I’m ready to blow his fucking head off his shoulders—until a bullet, shot from somewhere behind the old Russian, spins me backward, knocks me off balance, and disorients me. I catch my footing and take another step.
Another bullet flies past me. I don’t see the shooter, but I don’t have to. I aim past Leonid and drop a man hiding just inside the doorway when he pops up to shoot at me again. He gets his shot off then dies for his trouble.
My vest protects my skin, but the pain of a bullet traveling at seventeen-hundred miles an hour that makes a sudden stop inches from my rib cage is enough to slam the breath out of me. And if the first shot didn’t do the job, the second does. Also the third. The final impact feels as if it hit close to my spine. Close enough that one leg goes numb. I don’t have to be a doctor to know that that’s not a good sign.
I fall on my back as Leonid yanks Corrie to her feet and shoves her toward one of his men. The man catches her with his arm around her throat and pulls her backward toward a door that leads deeper inside the building.
She’s struggling, fighting, clawing, kicking. I want to tell her to go limp, let her weight slow him down and save her strength, but I can’t talk yet. As I lean up, a bullet tears through my left shirtsleeve, but I manage to stand just as another rips through my thigh. Fuck! Pain burns up my leg, through my groin, and into my gut.
Corrie screams again, and I roll behind a stack of cartons. My left arm is useless and the agony that’s become my leg is fierce and consistent. But I can’t let them have Corrie.
I peek around the side of the crates and see the Russian bastard dragging her toward a back exit. Kostya is in the open, a rifle slung across his back and a .45 in each hand. He’s shooting like John Wayne and taking out more than his share of our adversaries. Petr is on the other side of the warehouse blasting his way through a group of Kuznetsov loyalists.
No way am I staying down, no matter how bad the agony is. I come out from behind the crates, firing at anyone who isn’t one of my men as I make my way through the warehouse.
“Call your men off, Leonid, and I’ll let you live.” I have him sighted and I never, ever miss. But I waver because I’m losing blood and his man has Corrie. “Think about it. You can go back to Russia and live out your days.”
“Fuck you, little boy. Why should I trust you when I can kill you for your disrespect?”
I grit, “You can try, but does it look like you’re winning?”
He snarls, “You are a man without honor. Not even to your own father. You let your friend kill him.” His words mean nothing. I don’t give a fuck what a semi-decrepit old man thinks or says.
But “let” is an interesting choice of word since his partner is the one who gave the order for Aleksey to betray my father. “And Bogan was your friend but you welcomed Aleksey into your little group of traitors. Where’s your honor, old man?”
Our men are battling while we banter and bullets whizz past both of us. None of us have managed to stay uninjured. Leonid has a wound to his left shoulder, Totti is dragging his leg behind him, and I’m a walking wound. I only have one working hand, but I’m younger, faster, and better trained. Not to mention fueled by fury.
The Italian don runs behind some crates as Corrie bites her intruder’s hand and runs.
It all happens in slow motion from there. I want to scream at Corrie to hit the deck, hide, take cover. But I’m not fast enough. As I watch, Leonid turns, takes aim at her, fires.
She screams. A bullet catches her in the thigh, and she falls as I launch myself at Totti in a football tackle. I pound his face with my good hand as he grunts with each smash of my fist against his bones. Then I fire, and he goes down for good. The small hole in his forehead is puckered and smoking.
Just like that, Roberto Totti is dead.
Corinne drags herself behind a forklift. I lose sight of her. My vision is swimming and fading as I clamber off of Roberto. I’ve lost a lot of blood and it’s not slowing down.
By the time I get to my feet, I’m sweating, exhausted, and soaked in blood, but I have to get to her. I have to make sure she’s okay.
There are about fifty feet between me and the forklift. Bullets are still zinging and ricocheting. Footsteps fall, then halt, then fall some more.
Halfway to Corinne, I have to stop, take a breath, and it’s a mistake. There’s a glint of light hitting metal as a knife arcs toward me.
Leonid.
His face is drawn, looking worse than usual with the streaks of blood from where he’s wiped his face with the bad hand. But I’m too hurt to react in time; I take a knife stab to the shoulder. He stabs me a second time and my world begins to fade even faster to black.
Everything is narrowing.
Fading.
Turning into black sand as I slowly slip away…
I’m only going to have one shot. One chance to end this. He swings the knife again and I grab the hilt over his hand.
Push the arm past my bad shoulder and sink my teeth into his forearm.
Unlike Leonid, I have use of my dominant hand, so when he drops the knife, I catch it and flip the blade so the sharp edge is toward him and the dull side is held in place by my forearm. Then I slide the blade along his throat.
By the time I drop the knife because I’ve used the last bit of strength I have, Leonid has a second smile, inches below the first.
I push him off me, let him bleed out, gasping. Let him die like the pigs my father used to butcher.
I have to get to Corrie. I have to tell her I love her and I’m sorry and I never should’ve left. I can’t die without her knowing. I stagger to the forklift, too weak to stay low, too strong to crawl. I’ll die like a man, proud and strong.
I love you. The words are on the tip of my tongue. I’m so close.
But as soon as I touch her, as soon as I open my mouth… the darkness comes for me.
25
Corinne
Pardon my damn French, but if these motherfuckers let Tomas die, I’m going to make every murder he ever committed look like a generous blessing in comparison to the hellfire I will bring down upon this godforsaken warehouse and everyone in it.
Right now, though, saving his life is first and foremost. I’ve never been less qualified to do anything in my life. Fourteen seasons of Grey’s Anatomy hasn’t made me a surgeon. I have to get him to someone who knows what to do.
Blood is still pouring from the wound on his leg and there’s a hole in his left arm. That one has a clean exit point, but the other one just under his armpit does not, which means there’s a bullet somewhere close to his heart. And he’s unconscious. I’m afraid to move him and afraid not to. Even if I could, which I can’t.
I haven’t heard a gunshot in a couple seconds. But I hear men and I need them before the PTSD kicks in and I crumble.
“I need help!”
No one’s listening and just the act of screaming is exhausting me to the point I can barely breathe past the pain.
“Now, goddammit!”
Finally—fucking finally—one of Tomas’s soldiers hears me. A man, tall and dark, comes over and kneels on the other side of Tomas. He takes one look at all the blood and frowns. I’m woozy and gasping from my own bullet wounds. The one in my thigh feels like someone is twisting a hot fire poker in my hamstring again and again.