Page 3 of Shielded Secrets

“I’m not sure about this,” I told Oleg. Voicing concerns to the Boss wasn’t a sign of weakness, or it never should be. I spoke up now with a slight worry that he would be annoyed with my opinion that we shouldn’t proceed with his plans. Part of being a Baranov brother included looking out for all the other members in the family, though, so Ihadto point out my reservations. If I suspected danger, I had to speak up. And I did now.

“It’s fine,” Oleg replied. His rich, deep voice from many decades of smoking cigars would never come across as a true whisper, but I noticed how he’d try to speak as quietly as possible. He wasn’t at ease waiting around near this warehouse either. His cautious gaze roved around the space as if he, too, had a subliminal need to be careful and look out for something that wasn’t right.

“This is supposed to be a casual meeting,” he said quietly.

Those words,supposed to be, never applied to anything with much accuracy in our lives. Some things could be taken as fact, like the codes and rules that we lived by and obeyed. Loyalties,grudges, and violence could all be taken or given in expected doses. But sometimes, when something just didn’t feel right, we had to play by ear and count on the unexpected.

“It’s just a casual meetup.” Oleg looked around where some soldiers were expected to talk to us about deals that had been made. Lots of Baranov men had the job of following up on business and making sure stipulations of agreements were addressed by all the involved parties. Itshould’vebeen a casual meetup, but I was getting nervous. Too many guards seemed absent. It was… too quiet, for lack of a better term. Noises reached us from the street, always bustling and busy with the sounds of the city that never slept. Machinery moved from other floors in this building. In the distance, workers could be heard laughing, talking, and carrying on as usual for their jobs in the sweatshop we owned. It seemed like this was just any other ordinary day, but I couldn’t turn off this worry that the Boss could be at risk here.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” I said. Again, saying such a thing came with the risk that he could be irritated with me. Oleg Baranov was a powerful leader, one of the strongest men in the area that no other family, gang, or criminal organization ever wanted to mess with. He was inherently a target no matter where he went, representative of not only all that power he’d accumulated over the years but also because of his net worth.

“Sometimes, it’s just a feeling,” he said, not matter-of-fact or in denial, but merely stating it conversationally.

I wasn’t prone to being paranoid. Not like some of the other guards and spies in our network could be. I also wasn’t familiar with being the Boss’s main security guard. Lev and other men typically took up that position while I stuck with spying and doing surveillance from a distance. That was more my style.With so many other men busy elsewhere, though, I was tasked with being Oleg’s backup today.

And he was right, sometimes, these feelings just came up and didn’t go away. It came hand in hand with a dangerous lifestyle like ours. Being suspicious was just a way of life for us.

“But sometimes,” he said, still looking around, “it’s not just a feeling.”

Aha.So, I wasn’t alone in thinking something seemed off about this supposedly casual and routine meetup. He was on edge too.

“Exactly. Maybe we should just go.”

He shook his head. “I’ve been eager to talk with this crew about the Ilyin activity on that side of town,” he argued.

I was well aware that he wanted intel about one of our rivals in the area. “But if this is an ambush or some kind of a setup, that intel can’t be worth it.” No news could be worth our leader’s life.

“I suppose.” He wasn’t relenting yet, though. “If this meeting was about getting intel on Igor Petrov,thenI wouldn’t hesitate and want to linger here. But I don’t need to go out seeking answers about the Petrovs’ plans because Irina came into our lives. But it’s not about the Petrovs today.”

Again, he was right, but there was more disarray lately, more chaos all because of the Petrov Boss. He’d singlehandedly stirred up far too much trouble lately. We’d just learned that he’d tried to hold a bastard son of the Baranov family hostage. He’d tried to plot against us in a war about turf and drug trades. If anyone was a clear enemy who’d want to take out Oleg Baranov, Igor Petrov would be at the top of that list.

“I wouldn’t put it past the Petrovs to try to take a shot at you whenever and however they can.”

He nodded, ceding that point. “Yes, but there are plenty of men positioned around here. And there is a chance one of the men coming to meet me here could have information about Sonya.”

It baffled my mind how he wasstilldetermined to find his eldest niece who’d gone missing years ago. His dedication to locating her was a testament to how he never failed anyone in his family and organization.

“And I think?—”

The rest of whatever he wanted to say was lost to the gunfire. I lifted my gun from its holster, where I’d been keeping my hand as my anxiousness increased, but I didn’t aim to shoot yet. “Get down!” I rushed at Oleg to shove him down to the floor with me. His safety was the first order of business. Then I could attack.

Too many men rushed into this open-air meeting space of the warehouse. My sixth sense about danger had been accurate. Those funky feelings of nervousness had been warranted, after all. Guns were fired all over the place. With the increase of danger under the attack, more Baranov soldiers fired into the warehouse to help protect the Boss. Our men shot at the invaders, and whoever these masked men were aimed and pulled triggers right back.

The silence was gone, and now my ears rang with the rapid-fire shots. Above the thunderous rush of my pulse in my ears as my heart raced, I winced and tried to tune out the clamorous and deafening noise of all the fighting.

Lying over the Boss, I kept him down and secure. If anyone were to try to get a shot at him, they’d have to go through me first.Other Baranov soldiers came close, surrounding our Boss, but not before I took a hit. Turning at the last second to block a man from firing a shot right at Oleg’s head, I jerked back. Pain ripped through my arm.

“Fuck!” I whispered it in a whoosh of an exhale as my body was flung back halfway. In the momentum of being hit like that, I was shoved into him harder, forcing him to fall flat to the floor. We lay there, me bleeding on top of him, as more of my Baranov brothers filed in and outnumbered the assholes who thought to ambush us. Within a couple more minutes, the men were dead. If they hadn’t been shot by us, they killed themselves.

Several men came to help me ease off Oleg, but the Boss wasn’t a stranger to blood and gore. He didn’t fight on the front lines anymore, but he wasn’t afraid of getting dirty.

“Rurik?” he asked as men gathered around to help me. He took off his suit jacket and used it to compress the bleeding at my shoulder. “You all right?” I nodded, wincing at the pain that came with the motion.

Agonizing pain spread through my shoulder and arm. Blood gushed too quickly, and through the searing ache from the gunshot wound, I felt dizzy. Too many things had happened too quickly. In the back of my mind, I struggled with the crash of adrenaline. Shock claimed me, and all I could do was hang on and wait for everyone else to help me.

In a blur, I was transported to the hospital. All the while, the Boss stayed with me, as well as a crew of guards. Lev was there too, just before surgery. Vik came, and more men showed up, both to further protect the Boss but also to give or receive a report.

“None of them?” Oleg asked when Lev confirmed that not a single man was found alive at the warehouse.

---