Page 48 of The Bratva's Forced Bride

More shouts came from within the club, but I recognized those voices. Glancing to my left, I found my cousins navigating through the smoke with their own pistols drawn, firing at the influx of men. Our guards joined in, creating almost a wall of bodies against the attackers.

The patrons were flooding out in the opposite direction, leaving us to fend the place from them.

The more bodies that entered the building through the rubble, the more dire I realized the situation was. It was a full-blown shoot-out, and Grace was still in tow behind me. She didn’t have the Kevlar on anymore, and there was only so much I could do to protect her then.

But alongside the people rushing out of the club, I found Raya in the corner of my eye. Rushing over to her, I brought Grace to her.

“Take her and go! Get somewhere safe!” I shouted over the chaos.

Understanding, Raya nodded and immediately reached for her.

The fear gripping Grace was enough to make me regret even bringing her there in the first place. If we had just gone home like I originally wanted, we wouldn’t have been in that mess.

But I couldn’t dwell on it, not while I had seconds to watch the two of them hurry away from the fight.

It felt like a major sacrifice to let her go, but I had to. It was for the best.

Returning my attention to the fight, I found our men formed a united front, aiming at any men they spotted. Those shots rang out, and my own joined in as they seemed to drop like flies.

Standing alongside my cousins and our men, our mortality seemed more apparent than ever, but it didn’t shake us. We were trained to handle situations of that exact nature.

It was heated at first with constant rounds of shots. Many of their bullets were swallowed up by the rubble since they were at a disadvantage. They had the club lights working against them, and they weren’t as familiar with the layout. Better yet, they didn’t know we had backup or just how many men we really had.

With reinforcements rolling in, we were able to pull back and get a better look at the situation.

“They’re retreating!” Dimitri shouted, getting in some last few shots as the men pulled back.

Once the last few survivors ran out the way they stormed in, an eerie silence settled over the club. No more guns were fired. No more bodies hit the ground. What men we did hit littered the floor, and their bodies began appearing one by one as the dust quite literally settled.

Not far from my place, one of them was down but attempting to crawl away. His leg was shot and bleeding, but otherwise, he seemed fine.

With fresh anger coursing through me, I stormed to where he was, kicked his gun away, and slammed my boot against his injured leg.

He screamed, writhing in pain on the floor. Pinned there beneath me, he wasn’t going anywhere.

Our men evaluated the space, working to neutralize the property. As everything went still again, the damages were assessed. Luckily, it didn’t seem like any patrons had been caught in the crossfire.

Isidor shook his head as he stood by the opening—the wall that had been blown in and left a gaping hole behind. He was both pissed and devastated. “I can’t believe this happened. In broad daylight, too.”

“They’re getting bolder each time,” Dimitri said, face fixed in a scowl. “This was too close to home.”

Andrei, enraged as he looked upon the damage that was dealt to the club, clenched his jaw. “This needs to end.”

“I have one of them here,” I called out, reaching for the captive’s collar as I hoisted him up.

The blood was drained from his face as he was forced to his feet, made to put pressure on his bad leg. He could hardly stand, and I knew there wasn’t much fight left in him.

“Yaro, take that one and find out what the hell is going on here. We need answers, and we need it figured out before anything else happens,” Andrei instructed, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

Nodding, I motioned for a few of my men to come over, and I passed the hostage to them. “Take him to the docks and put him in the interrogation room. Patch him up enough to keep him alive, but no more than that.”

They nodded, taking the man away with little care. If we didn’t need him for answers, I was sure we all would’ve found at least a flicker of satisfaction in ending him.

As the situation was taken care of, that remaining question remained in my mind, banging against the walls. Where did Grace end up?

Feeling that rush of concern and panic, I peeled away from the scene when I knew it was alright to, and I hurried outside.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to go far. The girls had been tucked away in one of our armored SUVs, all looking just as worried when I opened the door.

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