Jackson slid open his nightstand, handed her the fully loaded .45 and an extra magazine, and retrieved the Mossberg from under the bed. Then he grabbed a box of shotgun shells, cursing himself for not picking up more the last time he visited the range.
Essie tucked the extra magazine into the back pocket of her pants as they left the room. “Odds are they’ll hit us from both entry points.”
She was right, though Jackson wasn’t happy about it. An assault on multiple fronts was a time-tested strategy for achieving dominance on the battlefield. But he and Navarre had invested a lot of time, money, and effort into remodeling the house. He hated the idea of all that work being obliterated in a firefight. On the plus side, it might finally give him the excuse he needed to replace that butt-ugly backsplash Navarre had picked out for the kitchen.
“Front or back?” he asked Essie as they stopped in the hallway leading to the living room.
His caveman instincts wanted her to find a safe place to ride this out, but that simply wasn’t an option. She’d never been the type to hide, and her participation would go a ways toward evening the odds. Personal experience had taught him that she was fiercer than a wolverine in this type of situation.
“You take the front,” she replied. “I’ll cover the kitchen.”
Jackson nodded. “Holler if you need me.”
“I will. Same to you.” Her voice softened. “Please be careful.”
“Hey, it’s me.” He grinned. “I’m always careful.”
He could barely see her in the darkness, but he could practically hear her eyes roll.
All joking aside, there was a significant chance they wouldn’t make it out of this alive. Bazarov and his team were professional killers and most likely armed to the teeth. And considering they’d cut off the power, they were probably equipped with night vision gear, which put him and Essie at a tactical disadvantage.
And what did they have? Home court advantage, for starters. That alone evened the scales. Plus, they had years of experience, some serious firepower of their own, and a shitload of tenacity. Already he felt the adrenaline surging, felt the rush that always came over him right before he charged into battle.
But just in case things didn’t work out the way he intended, he framed Essie’s face in his hands and kissed her hard and fast.
“See you in a few,” he said, and then strode toward the front of the house.
The scent of dinnerlingered in the air as Essie crept into the kitchen and used the island for cover. Moonlight peeked through the blinds covering the sliding glass door, providing a few slivers of illumination to the otherwise darkened room.
Bazarov’s team was close. She could feel it in her bones. Quiet as a mouse, she reached up, slid two knives from the butcher block, and set them within easy reach as she sank back down to a crouch. They wouldn’t do squat against a high-powered rifle, but you never knew when they might come in handy.
Her gaze searched the darkened room for anything else she could use to her advantage. At the sink, she spotted a bottle of dishwashing liquid, and she squirted what was left in the bottle on the tiles by the sliding glass doors.
She briefly wondered how Jackson planned to defend his home. There wasn’t much he could use for cover. Perhaps the couch, though a bullet would slice through it like a hot knife to butter. If necessary, he could also use the hall as a defensive position. From there he’d have an unobstructed view of the door, and if things went south, he could retreat to Navarre’s room, where she had no doubt another stash of weapons lay in wait.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of breaking glass, and a tear gas canister landed near the dining room table. Essie yanked a dishtowel from the stove handle and tied it over her mouth and nose. It wasn’t much in the way of protection, but it was better than nothing.
Staying low, she grabbed a pot from the strainer by the sink, scurried across the kitchen, and used the pot to cover the canister. It wasn’t an airtight seal by any means, but it contained most of the gas and made breathing a whole lot easier.
Essie ducked back behind the island, her eyes stinging from the gas. Gun drawn, she flipped off the safety. Her mouth went dry, while her pulse sped up. An eerie sense of calm washed over her, the way it usually did whenever death was on the line.
Outside, a male voice shouted in Russian, and then a hail of automatic gunfire shattered the sliding glass door.
Essie flattened to the floor as bullets tore the kitchen to shreds. Behind her, she heard the boom of Jackson’s shotgun, intermingled with more automatic gunfire, and she prayed that he’d be all right.
Ears ringing from the noise, she crawled to the end of the island and peered around the corner in time to see a man in dark fatigues, body armor, and a gas mask charge into the room. He made it two steps in before sliding on the soap and falling flat on his ass, his rifle firing up at the ceiling. Under different circumstances, it would have been comical, but right now it was nothing more than an opportunity to exploit. Aiming for his head, she burned through half of the magazine, and the man stopped moving.
As she pushed herself up into a crouch, a second man charged into the room, using his fallen comrade as a stepping stone to avoid the slippery floor. Bullets punched into the island and came out the other side, missing Essie by pure luck.
When the rifle clicked empty, she peered over the top of the island, and even in the dark she recognized Rudolph Bazarov’s bulky form. Like the other mercenary, he wore dark fatigues and body armor. A helmet shielded his head, while a patch covered the gaping hole where his left eye used to be.
Ignoring the chill in her blood, she fired several rounds, but they were absorbed by his body armor. She adjusted her aim, fired again, and Bazarov cursed when a round ripped into his upper thigh. He went down, the rifle falling from his hands. As he rolled, he drew a pistol from his holster and fired blindly in her direction.
Essie ducked back behind the island. She’d lost track of how many rounds she’d fired, so she ejected the magazine and loaded the spare. In the living room, gunfire filled the air, and a pair of shotgun blasts let her know that Jackson was still in the fight.
Something landed on the tile beside her, and Essie’s eye widened at the sight of a grenade. She lunged to the left, using the refrigerator door for cover as the explosion blew what was left of the island to bits. The force of the blast slammed the door into her and knocked the air from her lungs.
Through the haze, she saw Bazarov charging toward her, and her heart kicked against her rib cage. She’d lost her gun during the explosion, leaving her to scramble for something suitable to use as a weapon. She spotted one of the knives from the butcher block, but before she could reach it, rough hands grabbed her from behind and slammed her face-first against the wall.
