Page 118 of Lethal Alliance

Alexei doesn’t say a word, just lifts Masha up and pushes straight past me, thrusting her back into the boat. Ofelia is trying to clamber out of it. “Get in,” he says roughly.

“No!” She’s crying, clinging to Alexei like he’s some kind of life buoy. “Not without you!”

“I’m fine.” He heaves her into the boat.

I’m not.

I’m about ready to kill anything, just to cut through my confusion.

Alexei raises his gun, and for the second time, my finger tightens on the trigger. Then he takes two measured, precise shots. Two men I didn’t notice fall to the ground, right on the tree line. From their position, they had a direct shot at me.

Another moment, and I’d have been dead.

“Go,” Alexei orders his men on the shoreline curtly. “You know where to wait for me.”

They melt back into the trees. In the distance, I can hear sirens wailing. Clearly our little encounter has drawn the attention of local law enforcement.

“I’ll explain later,” Mickey says to me. “Get in. We need to get out of here.” He nods at Alexei. “You, too.”

I glare at Mickey as I climb into the inflatable. “You better be fucking right about this.”

“I am.” He helps me into the boat. “Mak’s team has Orlov. He’ll be at the warehouse when we get there.”

“Well, that’s one bullet I get to use, at least.” I wipe the blood from my face, my gun still trained on Alexei as we pull away from the shore.

“No.” Alexei Petrovsky gives me a death stare that could freeze hot tarmac. “Vilnus Orlov is mine.”

I stare at him in absolute disbelief. This bastard has held my daughters captive for the past week. He’s sitting in my boat with half a dozen guns trained on him. He’s leaking blood from multiple bullet wounds, he can’t have more than one bullet left—and now he’s trying to give me orders?

“You two can argue about this later,” Mickey interrupts before I have a chance to argue. “Right now you have bigger things to worry about.”

We both turn to him, frowning.

“It’s Fedorov.” Mickey meets my gaze, his face grim. “He’s in London.”

37

DARYA

The intercom crackles to life at half past one in the morning.

One of the guards in the room crosses the floor. “Who is it?”

“I’m one of Mak’s team. We’ve secured the area.”

Mak said he’d call to tell us when his team was close.I get a bad feeling.

The guard, Anton, glances at me, and I shake my head.No.I hold up my phone to show him I’m calling Bryce’s number. Anton nods and depresses the intercom button. “Where’s Bryce?”

“He got hit.” The intercom cuts out then back in again. “I guess you can’t hear anything inside there, because there’s been a hell of a fight upstairs.”

Bryce’s number is ringing, but there’s no answer. I circle my finger in the air, signaling the guard to keep the man talking.

“Nobody contacted us,” he says, watching me.

“We didn’t exactly have time to send a fucking memo.” The man sounds impatient.

Anton’s eyes narrow. “Where are the rest of our team?”

---