Konstantin snorts. “Still stuck on that?”
“I’m not good for her,” I repeat, counting bullets. “You know that?—”
“Bullshit—”
“I have nothing to offer her?—”
"Protection. Loyalty. Love, if you'd stop being such a stubborn bastard about it." Konstantin’s mouth twists, and I look up sharply at him.
Love. The word hangs in the air between us like a loaded gun. I'venever said it to anyone, least of all her, but hearing it out loud makes something twist in my chest. Is that what this is? This consuming need to keep Sienna safe, to make her smile, to hear her say my name in that breathy way she does when I'm inside her?
"It doesn't matter," I say, turning away from him. "After tonight, the threat will be gone. She can go back to her life."
"The men are ready," Konstantin says after a long moment. "We leave in ten minutes."
I nod, checking my weapons one final time. This is what I'm good at. Violence. Death. Keeping people like Sienna and Adam safe from the monsters in the dark, even if it means that I’m one of those monsters myself.
"Damian." Konstantin's voice stops me at the door. "When this is over, when Giovanni Russo is dead and buried, think about what you really want. Not what you think you deserve, but what you want."
I don't answer him, even though I know what he’s saying is coming from a place of love itself, the love of a man who has been as close to me as a brother all these years. I can't. Because what I want is upstairs, probably crying because of the things I said to her. What I want is a life I gave up on years ago, one that I buried so deep I thought it was dead. I thought I didn’t want a wife or a family or any of what I would have called bullshit, but it turns out that one woman changed all of it.
She changed me. But I can’t change the world we live in to make it safe enough for her.
The drive to the warehouse is silent, twenty men in four cars, all of us focused on the job ahead. I've done this countless times before, but tonight feels different. Tonight feels final, like more than just the Russo threat is ending.
The safe house sits on the edge of the industrial district, surrounded by empty lots and abandoned buildings. It’s not the kind of safe house I would think Giovanni would normally hole up in—too dirty, too old, and used for him to feel comfortable—which means we’ve been putting enough pressure on him to make him hidelike a rat in a hole. That makes me feel good, pleasure licking through my veins at the idea of him running scared.
Konstantin’s voice crackles through the linked radio channel. “Remember, men. Tight formation, don’t split off unless absolutely necessary. Give them a wall to fight against. And no survivors. Leave Russo to Damian and me.”
We move in coordinated silence, twenty shadows slipping through the dark. I take point with Konstantin, my weapon ready, my mind focused on the task at hand. This is what I was born for. This is what I'm good at.
This is what Victor Abramov trained me to be. A killer. A monster. The thing that goes bump in the night.
Not a husband or a father or a lover.
The first guard goes down with a knife to the throat, never knowing what hit him. The second manages to get off a shot before I put two in his chest, but by then it's too late. We're inside, and there's nowhere for them to run.
The safe house looks like absolute shit, rundown furniture and curtained-over windows, nothing like the kind of place I’m sure Giovanni Russo would rather be. In the back of my mind, I’m concerned that it might be bad intelligence again, but we’re here, and there’s nothing but to fight our way through this and hope our target is at the end of it.
The gunfire erupts like thunder in the confined space, muzzle flashes lighting up the darkness in strobing bursts. I move through the chaos with practiced efficiency, my body operating on pure instinct honed by years of violence. A man rushes me from the left, and I put two bullets in his chest before he can raise his weapon. Another tries to flank me from behind an overturned table, and I drop him with a headshot that paints the wall behind him red, splattering over the stained drywall like modern art.
The acrid smell of gunpowder fills the air, mixing with the metallic scent of blood and the stench of fear. Men are screaming, some in pain, others barking orders that no one follows. It's chaos, but it's the kind of chaos I understand. The kind I was molded for.
Konstantin moves beside me in tandem, his movements fluid and deadly. We've fought together so many times that we don't need words, don't need signals. We know each other's rhythms, each other's blind spots. When he goes left, I go right. When he reloads, I cover him. I know if I fall, he’ll kill whoever puts a bullet in me, and vice versa. It’s a brotherhood that goes beyond words, forged with blood and years of loyalty.
A bullet whines past my ear, close enough that I feel the heat of it. I spin and return fire, watching a man in an expensive suit stumble backward with a hole in his throat. Not Giovanni, though.Good. I want to look in his eyes when I kill him, not see him fall from a quick bullet. I might not get the time to flay him like I’d like to, but I don’t want his end to be so unceremonious.
"Where is he?" I shout over the gunfire, putting another round into a man who's trying to crawl behind a couch.
"Back room!" Konstantin jerks his head toward a hallway that leads deeper into the safe house. "Has to be!"
We fight our way through the main room, stepping over bodies and broken furniture. My boots slip in a pool of blood, but I keep moving. Nothing matters except getting to Giovanni Russo. Nothing matters except making him pay for what he’s done to Sienna, once and for all.
The hallway is narrow and dark, lit only by the muzzle flashes from our weapons. A man jumps out of a doorway with a shotgun, and I dive to the side as buckshot tears chunks out of the wall where my head was a moment ago. Konstantin puts three rounds in the man's chest before he can pump another shell into the chamber.
I kick the door at the end of the hall in, boot slamming against the latch, and as it swings open and crashes into the wall, I see Giovanni Russo leap up from the bed where he was sitting, his hand on the weapon holstered at his hip.
Before he can draw it, I fire, and his hand explodes in a spray of meat and bone, splattering the wall with red.
