Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
“I work alone. You work in teams. I studied these men. They’re different than some of the others I’ve gone after. Did any of you take the time to study them? To get to know how they move or fight? Which weapons they prefer? How they kill together?”
Master couldn’t prevent the edge to his voice. His brother and sister in the club weren’t amateurs, but they believed they were going to walk in and easily kill five trained assassins because they went to a better school and were more experienced. Did they know that for certain? They assumed it. He knew better than to assume. He’d learned a long time ago and had the knife scars to prove that one should never make an ass out of themselves.
Lana stopped walking, and the smirk faded from her face. “You’re right, Master. We didn’t prepare for this one at all. We had the plan, but not the prep.” Deliberately, she caught his arm with one hand and gracefully, with the other, bent to adjust the strap on her high-heeled designer shoe as if she had a problem. “Tell us now. Give us everything you have on them. We’ll absorb it. You know we don’t forget details.”
The knots in his gut unraveled a bit. They were taking his warning seriously. “Filip and Mark Gusev run the team. They’re brothers and are extremely cruel. They both like knives. Little, big, doesn’t matter, and given the chance to keep someone alive so they can play, they do. They don’t care if the victim is a man, woman or child. They always work in tandem. One holds your attention while the other circles around behind you. Never trust either of them.”
Lana nodded her head as she unbuckled the thin leather strap.
“Nil Gorkey looks short but has a long reach, and he is crazy good at capoeira. Not only can he leap over objects, but he can also leap over you and slice off your head while he does it. He carries weapons on him, mostly long blades, but always guns.”
“The ones that really know capoeira move like lightning,” Keys observed. “He’s got to go first thing.”
Master agreed with Keys’ assessment. “Stas Krupin favors a garrote, but he’s armed with several guns and will shoot first. He’ll always be the one to fire his weapon first. More than once the Gusev brothers have threatened to kill him because he fucked up. Even in the prison yard he overreacted. He doesn’t want to die, and he’s fearful in a fight. He’ll have to be watched closely.”
“Great, and Timothy Garin?” Mechanic prompted.
Master sighed. “Timothy is their ace in the hole. He looks like a young kid. He’s been in prison with them the entire time but always looks young. Gives off the nice vibe. The other prisoners tend to tell him things. They go to him all the time because he’s the one that might do a favor. The other prisoners don’t seem to see his connection to the Gusev brothers. He’s good at talking, and when they least expect it, he guts them with a smile on his face. His specialty is murdering women. He likes to get in close so he’s staring right into their eyes.”
“Nice,” Lana said. “How did you think you were going to kill them all?”
“I had a plan. I wasn’t going to make it out, but they were all going to die,” he said with complete confidence, because it was the truth. There were eight men to kill. Helena’s five-man team, the two guards and Anton Elin. He would have killed them, but there was no way that he could have survived and gotten out of the prison alive. He knew he would have been severely wounded. How could he have walked away from that without anyone noticing?
“Maybe your plan is better if I get to keep Ambrielle.” He tasted the idea of that for the first time. The realness of it. Could it be real and not a fucking fairy tale? His breath caught in his throat. He’d even trade the ability to talk for her. Give up anything for her. Was Lana right? She saw things clearer than most people, and she wasn’t one to bullshit him.
He moved in front of her as they went down the dark, narrow steps to the basement. These were stairs made for an ambush. Back stairs, never used by the prisoners. The metal door they came to was unlocked.
Keys pulled open the door, looked inside to assess the situation and then nodded, moving to one side, all business, his features set and hard. He moved directly behind the two prison guards who sat on a metal table looking bored. They were paid a great deal of money, but they had no real loyalty to Helena or her assassins. They did what they were told by Anton Elin.