Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“We can do this. Another hallway. We’ll find them soon, we’re so fucking close.”
Niccolo looks grim but he nods. Tony nods too and I couldn’t be prouder of my brothers.
There’s a squad of soldiers up ahead and around the corner. I can hear them speaking in nervous Russian, discussing what they’re going to do. I use a small extendable mirror to check around the corner and sure enough, there they are, staring in our direction.
But something grabs their attention and they all turn toward a side hall, guns raising.
My brain works fast. Why would those guys look away, when they know I’m down here with Tony and Niccolo? There’s no way they’d turn their backs on their enemy, unless a new enemy presented itself on their flank.
No time for thinking. We made our plans and now it’s time to rely on my battle instincts and my years of training. This is an opportunity to get the drop on these fucks, and I can’t let it pass me by.
“Go,” I grunt as I throw myself around the corner and start shooting.
It’s chaos. The guards are torn between me and whatever they were looking at, and half of them end up shooting at nothing as I rip them to shreds, killing them in seconds along with Tony and Niccolo, but I notice something strange.
Someone’s still shooting.
“Hold your fire,” I say as I reach the junction up ahead. “Hold your—”
I peer around the corner and there she is.
Crouching in a doorway framed by bullet holes.
Holding up a gun with both hands, looking crazed.
Dripping with blood.
Looking like a vengeful goddess, like something from a Greek tragedy.
“Kacia.”
She hesitates. Her grip wavers and the gun lowers. “Luca?”
“Put it down, it’s me.”
The gun tumbles from her fingers and she slowly gets to her feet. “I’m not dead?”
“Not unless that’s your own blood you’re covered in.”
“No, it’s the Russian’s blood.” She blinks rapidly and laughs like she can’t believe this is happening. “You’re really here?”
I walk to her slowly. She stands there, looking dazed. Another girl is by her side, a pretty blonde thing, though she’s in bad shape like she took a rough beating.
“Kacia,” I whisper, her name like medicine on my tongue. “My flower.”
“Luca.” She blinks back tears. “You came for me. Why did you come for me? I told you not to. I thought you weren’t allowed.”
“I couldn’t let you go.” I wrap my arms around her and pull her tight against me. I don’t care about the blood. I don’t care about my men watching or about her friend Adrienne staring. It’s like my world clicks back into place and I can breathe again, like whatever vital part of my soul that slipped from between my fingers is now firmly back in place. I hold her tight and breathe her smell in deep, my body trembling with desire for her, with the sudden rush of complicated emotions, but it’s Kacia, my wife, my flower. She’s back.
I didn’t think this would work.
On some level, I knew it was a suicide mission. I hoped it wouldn’t be, for my brothers, but I knew breaking into this house and killing a bunch of Russians was more than a little improbable.
But now, standing here with this girl, holding her in my arms despite the blood, I don’t want to take a bullet and end it all. I don’t want to go down fighting.
I want to get the fuck out and have a future.
A real future. A happy future.
“Save the reunion for later, boss,” Tony says, sounding aggravated. “We gotta move.”
He’s right. I pull back from Kacia and look at her friend Adrienne. “Can you run?”
“Right now, I can run faster than anyone alive,” Adrienne says, grinning huge. “Nice to meet you, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you too.”
“Let’s move,” Niccolo says, “before they regroup.”
We sprint back the way we came. It’s easier on the way out thanks to the trail of blood and gore we left in our wake. It felt like we killed a few dozen men, but there are only a handful of bodies on the floor, plus the two dead at the door. I’m guessing they didn’t push us hard, let us come inside and planned on springing a trap once we were too deep to escape, but they didn’t think Kacia and Adrienne would escape on their own. The distraction the girls provided was the opening we needed, and now we’re going to slip the trap and get the fuck out.
Fucking Kacia. Gorgeous, clever Kacia. If she hadn’t gotten out of that room, we’d be dead right now. No doubt in my mind. The Russians were baiting us, letting us get deeper and deeper, and at a certain point it would’ve been too far, the point of no return. And yet instead, I have my wife back, I have her friend, and we’re kicking out the side door and sprinting toward the woods.