Page 72 of Kings of Violence

“You’re not the one with a hundred and eighty pound dude on his shoulders.” Nikolai does straighten his back, giving Yuri a few extra inches of height.

Yuri taps Nikolai’s shoulder with his foot. “If you could balance as well as I can, you wouldn’t always be on the bottom.”

I can’t help it. I snort at that, watching in amusement as Nikolai grabs Yuri’s ankles to hold him upright.

Then I realize I’m going to have to do this, and it’s suddenly a lot less amusing. It’s not that I’m scared of heights, but putting myself into Nikolai’s hands like that? That would be a hard pass in any other situation.

Nikolai glowers at me. “Something funny, zaya?” he asks sourly, even as he hoists Yuri up to where he can grab the window ledge.

“Nope. Nothing at all. Is there anything in there, Yuri?” I ask, trying to hide my nerves behind a smirk.

“It’s a bathroom,” Yuri says smugly. “No cameras.” He opens the window as much as it’ll go, then grabs the edge to lift himself over. He’s inside the building in a few seconds flat. After a few moments, he leans out and says, “I locked the door. Sierra, get on Nikolai’s shoulders and I’ll help you up.”

My stomach flutters, and I take a few steps back. “How about I just walk you through it? It’s not that hard, once you’re inside,” I hedge, even though I know perfectly well that trying to explain how to hack into the network isn’t easy to explain.

Nikolai grabs my arm and pulls me closer. “Come on, zaya. A bunny like you can surely hop onto my shoulders.”

“If I was a bunny, I’d hop away from your predatory ass,” Igrumble, but I hand the laptop bag up to Yuri. He takes it, and I study Nikolai as I try to remember just how Yuri had climbed him like a tree.

Nikolai snickers, but he holds still, and I dig my heel hard enough into his side to make him grunt.

“Sorry not sorry,” I say.

It’s not that I’m the least graceful person in the world, but the move isn’t as easy as Yuri made it out to be. It takes me several minutes to figure out how to go from Nikolai’s waist to his shoulders, and when he leans in to kiss my ankle, I yelp and nearly fall.

“What the hell, Nikolai!” I exclaim, clinging to the window ledge.

“Sorry not sorry,” Nikolai echoes, snickering.

“Shut up,” Yuri hisses at us. He reaches for my arms and starts pulling. I swallow another noise and hop—not like a bunny—to make this whole process faster.

But I admit I’m a little worried that he’s going to drop me and I’ll land head-first on the ground. At least it isn’ttoohigh.

Of course, once I’m in the bathroom, I realize why the window was open in the first place.

“Jesus Christ, that smell is foul,” I complain, covering my nose.

Yuri’s nose twitches. “Yeah. But lucky us, right?”

He looks out the window to Nikolai.

“We’ll get the camera turned off so you can get into one of the side entrances,” I say, sticking my head out the window to get a gulp of fresh air.

“Got it,” Nikolai confirms. “I’ll find a place to wait.”

I glance at Yuri, holding my nose. “All right. Let’s find the server room,” I tell him.

Yuri unlocks the bathroom door. “Walk confidently,” he says. “We will try to avoid cameras, but we want to appear like we belong here.”

“We definitely don’t look like we belong here,” I point out, looking at our mostly-leather clothing, but I shrug. “Whatever. I can act like I own the place.”

What should be anxiety has turned into excitement, and I wonder if we can really pull this off.

No, scratch that.

Wearegoing to pull this off.

“We’re fine,” Yuri mumbles. He leads the way like he knows exactly where we’re going—and maybe he does. Maybe he’s done a lot more recon than he let on. When we hear footsteps, he redirects our path into a nearby door until whoever it was has passed. The room we ended up in is some sort of staff kitchen, but it’s entirely empty.

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