I’d probably be able to stroll right through the front door.
But I know that the second the first bullet is fired, every man loyal to the cartel within a twenty-mile radius will come pouring in for backup.
And on top of that… there’s the retrieval target.
The retrieval mission that’s at the core of this whole goddamn trip.
Part of me wanted to say no. To tell Father to go fuck himself when he explained the details to me.
But the Bratva comes first—always.
And tonight, that means getting what I came for.
“I just sent in a report to Budimir,” Cillian tells me. “I told him we’re preparing to move.”
I nod. “Did he say anything else?”
“He asked about you.”
“Which means that Stanislav asked about me.”
“This is a big assignment,” Cillian points out. “He wouldn’t have entrusted you with it if he didn’t believe you could handle it.”
I glance towards Cillian. I’m grateful that he always seemed to have my back, no matter what.
As much as he annoys the hell out of me sometimes—often, as a matter of fact, and usually on purpose—he’s as loyal as they come.
“I appreciate your vote of confidence,” I mutter.
He puts a hand on his chest. “Oh, you’ve got it all wrong—I know you’re gonna fuck this up ten ways to Sunday, but Stanislav didn’t ask me for my—”
I swat him in the head with a gloved hand as he falls back laughing.
Asshat.
I laugh under my breath and shake my head. Some things never change.
Picking up my night-vision binoculars, I do another scan of the walls. I check my watch as I go.
Everything here works like clockwork. The same patrols, the same lights switching on and off at the same times.
Which means that, in precisely fifteen seconds, a pair of guards holding AK-47s will round the upper west corner.
Three…
Two…
One…
“Hola, amigos,” I whisper under my breath as they appear right on schedule.
It’s good to have a mission. Something to focus on.
Especially because my attention has been shifting like sand in a hurricane.
It started with Marisha.
With the nightmares.
And then it turned to the brunette beauty in The Siren’s bathroom.
But this? Action, a mission, an objective task and only one way to do it—violently?
That’s where I fucking thrive.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Nine-twenty.”
I nod. “We move at my command. Are the teams ready?”
Cillian nods. “We’ve got team one and two at the main entrance, teams three and four on either side of the house at the side entrances and teams five and six right here. All waiting on your signal.”
His voice is somber. He may be a jokester through and through, but even Cillian O’Sullivan knows when it’s time to shut up and do the work.
And now that time has come.
I look back at my men arrayed in the darkness behind me. They’re all geared up with their weapons at the ready.
Each one gives me a curt nod as my gaze passes over them.
Fuck it. Let’s go.
I adjust my bullet proof vest and give Cillian a nod.
“It’s time.”
“Then let’s get this show on the road,” Cillian says with glee, smacking his hands together.
“Remember,” I say to my men, “take no prisoners. The job should be clean. The only one who’s going to survive this night is the girl. And she belongs to me.”
13
Artem
Two dozen men sprint through the night under cover of darkness.
It’s quiet out here. Only the sounds of the distant ocean waves and my own sharp breaths.
I have my gun held at the ready. Eyes peeled.
We’re about twenty paces from bursting out of our cover. That’s when all hell will break loose.
Which means our bombs are going to go off right about…
Now.
A huge, bone-rattling boom erupts. I hear screams of pain, the bellows of dying men. Shrapnel and fragments of concrete explode through the night.
And one by one, the exterior doors of the cartel compound fall clattering to the earth.
I lead two of the four-man teams into the western entrance. Already, the pepper of gunfire has begun.
The eastbound teams have the job of drawing off the bulk of security. All my most bloodthirsty soldiers were assigned that task.
No one leaves alive, I told them in our final briefing before tonight’s assault.
The eager grins on their faces told me they understood perfectly.
The men at my side now—Cillian included—are more subtle. The kind of cold-blooded bastards who spend their days raising innocent kids with oblivious wives—and spend their nights slicing throats for the Bratva.
Invisible killers.
My pack broaches the security perimeter. Right on cue, the two point men unleash a quick burst of fire to take out the exterior cameras and floodlights.
Instant darkness.
I give Dimitri, my demo expert, the signal. He runs forward with the breaching charges and plants them against the small iron door set in the wall.
We all take cover a few yards away.
A tiny boom.
This door falls just like the rest of them.
We waste no time. Practically the second the charges have detonated, we’re already siphoning in through the opening. Guns at the ready and heads on a swivel in case any rogue security notices our arrival.
The hallway is eerily silent, except for the occasional burst of gunfire or dying screams from the far side of the compound.
We’re alone…
Until we aren’t.
A pair of straggling guards round the corner at a dead sprint.
They hardly have time to come to a complete stop before each of them is sporting a fresh bullet hole in the head.
And we keep moving, running past them and scanning. Always scanning.
“Fan out,” I bark. “Check all the rooms.”
We move as a single unit, spreading out to encompass the hallway and flow down it with ruthless efficiency.
Fuck, it feels so good to be here again—in the heart of the action.
There are no nightmares here.
No weakness.
Just the purity of might makes right.
Five minutes go by in a flash without any other sign of life. We clear one hallway and then the next.
“Nothing here, sir,” the soldiers report again and again as we kick down doors and
