Page 106 of 10 Days to Surrender

But they won’t. Because whatever threat has breached our sanctuary will stop breathing as soon as I put a bullet in its skull.

I look back one final time at Ariel.

Sleep well,ptichka. Let me handle the darkness.

I float down the stairs, avoiding the ones that squeak. Two steps shy of the ground floor, I pause. There it is again—the squeak of a rubber sole on the kitchen tile.

When I stoop low enough to stick my head out without drawing attention, I catch a glimpse of a shadow prowling toward the living room. He’s backlit by the garden lights, the fucking fool. Only an amateur would let his silhouette precede him.

But amateur bullets kill just as fast as a professional’s do. I have no intention of letting that happen.

A second shadow springs up to join the first. So the motherfucker brought a friend. That’s fine—I brought a whole clip of ammunition. Plenty to spare for both of them. I crouch on the bottom stair with my breath suppressed as I wait for the intruders to step into the line of fire.

As I wait, eight weeks of playing house flash through my mind. Eight weeks of gardening and cooking and rubbing Ariel’s swollen feet. Eight weeks of pretending I’m not what I am.

But I know what I am. I’m the man who will paint these walls red to keep her safe.

The intruder’s boot appears. In the shadows above him, I adjust my grip on the Glock. The weight feels good. My hand knows what shape to take, how hard to squeeze the trigger. It’s not anger flooding my system now—it’s the calm, cold certainty of knowing what I was born to do.

The only thing that’s changed is the reason why.

I think of Ariel sleeping upstairs, belly round with my children. Think of how vulnerable she’d be if these fuckers got past me.

This is the old, familiar ice, yes.

But this ice is colder than it’s ever been.

I sight down the barrel. The first one straightens up, reaching back to help his partner. His throat is exposed. Perfect.

I move.

Two silent steps down. One more. The old stairs don’t dare whine under my feet. I am shadow. I am death.

I am what Yakov made me.

The second man’s head appears in the window. His eyes widen as he spots me.

Too late.

My first shot takes him in the throat. The sound is muffled by the suppressor—just a wetthwipthat ends in a bloody gurgle. He flops back into the garden, leaving his partner alone.

The survivor spins, blade already drawn. Fast. But not nearly fast enough.

I grab his knife hand and slam it into the counter’s edge. Bone crunches and the blade clatters to the floor. His mouth opens to scream. I shove my gun between his teeth.

His eyes are liquid with the purest kind of animal fear. There’s not a man present in this mind anymore—there is only a frightened beast realizing just how many mistakes paved the path that brought him to me tonight.

“I agree,” I snarl at him. “You fucked up.”

Then I pull the trigger.

Thwip.

The man goes slithering to the floor. I stand over his cooling corpse, watching crimson pool beneath what remains of his shattered skull. The blood spreads in a perfect circle across the Italian tile, like a dark halo.

But when I bend down and rip the ski mask off, it’s not the grizzled Serbian face I expected to see. This boy—because that’s what he is, a fucking boy, scarcely old enough for his beard to fill in—is still wide-eyed in death. He can’t be more than twenty-five at most. Local, by the looks of him.

I frown.

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