“Are you giving us guns to even the playing field?” Carter asked as Yuri began to roll one dress shirt sleeve to his elbow. “I thought you wanted a face-off? Or do you plan on being like Stalin? Line us up and shoot?”
Yuri winced at being compared to a Russian. Smart thinking, Carter. While waiting for Yuri’s next moves, Jesse glanced at Thatcher, still on his knees and holding his shoulder.
“Fine, fine.” Yuri did a three-sixty in the room to peer at his men. “Rifles down.”
The guards looked at each other, their fear on display that their boss was losing it. That it was becoming more inevitable by the second that they’d end up dead just like their counterparts who Falcon had taken down upon infiltrating the castle.
“Now,” Yuri yelled, spit flying from his mouth. He smoothed a hand over the scar on his cheek, a gleam in his eyes as he looked at the man who had put it there, no doubt excited that he was on the cusp of the payback he cherished.
Yuri’s men slowly set down their AKs as if more afraid their boss would turn on them than Jesse and the others at the moment. They kicked them away, but Jesse had to assume they were also packing sidearms and knives.
“You’re mine, Yuri. You deal with me,” Zoey calmly said.
Yuri grinned as if impressed by her boldness, but Carter grabbed hold of her arm when she tried to move past him.
“Zoey, Zoey.” Yuri shook his head as Carter restrained the woman who appeared to be hell-bent on her own revenge. “What if I were to tell you I didn’t kill your fianceĢ that day?”
“You’re lying,” she responded, and Yuri flinched as if offended.
Jesse looked away from him and took inventory of the room while Zoey distracted him as planned.
Five guards. But who’d they fear more? Jesse and his teammates? Or their boss?
Jesse calculated his next steps, playing them out in his head. The guard off to his left would be the first to go. Use him as a shield when the other guard would go for a sidearm on instinct.
“I’m not a liar. You know that. You’ve been researching me, right?” Yuri pushed the heel of his hand beneath his chin and cracked his neck, looking more and more like a psychopath, then stalked two steps closer, eating up the space between himself and where Carter held on to Zoey.
They were too close to each other for Jack to get a clean shot.
Yuri looked toward the window, which lacked blinds and drapes, and he backed up one step as if realizing he’d be in a sniper’s line of sight.
So, you have some sense left in you. They needed to knock the rest out and soon.
“Preston was your target,” Zoey said, her tone less steady this time. “You never fail, right?”
“He was my mark, but he got away from me that day. Better fighter than I’d anticipated.” He smiled. “By the time I caught up with him on the street, he was already dead. Someone else killed him. Bullet to the head. But a dead mark is still a dead mark.”
“You’re lying,” she said again, and Yuri snarled.
Being compared to a Russian. Called a liar. His trigger points.
Zoey started to go for him again, and Carter worked hard to pull her back. Jesse was pretty sure Yuri had also hit her trigger point. Preston.
Jesse stole a quick look at Thatcher, and he nodded, confirming he’d still be able to fight. But he’d wait for Carter to make the first move.
Seconds later, Jesse spotted Carter in his peripheral view shove Zoey toward Jesse as though pushing her to safety before he went for Yuri.
“Don’t kill them,” Yuri growled out to his men in warning. “I’ll deal with them after I kill Carter. I made a promise to do it personally, and fuck if . . .” He lost his words when he dodged a swing from Carter. “Just keep them occupied,” he hissed while striking Carter in the side a second later.
Jesse swiftly focused back on the guards, who appeared confused yet again by their boss’s order. They had to know they’d die if they didn’t kill Jesse or Zoey first, but they appeared to still be contemplating which fate would be worse. Try their hand at fighting Jesse and Zoey? Or defy orders?
We’re about to find out. Jesse lunged toward the guard at his nine o’clock.
Grabbing hold of the guard’s legs, he pulled the man to the floor and into a chokehold, then snagged the gun holstered at his back just in time to use him as a shield when another guard fired his sidearm, deciding to disobey Yuri’s directive.
The bullet pegged the guard in Jesse’s grasp at the same time he shot the other man, nailing him in the head.
“Jesse,” Thatcher roared, suddenly throwing himself in front of him before Jesse realized what was happening and . . .
Zoey popped off a shot at the guard that’d just fired, catching Jesse by surprise, but it was too late for Thatcher. He’d taken one in the chest.
“What the hell,” Jesse hissed, angry at his old boss for sacrificing himself. He didn’t have time to check if he was alive or yell at him for what he’d done because he and Zoey had two more guards to deal with while Yuri and Carter fought alongside one of the walls.
The two remaining guards were smarter than the others, maintaining their positions by the hostages, weapons trained on their heads.
But if Jesse and Zoey lowered their guns, would these guards shoot to kill, also ignoring Yuri’s command? He couldn’t take any chances, so he ran through the possible outcomes in his head as he glanced at Thatcher on the floor. Slight movement from his legs. Still alive?
“We both put our guns down at the same time,” Jesse offered. “Your boss doesn’t want you killing us. And you know if you shoot a hostage, the second you pull the trigger, you’re dead.”
“And what do you suggest? We fight too?” one of the guards sputtered.
Jesse stole a look at Carter and Yuri as they continued fighting. “You have a better idea? Because I’m not getting rid of my gun if you’re still holding one. We just shoot each other, then?” He kept his voice as steady as possible.
“Fine,” one of the guards spoke up. “Same time, we all lower our guns, and we go at this like them.”
Jesse nodded and took a knee, waiting for the moment to go for the knife he’d carefully snatched from one of the dead guards by his feet, the one who’d been a human shield.
The second the two men started to move their guns away from the hostages, Jesse released his sidearm as well, and he remained kneeling, waiting for their next moves.
“You got this?” he whispered to Zoey, who was still off to his side.
“Of course,” she answered as the two guards maneuvered around the hostages, suddenly rushing them with new weapons. Knives.
“I can’t kill you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make you suffer,” one guard said as Jesse dodged the first wild swing of the blade. The guy was as big as Yuri, but Jesse had gone up against his type in the past.
And Thatcher had been right about one thing.
Ella needed to serve as his motivation, not as a distraction.
Jesse struck the beast of a man with his elbows and then leg kicks before dropping to his knees and stabbing the man in the side in the process.
A groan from Zoey momentarily stole his focus, and he realized she was pinned down beneath a guard, grappling to stop the knife he had aimed at her throat.