Page 117 of 10 Days to Surrender

I holster the Glock, leather creaking. “And the main event?”

Feliks grins, all teeth. “Truck’s loaded. Enough C4 to redecorate Dragan’s skull across six boroughs.”

Pavel fidgets and sighs from his seat in the corner. “The Greeks…” He hesitates. “You sure about trusting them? After Leander?”

“They hate Dragan more than they hate us,” I say. “And Kosti promised they’re good for it. That’s enough for now.”

The monitors flicker. Grainy footage shows Dragan barking orders at the docks, that fucking lupine strut of his. I flex my healed hand. Every joint moves smoothly. Not a hitch or tremor to be found.

Feliks tosses me a Kevlar vest. “Zoya made me swear you’d wear this. She also said, ‘Don’t die, idiot.’Her words, not mine. I would’ve called you afuckingidiot.”

I chuckle as I strap it on. My reflection catches in the window—dark clothes, darker eyes, scar white against my throat. I look exactly like the monster Ariel first ran from. But now, that same darkness serves a better purpose: protecting what’s mine. Keeping my family safe.

I touch the hair tie again. My skin is still prickling with the aftermath of the FaceTime call as dawn rose. How she smiled at me through the phone screen last night, belly swollen with our children.

Everything I am, everything I’ve built—it all comes down to this moment. This chance to carve out a future where my kids never know their father’s kind of pain.

Ilya checks his watch. “It’s 11:47.”

I nod, feeling the old familiar battle-calm settle over me. “Let’s go remind these fuckers whose city this is.”

God help anyone who stands in my way.

The warehouse clock tower chimes midnight.

My boot heel crushes a spent cigarette, the first I’ve had in days. Above us, spotlights swing like drunken pendulums. The hair tie bites into my wrist as I look at Feliks where he stands to my left.

I nod. He nods back.

Then the dogs come pouring out of hell.

Every Bratva man at my back takes aim and fires. Shrapnel peppers the loading bay. A Serbian’s half-eaten gyro hangs suspended in midair before splattering against a forklift, followed by the bloody remains of the man who was eating it. I put two in another’s chest before the first boot even hits ground.

Then we run barking from the shadows. My whole Bratva, down to the last loyal man, descends on Dragan’s main warehouse, preceded by a hail of gunfire. Serbian soldiers and scouts are cut down like the harvest. Some scream as they go. Most don’t get the chance.

“Flank left!” Pavel’s voice crunches through comms. I vault over a pallet of counterfeit vodka, the Glock’s rhythm syncopating with my pulse.

Crack-crack. Two more shadows drop.

It’s smoke and gunfire everywhere, laced with the wails of these drowning rats. My phone vibrates once in my tactical vest—Roza’s signal that their communications are officially scrambled. Right on schedule. I can hear the confusion in their shouts as conflicting orders and white noise surge through their earpieces.

A meaty hand grabs my ankle. I stomp down hard—nasal cartilage crunches—then silence the offender with a knee to the trachea. A throwing knife finds his neighbor’s eye before the body finishes sliding down the shelves.

I check my watch. 12:11 A.M.

“Status?” I growl into the mic.

Feliks’s laughter crackles in response. “The Albanians took the docks easy as pie. As we speak, the Triad guys are roasting Serbs in the Golden Dragon’s woks. We might’ve set some new land speed records on this one, boss.”

A grin splits my face in two. I perk up when I hear a man screaming in Serbian, because my bloodlust has not quite been fully sated yet. When I round the corner of the warehouse, I see him: one of Dragan’s lieutenants, backing into a freezer unit, AK-47 trembling.

His eyes dart to the hair tie, then up at me.

I smirk at him. “My fiancée sends her regards.”

One shot in each kneecap brings him to the floor. He collapses, bawling, as I stride up to him, pluck the rifle from his grip, and cast it aside.

“Look at me.” I press the Glock’s warm barrel under his chin. “Where’s Dragan?”

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