Page 85 of Savage Reins
I circle wide around the stone fence, using its bulk for concealment while moving into position behind their vehicles. My boots make no sound on the damp earth as I close the distance, near enough now to hear their panicked breathing, their whispered prayers to God or Allah or whatever deity they hope might intercede on behalf of killers who prey on innocent women.
The blade comes free from my boot with a whisper of steel against leather because sometimes rifles make too much noise, and sometimes you need the intimate touch of sharp metal to finish work that bullets started.
The first man never sees me coming because his attention focuses on the barn where he believes death waits with rifles and scopes. My hand clamps over his mouth as the blade slides between his ribs, finding his heart with the surgical precision that years of killing have taught my fingers. He convulses once, twice, then goes limp as his blood warms the steel buried in his chest. I lower him quietly to the ground, retrieving my blade and wiping it clean on his expensive jacket.
His partner turns at precisely the wrong moment, eyes widening as he sees death approaching with naked steel instead of distant bullets. He tries to swing his rifle around to bear, but I am already inside his guard, too close for rifles to matter. The blade opens his throat in a crimson smile that extends from ear to ear. Blood fountains across the SUV's black paint as he collapses, his hands clutching futilely at the wound that empties his life onto the gravel.
One gunman remains besides Lev, a young man maybe twenty-five years old, shaking as he clutches an automatic rifle with hands that have probably never killed anyone before today. When he sees the bodies of his comrades, the weapon tumbles from nerveless fingers to clatter against the ground. His bladder releases, a dark stain spreading across his tactical pants as terror overwhelms whatever training he received.
"Please," he whispers, his voice cracking like a child's. "Please don't kill me. I have a wife. I have children who need their father."
"Your choice to make," I tell him, keeping my voice level and reasonable. "Stay here and die with your employer, or crawl back to whatever hole spawned you and find a different line of work."
He doesn't hesitate or try to negotiate terms or plead for his companions. Hands raised high above his head, he backs away from the vehicles, away from the blood, away from the consequences of following Lev Karpin into this foolish war. When he reaches the tree line, he turns and runs with the desperate speed of a man who understands how close death came to claiming him.
That leaves Lev alone behind the engine block, his silver hair now streaked with the blood of men he brought here to die. The expensive coat is torn and dirty, stained with earth and gore and the sweat of a man who realizes his overwhelming advantage has transformed into inevitable defeat. The confident predator who arrived at dawn has become cornered prey with nowhere to run and no allies left to die in his place.
"It's finished, old man," I call to him across the killing ground. "Your soldiers are dead. Your war is lost. Your vendetta ends here."
"This won't end with my death." His voice carries across the yard, defiant despite circumstances that offer no hope of survival. "Kill me, and my brothers will come seeking revenge.Then their sons will come. Then their grandsons. The vendetta never dies, Vetrov. It only sleeps between generations."
"Then perhaps it's time to put it to rest permanently."
I step around the vehicle with my rifle aimed at his center mass, finger resting lightly on the trigger. Lev crouches behind inadequate cover, his own weapon trained on my chest in a standoff that will end with mutual destruction at ten feet.
"You think you've won here today?" Blood trickles from a cut on his forehead where shrapnel or ricochets have marked him. "You think protecting one girl makes you some kind of hero worthy of songs and stories?"
"I think protecting her makes me a man instead of a monster."
"You are a killer, same as me, same as them." He gestures toward the bodies scattered around the vehicles. "Don't pretend otherwise or dress up murder in noble clothes."
"The difference between us," I tell him while sighting down the barrel, "is what we choose to kill for."
His finger tightens on the trigger as mine does the same. We fire simultaneously, muzzle flashes bright in the morning air, the crack of rifles echoing off the barn walls and rolling across the pastures where horses graze in ignorance of human violence.
His shot goes wide because fear and desperation spoil his aim at the moment when accuracy matters most. Mine finds its mark, the heavy round taking him high in the chest and spinning him sideways against the SUV's bumper. He slides down to the gravel, his weapon falling from hands that no longer obey his commands as blood soaks through his expensive coat.
Blood foams on his lips as he tries to speak, probably some final curse or threat that will die with him in this place. "The vendetta…"
"Dies with you," I finish for him, and put another round through his skull to ensure the conversation ends permanently.
The morning falls silent except for the ringing in my ears and the distant sound of cattle moving through the pastures beyond the killing ground. Smoke drifts from rifle barrels and vehicle engines that still run despite their owners feeding the earth with their blood. The sweet smell of gunpowder mingles with the metallic scent of death, creating a perfume that soldiers know better than any cologne.
My men emerge from their positions with weapons ready, eyes scanning for additional threats that might materialize from the tree line. Anton kicks the rifles away from the bodies, and Boris climbs down from the loft, his face grim but satisfied with work well done. Ivan checks each corpse methodically, making sure none will rise again to continue this fight on another day.
"Clean up everything," I order them. "No evidence survives to tell stories we don't want told."
They nod and begin their work without questions or complaints because these men understand the cost of loyalty and the price of survival in a world that offers neither mercy nor forgiveness to those who choose the wrong side. They chose their allegiance the same way I chose mine, with full knowledge of what such choices demand.
Movement catches my eye near the barn doorway where Mira stands, her face pale with shock and horror at what she's witnessed. She's seen everything that matters, the killing and the blood and the casual way I ended eight lives to protect what belongs to me. Her gray-blue eyes move across the carnage, taking in the bodies scattered across her family's land and the blood seeping into soil where horses graze and children once played in safer times.
I walk toward her with the rifle still slung across my shoulder, gore splattered across my clothes, each step carrying the full weight of what I have become and what I have always been beneath whatever thin veneer of civilization once disguisedmy true nature. The distance between us feels infinite and instantaneous at the same time.
"Are you hurt?" I ask, hesitant to approach her after what happened last time.
She shakes her head because words have abandoned her in the face of brutality that most people never witness outside of nightmares. Her gaze tracks over the scene once more before returning to my face, searching for something that might explain how a man can kill eight other men before breakfast and still speak gently to the woman he loves.
"I told you I was a killer," I say quietly. "Now you have seen exactly what those words mean when they leave the realm of theory and enter the world where actions have consequences."
