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I could take four. Maybe five. But twelve? And get Zasha out? Impossible.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Zasha whispered.

“You’re my brother,” I murmured. “Of course I’m not going to abandon you. If you go down, we go down together.”

And somehow I understood—grudgingly—why Bruno felt the need to go behind his boss’s back and organize this little violent meet-and-greet. I would have done the same thing.

Pipe swinger lunged. The first swing whistled past my skull. I ducked, slammed my fist into his ribs. The impact reverberated up my arm. Another man caught me from behind in a clumsy bear hug.

I stomped his instep, cracked my head back into his face, twisted free, only for a fist to crash into my jaw from the right.

White pain exploded behind my eyes. My vision stuttered. Blood slid down my nose.

“Yuriy, behind you!” Zasha cried.

I pivoted, caught the pipe with both hands, yanked the man toward me, and drove the metal into his knee. He screamed. I swung upward, metal connecting with bone in his face, and he collapsed. But hands seized me again. Coat. Hair. Arm. A knife sliced across my ribs. Heat and pain flared instantly. Someone punched me in the face.

I elbowed one attacker in the throat, sent another staggering with a knee, but there were too many. My arm was twisted behind my back until my shoulder screamed. Another grabbed my hair, forcing my head back.

Bruno stepped forward, sliding brass knuckles onto his hand.

“Not so tough anymore, are you?” he said, voice calm.

“You’re a pussy who couldn’t come at me one on one. I’d beat your ass any day in a fair fight, but you don’t dare. Do you? Because you’re nothing but a fucking coward.” I spat blood in his face.

The brass knuckles shattered my nose. Agony detonated. Blood flooded the back of my throat. The world tilted and pulsed.

He hit me again.

And again.

Only the men holding me upright kept me from folding completely.

Bruno gripped my jaw. “Look at me.”

I forced my eyes open.

“I want you awake,” he said softly, “when you watch your brother die. Occhio per occhio. Dente per dente.”

A huge bang sounded in the distance, followed by footsteps pounding on the ground. Two silhouettes surged inside, Nico with his gun raised, Arty right behind him. I glanced behind him, expecting to see Stas in the rear, because why else would Nico have changed his mind? But no Stas.

“Step away from him!” Nico barked, voice booming off the walls.

Bruno’s men faltered.

I wrenched free, grabbed the fallen pipe, swung it as Nico fired, clean, controlled shots that dropped two men instantly. Chaos exploded as Bruno’s men abandoned the crude weapons they’d been using to torture me and reached for their firearms.

“Arty!” I shouted while taking cover. “Get Zasha out of here!”

Arty bolted across the floor, weaving behind crates. Nico covered him with precise bursts, forcing attackers back. A gunshot cracked, and Arty jerked midstride. Blood blossomed across his chest as he went down, hitting the concrete hard.

“Arty!” Zasha screamed, voice breaking.

Rage tore through me. I charged the shooter, slamming the pipe into his knees, then his skull, again and again until he stopped moving.

“Yuriy,” Zasha sobbed. “He’s not—he’s not breathing⁠—”

A click echoed in the silence that followed.