Page 38 of Devotion

“Got it!”

And like we planned it, Ciro sprints at the wall, stepping twice on the bricks as if he can fly and leaping out over the smoking car, the four remaining attackers, all gawking up at him with priceless expressions.

He’s an angel of death, turning a roundoff in midair, drawing his guns from his sides, his coat flapping in the wind.

Raining pain and vengeance down on them.

Fuck me, I think I might be falling…

Ciro hits the ground, stepping down out of the sky and throwing a glance over one shoulder to assess the damage. Three dead.

Two more shots off to his right and I know the survivors from the other car are no more.

Shaking my head I rush out in the heat of the onslaught, catching my brother’s eye as we zero in on the driver trying to slip away unnoticed.

A nod is all we need to silently agree on a plan.

Mat always goes low, I go high. My twin takes the driver’s feet out from under him, pitching him back. Right into my flying knees, taking him right at chest level and driving him to the ground with brutal abandon. The wind blasts from his chest, a strangled scream as the pavement shreds his back.

“Who are you?” I shout in his face, planting one palm across his chin and neck and a blade to his cheek to keep him from moving. “If you flinch, I take your eye out.”

“Hng…N-never,” he manages to choke out, following his intelligible protest with a string of what I can only imagine are insults in another language.

“Sounds like he wants hard way,” Matvey snickers, standing behind me, guarding my back.

A vicious grin spreads on my face as I jam my knuckles into a wound on his arm, making him shake and growl.

“Give me a name. An organization,” I hiss, leaning in close to his ear. The proximity seems to make him more uncomfortable than the pain, and pure hatred fills his eyes as he tries to pull away from me. “So you do not like women? Or Russians?”

“I think he just doesn’t like you, Van.”

“Tishina!” I snap over my shoulder. Not in the mood for jokes. “Shakal! Do you recognize his language?”

“Not off the top of my head, but something about their daggers is familiar.”

The man’s eyes widen a fraction as I dig down into his belt, yanking the blade free. “This, ah? What can you tell me about this?”

But I see him jawing, making strange movements with his mouth.

“Shit! Poison, stop him!” Ciro shouts.

Matvey is beside me in an instant, jamming fingers into his mouth, flicking a capsule away in a spray of blood and spit.

“Fucking disgusting!”

“Fucking insane.” I agree, distracted for a split second by the realization of what was about to happen. Long enough for my prisoner to squirm an arm free, shoving me off balance and onto my ass.

He’s on his feet and sprinting away before I can make it back to mine.

“Got him!” Ciro takes off running and I’m right on his heels.

But Matvey’s warning shout gives me a moment’s pause just before I hear the sound of a motorcycle nearby, closing fast. A flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye sends my instincts into overdrive.

I dive hard, tackling Ciro at the waist.

Gunfire echoes all around us, the sound of a rifle. Two shots.

We land hard, Ciro on his back, gasping, holding me to his chest. Hard footsteps draw my attention up and Matvey runs past raising his pistol. To my left, the foreign driver lies dead, shot between the eyes.

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