Page 111 of Kings of Cruelty

“There’s a guard coming your way,” Sierra warns. “On your left.”

We all freeze. The guard on patrol walks past us, oblivious at first. He simply wasn’t expecting to see us. But he realizes something is off.

His mouth opens—and Yuri slashes his throat.

Blood gushes out and splashes all over Yuri’s helmet and chest.

The guard makes a few gurgling sounds before collapsing to the ground.

“Fuck. Quick, hide that body. Yura, you and I will keep going,” I order. One of the guys with us nods and grabs the body to drag it away. Thankfully the bloodstains won’t be so noticeable on the lawn.

We end up having to take out three more guys before we get to the guest room window we’d identified as the best entry point.

Yuri and I wait outside the window.

“Where the fuck are they?” Yuri mutters under his breath.

This plan hinges on the other teams doing their part. We’ve been lucky so far, but somebody is going to notice the missing guys very soon, and there are a good thirty to forty men crawling around the compound.

“They’re in position,” Sierra says over the earpiece. “One, two, and?—”

Gunshots ring out across the dead night right as droplets of rain start to fall all around us.

Shouts follow, audible even from this back corner of the mansion.

“Okay. That wing is clear. Go!” Sierra says.

One of our men uses a heavy pick to smash the window. The alarm that should have gone off stays silent, and I’m grateful that Sierra was being a snoop and got all of this shit set up.

I wonder how she would’ve used this against us if we hadn’t come together as we had.

Yuri and I climb through the window, the other men behind us.

We cautiously make our way through the corridors. All lit, unfortunately, but there isn’t much Sierra can do about that since the indoor lights are still manually activated.

“Start sweeping the rooms,” I tell the men. “If they don’t surrender immediately, kill them. If they make any suspicious moves, kill them. If they breathe wrong?—”

“Kill them,” one of them finishes. “Got it.”

It’s going to hurt, seeing so many men I’d worked with die at our hands, but that’s what they get for betraying Kotya. No mercy for traitors.

Yuri and I move on while the men start opening all the doors. We hear gunshots and garbled shouts, but we can’t waste time checking in on them. We have to trust that they know how to do their jobs, and that Sierra would warn us if there are any immediate problems for us.

We turn the corridor, and I slow down when I realize we’re at my photo studio. I open the door, then let out a sharp hiss when I see all of my equipment destroyed. Even my toys have been ripped down and may not ever be the same again.

Yuri stops when he realizes I’m lagging behind. He peers past me. “We’ll replace it all,” he says.

I know that on a rational level, it’s onlystuff. But at the same time, I’ve been collecting these things for years. My photography equipment will be easier to replace, if expensive, but the ridiculous monsterfucking dildos I’d collected over the years had come from indie creators who may never make the same things again.

I do have to wonder what the fuck these people were thinking when they’d destroyed those, though.

It’s almost funny.

Almost.

“Yeah,” I say gruffly.

Assuming we survive this to be able to replace everything, but I don’t say that part aloud.

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