Page 15 of Kept By the Bratva

After I said it, I wanted to cringe. Hehadtrusted me to keep an eye out at Harrow’s and I’d fucked that up, going to see Amy. But tonight would be my penance. I’d show him that I was as dependable as ever.

Alek sighed, looking back at Mila, who quickly smiled at him from a distance. “I know.” He regarded me carefully. “No disguise?”

I shot him a stern look. “No. I want the Cartel to know it’s me. To know it’s the Valkovs infringing on their business.”

He nodded and stepped back, hands at his sides.

I checked my guns, and with a final sweeping look over the area, I raised my hand in a signal for Ivan to head out.

We were off, and the ride to the Ortez area was a quiet, tense span of too many minutes. Anticipating guts and glory, death and bloodshed, I focused on this lethal calm. Killing was nothing new to a man like me, but it was a challenge. In this criminal world we inhabited, it often ended up as a case ofkill or be killed, and I was the superior actor in that style.

This mission was no laughing matter. We might lose some men. The Cartel would be surprised by our swift retaliation for their gunfire atour club, but they would defend their ground severely as soon as they realized why we were there.

This was my duty. Violence ran in my bloodline, and it would never cease. All I trained my body to do was withstand the adrenaline rush, the push to destroy, and physically endure the chance of injuries.

Ivan reached the gates first, firing out the windows at the Cartel members guarding that point. Because their acquisition of this building had happened recently, they didn’t have too much security in place yet. Whoever and whatever they had planned on for a first line of defense didn’t last. My brother was one of our deadliest killers, and he served well, punching through so Dmitri, then I, could follow him in.

Guns up and firing hot, we stormed the warehouse. Men came at us from every direction, shooting back and shouting orders for more to come and purge the threat of the Valkov power we were delivering at their door.

Thanks to Maxim and another hacker in the family, we were equipped with a rough map of the structure. Things weren’t identical to what we saw in this poorly lit, abandoned manufacturing site, but we had the upper hand of knowing where the storage rooms might be located.

We fought every step of the way. Fanning out and spreading from one room to the next, our soldiers brought vengeance and anger. They aimed, fired, and removed the enemy. All these men had tried to bring us down first. These fuckers had made the first move, the first attack, and it wouldn’t be their last mistake. I had no doubt this carnage and fighting tonight would be one episode of many. Their numbers were too large. Their grip on the trafficking and drug lines of business was too strong. They had too many backers and influential hands deciding how they could be more ruthless, more cunning. Crime never slept. No one would ever end it. All their international leaders and collaborators would make the fight against their organization a long-standing war. After tonight, they would think twice about fucking with us anytime soon.

“Upstairs!” I shouted to a few of Dmitri’s crew. We’d delegated teams, organizing our men so we could fan out faster and search the building. Our goal wasn’t to come in here and slaughter them all. That wasn’t a bad idea, but we had to make our point here. The thugs we shot and fought were a dime a dozen. They’d be replaced with more stupid recruits.

We weren’t leaving until we got those women and delivered the message of what happened when they tried to get in our business.

I pivoted and scoped the area. Many Cartel members were dead. Injured and bleeding out, or dead. I dismissed the signs of death and pain, too used to it and desensitized to the shock factor of mortality.

Their bodies littered the floor, but I remained alert, keeping watch while the soldiers and Dmitri found the first storage cell.

Women’s cries filled the air, but within moments, after more gunfire as we killed the men, they were taken out. Filing out one by one, the Valkov force carried the bound women and loaded them into our vans.

“Move it,” I yelled, ever aware that we would be in danger as long as we lingered.

Ivan replied, “Another room. Over here.”

More men hurried in the direction of his shout, from further back in the building, but I remained in the central receiving center, looking out.

Once more, women dressed in white, sheet-like gowns were carried to our vehicles.

Dmitri approached, finished with overseeing a van filled while Ivan’s team moved faster to do the same.

We both held up our guns, alert, but Dmitri shook his head. “I can’t say I like this.”

I scowled at him.

“We don’t deal with this shit, man.” He spat a mouthful of blood from a lucky hit to the face. The Cartel member who’d gotten close enough to strike him had lost hiswholehead.

“Trafficking women isn’t what the Family does.”

I exhaled long and hard. “We’ve already discussed this.” At that meeting with Alek, we had. Dmitri was right. We didn’t deal with selling women. We did a lot of illegal, unsavory shit. Drugs, arms, digital information, other means of corruption… But selling humans wasn’t our thing.

“Which is why we’ll get rid of them.”

He grunted. “What, send them back home? They’ll ID us, and they won’t be calling us heroes.”

I gritted my teeth. He was right. We had yet to figure out how we’d move these women, but they weren’t going to stay with the Cartel as their product. That was a fact.

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