted his arm, trying to bring the gun back toward my body. I couldn’t overpower him, so I stopped trying. Instead, I used his weight pressing down against me, rolled, lunged up inside his reach, and slammed his wrist against the steel table.

The pistol dropped, and we both went for it.

Levon grabbed the back of my sweater and dragged me away. The high neckline tightened against the collar, choking me for half a second before the fabric tore at the shoulder. I drove my heel backward and caught his knee. He cursed, but his grip loosened. I dropped, rolled beneath the table, and reached for the gun.

My fingers closed around the grip. Levon seized my ankle and yanked hard, pulling my hip across the concrete. I kicked backward with my free foot and struck his face. Blood sprayed from his mouth, but he kept coming. A knife appeared in his hand as he lunged towards me.

I fired.

The first bullet struck low in his abdomen. Levon looked down at the blood spreading across his shirt, then raised the knife again.

I fired a second time.

The round hit the center of his chest. He staggered backward, one hand opening and closing around nothing. The knife slipped from his fingers and struck the concrete with a small, almost delicate sound.

Levon just looked at me.

Perhaps he recognized the girl he had ordered taken eleven years earlier. Perhaps he saw my mother in my face. Perhaps he finally realized that his reckoning had come.

He collapsed to the ground and didn’t get back up again. I stared at him for a long moment before I pushed myself upright, the gun trembling in my hand before I forced it to steady.

The entire fight had lasted only seconds, but it had felt like a lifetime.

Dmitry stared down at Levon for only a fraction of a second.

Sergei moved, but Dmitry anticipated him. Before Sergei could close the distance or fire, Dmitry stepped behind me and seized my upper arm, dragging me backward into the line between them. His gun came up beside my head.

Sergei stopped instantly.

The barrel of his weapon remained trained on Dmitry, but I was directly in the way now.

Only then did Dmitry look down at Levon and laugh, the sound echoing through the room with genuine appreciation.

“Yuri would have liked you.”

“I’m devastated I missed the introduction,” I spat angrily.

Levon’s pistol was still in my hand.

I twisted and raised it toward Dmitry, but he was waiting for that too. He struck my wrist aside, sending the gun skittering across the room, then hauled me hard against his chest. His forearm locked across my collarbones as the muzzle of his weapon settled against my temple.

Sergei’s expression went terrifyingly still.

“Drop your weapon,” Dmitry yelled at Sergei.

Sergei’s aim remained centered on his face.

“Let her go.”

“You know how this ends,” Dmitry infused his voice with cruelty.

“No!” I forced my voice past the tightness in my throat. “You know how it ended before.”

“Quiet,” he snarled, his arm tightening around me.

I looked at Sergei. His green eyes moved over my face, my throat, the weapon at my temple, and the blood running from the corner of my mouth. He saw everything Dmitry wanted him to see. Then his gaze dropped to my left hand.

I opened my palm against my thigh, giving him the signal we’d practiced together only yesterday.