Page 75 of Kings of Violence

“Who the fuck are you?” A gruff voice asks.

Fuck. I stiffen and glance at the door. It’s a large man, probably twice as wide as Yuri, with a military cut and a nasty scar across his face. I glance at the camera feed, and realize it’s the guy who’d been asleep earlier.

“Dave sent us,” Yuri says breezily. “The server was acting up, and he needed somebody to check on things.”

The guy scowls. “Dave? Guy’s out sick for days and then he sends people without warning us?”

Yuri shrugs. “I don’t know about that. Just that the files are too important to risk losing thanks to a glitch in the system.” He glances between the guy and me. “You’re doing all the backups now?”

“Yep,” I say, trying not to tense up. Yuri has this handled. All I have to do is avoid fucking it up. “Shouldn’t take too long.”

The guy crosses his arms in front of himself. “So what are your names? In case somethingdoesgo wrong, and I need to tell the boss who to blame.”

“Blame Dave,” Yuri suggests. “But I’m Dimitri. She’s Anya. Things won’t go wrong, though. All we’re doing is making sure nothing gets lost.”

“Uh-huh.” The guard’s tone doesn’t bode well. “Who’s Nikolai, then? Since you’re apparently expecting him.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I don’t think on my feet as fast as Yuri, but looking to him would give us away. Instead, I focus on the backups, letting him handle this. The seconds tick by, the download going agonizingly slowly.

Yuri gets up and strolls closer to the guy. “Nikolai is our errand boy. We sent him to find coffee for us.” He gives a condescending laugh. “Between you and me, I bet he got distracted along the way. Or maybe he had to piss, I don’t know.”

I barely even have time to blink before the guard lashes out at Yuri. Yuri saw it coming, though, and ducks down.

“Who the fuck do you think you’re fooling?” the guard shouts. “The boss would never trust a Russian.”

Yuri curses. “Because of the accent? I could be Ukrainian! Uzbek! Azeri! Belarussian!” He skips backward a few steps and glances at me. “How much time do you still need?”

“Ten,” I say, my eyes wide as I look between them.

I really wish I had a fucking gun of my own.

Not that I’d use it, but it would be nice leverage.

Probably.

Where the fuck is Nikolai?

The guy lunges at Yuri and slams into him, knocking Yuri into the wall. Yuri grunts in pain and clutches at the wall.

With Yuri dazed, the guy turns to me with a nasty grin. “Your turn, girlie.”

I meep and shake my head. “Wait! I’m not doing this willingly! He forced me to!”

The guard barks out a laugh. “You expect me to believe that? And even if I did, why the fuck should I care?” He stalks toward me, clearly enjoying scaring me.

The thing is, though, I’m not as scared of him as I am of Yuri.

Yuri rushes at the man and kicks him in the back of the knees, sending him stumbling to the floor.

“Come on, come on, come on,” I chant under my breath, like that’s really going to make the download go any faster. “Seven, Y— Dimitri!”

Seven minutes. So much can happen in seven minutes. What if the other guard shows up? What if they set off an alarm? My heart is racing, everything that can possibly go wrong running through my mind.

The server room isn’t large enough for a full on brawl, and the next punch the guy throws knocks Yuri into one of the server towers.

“Careful!” I hiss. “Both of you! You’ll destroy the data!”

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