Page 83 of Mafia Don's Secret Baby

With all my men around me, we rushed through the grate, counting turns. Anthony veered off, and we continued forward. The men in the front watched every turn keenly, and when we reached the designated grate, we stopped and listened.

Nothing.

Nobody guarded it.

The frontman climbed the ladder and pressed it open. It made a loud clank as it budged free, and he immediately looked through the opening before glancing back down. He made a gesture to show the path was clear, and we all followed. Only two men stayed behind, guarding our way out.

I mentally envisioned the schematics of the rooms surrounding this one. I couldn’t begin to guess where Lilianna was being held, but I knew she was here. The trace on Vlad’s phone and all the security measures around this building indicated it.

I wouldn’t let her slip through my fingers.

I pointed to the door, and two of my men stormed into the hallway, gesturing for us to follow. The right side led to only one room—a small storage room that would be too small to house more than one person.

We went left, forking off toward a staircase with a sealed door at the top.

This was where the mission became risky. We didn’t know how many people were inside. We knew Vlad had been here less than an hour before. Marcus hadn’t seen him leave, so I hoped we’d find him. I could almost taste the vengeance I’d enact on the man. He’d deserve every ounce of the pain and suffering I brought upon him. Imagining the long days I’d take to tear him limb from limb had my hand tightening on my pistol.

The first group of my men rushed up the staircase, and I followed behind. The second group covered my back.

They barged through the door, and the sound of immediate gunfire made me curse.

A few of my men fell, but everyone fired back, taking out the three men in the center of the room easily.

My eyes seemed to know exactly where to go.

They met the wild gaze of Lilianna.

Blood oozed from her nose, and a few bruises seemed to have spread across her cheekbones, but other than that, she seemed to be in one piece.

The distraction had cost me, though. Two Russians came from each wall, four in total, opening fire on us as we stood at the top of the stairwell.

One by one, my men began falling from wounds of varying degrees of severity. Anyone who still lived was shooting back, and the few who hadn’t been hit were searching for cover. But the room was wide open, and there was nowhere to go but down. One of the Russians on both sides went down, and I lifted my gun to take out another.

A relentless burst of pain shot through my arm, and I involuntarily dropped the gun, falling back from the force of whatever had hit me.

“Retreat!” I shouted at my remaining men, but nobody listened. They all focused their attention on the enemies. I would stay. I had to stay. With Lilianna here, I couldn’t risk leaving her.

One of my men fired a shot that took out the final guard, and I heaved a sigh of relief as I stared at Lilianna, assessing her for any injuries that I hadn’t noticed before.

My eyes danced to the figure behind her, holding a gun to her head.

Aelita.

“If you shoot her, you don’t have a bargaining chip for your own life,” I told her.

I pulled out another of my guns and pointed it down at Aelita as I brought myself to my feet. But she stood directly behind Lilianna, crouched in a way that I could hit either of them if I fired a shot. With my injured forearm, I didn’t have enough stability to guarantee the shot.

I grabbed where my forearm had been hit and applied pressure to it. It wasn’t bleeding too severely, and I knew how lucky that was. I took just a moment to scan the faces of all the men around me. Three of them struggled to take in air, but the others—nearly two dozen of them—had been mowed down as if they meant nothing.

The door to a room a few feet from Aelita burst open, and my attention veered to Vlad, holding a gun pointed directly at me.

I turned mine on him and moved closer with slow, calculated steps.

“I expected you to fall for the bait,” he admitted. His tone told me that he knew precisely what my men and I had pulled to try and distract them. “You’re going to die today for what you did.”

“You’re not leaving this building alive!” I roared. “Not when you brought her into this.”

Lilianna’s eyes remained wide as I glanced at her again, almost as if she was trying to relay something. I took one step closer, looking between Aelita and Vlad.

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