Page 117 of The Lieutenant

I moved through the house while my soldiers took out the men inside, spinning around only once and catching one man between the eyes before he had a chance to fire.

After searching the entire downstairs, there wasn’t any sign Kara was there or had been in this location. I took the stairs two at a time, running into another soldier bounding toward me. I knocked him down by backhanding him with the weapon, standing over him with the barrel of my handgun pointed at his face.

“Where are they? Bernardi and the woman?”

He spit out shit in Italian, not knowing I understood the language. “Nice try, fucker. Call me all the names you want. I don’t care. Tell me where they are and you’ll live.” I smacked him again, rolling him over and pinning his arm at an angle that I could easily break within seconds.

He whimpered from the pain. “Fuck off.”

I twisted his arm until the position was at that point. He was ready to scream from the agony. “Tell me!”

One more centimeter was all he could take.

“In the basement. The fucking basement.”

“Good boy. Sadly, I lied.” I fired into the back of his head, not wasting any time to ensure he was dead. There was no need and time was of the essence.

“Where?” Christos yelled as he bounded into the hallway.

“Basement!” I growled, moving through the house like a predator. The door leading to the space below was in the kitchen. My guess was that the area was soundproof. I opened the door cautiously, ensuring no one was standing with a weapon pointed toward the opening. There was nothing but an empty set of stairs. I crept down, my brothers immediately following.

When I was close to the bottom, I heard a muffled scream. Without hesitation, I rushed toward the sound. There was another room attached to this one. We flanked the sides of the doors and I darted my head just into the opening. I’d been right about soundproofing. There were baffles on the ceiling and walls. For once luck had been with us. The fuckers hadn’t heard the gunfire upstairs.

Nothing in my world involving vengeance was easy. We’d faced our share of enemies over the years yet the encounter had always been a battle. With only three soldiers inside, another man hovering over Kara, the odds were in our favor.

Before I had a chance to react to the sight of her, one of the soldiers turned around.

Then all hell broke loose. I fired, hitting him in the chest first, blasting my way further in.

All three men were killed and the bastard who’d dared to hurt my baby was hunkering over her.

“Well. Well. I have visitors as I anticipated.” Bernardi was laughing.

I tossed my head over my shoulder, Dimitrios immediately motioning for one of the soldiers. If he had been expecting us, the house itself was a ticking timebomb. The soldier raced back to where we’d come from.

“Why don’t you let her go so we can talk about this like men?” I suggested, scanning the area to ensure there were no other soldiers hiding in the shadows.

“I don’t think I can do that.” Bernardi stroked Kara’s face. “It’s time for you to meet your maker. All of you.”

“Havros,” Kara whispered. “He has a gun.”

“Shut up, you little bitch,” Bernardi snapped. “But she’s right. One move and she’ll be staring back at you with blank eyes. The two of you will rot in hell together.”

We were out of time. I didn’t need my sixth sense to tell me the house had been wired.

There was something to be said for growing up with three brothers. While only two were here with me physically, the third was definitely here in spirit. With no other communication needed than a single glance to each other, we reacted.

Two bullets slammed into the backs of Bernardi’s legs, easily blowing out both knees. I fired the single shot into the arm holding the weapon.

His scream was high pitched, but it wasn’t enough for me. Yet I wasn’t interested in wasting any time with the fucker. My brothers could do with him what they wanted. All I cared about was getting to Kara.

Suddenly, the shadows moved and men appeared from the darkness. “Get down!” With two seconds, I had the assault rifle in my hand, spraying the soldiers with bullets.

And all the while, Bernardi was laughing.

When all was quiet, I heard Christos whistling.

I knocked Bernardi to the floor, kicking his weapon away before crouching down to Kara.

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