Page 2 of The Russian's Revenge Bride
Two shooters near the far wall, focused on Rafael’s position. They never saw me coming. I put three bullets in the first one’s head before he could turn around. The second managed to get his weapon halfway up before my fourth shot opened his throat like a second mouth.
Blood painted the concrete in abstract patterns, warm and thick in the cold air. The metallic smell was overwhelming now, mixing with cordite and the stench of fear. This was the perfume of my world, the scent of necessary violence.
“You Croatian piece of shit!” I called out into the darkness. “Show your fucking face!”
More gunfire, but wilder now. Panicked. They were realizing their numbers advantage was disappearing fast. Fear made people stupid, and stupid people made fatal mistakes.
I reloaded, the motion automatic and smooth. The warehouse had gone quieter, only three or four positions still firing. Time to end this dance.
A shadow moved near one of the exits. I tracked it with my weapon, patient as death itself. The figure stepped into the weak light, and I saw betrayal wearing a familiar face.
Young, scared, sweating despite the cold. Definitely not Croatian.
Russian.
The gunfight continued around us, bullets flying and men dying, but I couldn’t take my eyes off that face. Someone I’d seen before. Someone who’d sat at our table, drunk our vodka, called us brothers.
Another burst of gunfire snapped my attention back to the immediate problem. A shooter had flanked around toRafael’s left, weapon trained on his wounded form. I put two bullets in the bastard’s chest before he could pull the trigger.
The warehouse fell silent except for the drip of blood and Rafael’s labored breathing.
I counted bodies as I moved through the killing ground. Seven dead, all of them cooling fast in the Prague winter. Blood pooled on the concrete like spilled paint, dark and thick. The math worked out. No survivors to carry tales back to whoever had sent them.
Rafael was still propped against the pallets when I reached him, his face pale but his eyes sharp as broken glass. The blood had soaked through his shirt and coat, a spreading stain that told me everything I needed to know about how fucked up this situation was.
“How’s it look?” he asked, voice steady despite the hole in his gut.
“You’ll live. Too fucking stubborn to die from something this small.” I pressed my hand against the wound, feeling warm blood seep between my fingers. “But we need to move. Now.”
“The merchandise?”
“Fuck the merchandise. This whole operation is burned to ash.”
I helped him to his feet, his considerable weight heavy against my shoulder. We moved slowly through the maze of bodies and broken dreams, leaving behind enough firepower to arm a small war. Sometimes you had to cut your losses and run. Tonight was definitely one of those times.
The BMW was waiting outside, black paint gleaming under the streetlights. I loaded Rafael into the passenger seat, his breathing shallow but steady. Tough bastard was already calculating our next moves despite bleeding all over my upholstery.
“Setup,” Rafael said as I started the engine. It wasn’t a question.
“Complete fucking setup. They knew our timing, our numbers, our exact positions. Led us here like lambs to slaughter.”
“Except we didn’t die.”
“No. We fucking didn’t.”
The drive to the safe house was tense, Prague blurring past the windows in streaks of old architecture and communist concrete. We’d added seven more bodies to the city’s collection tonight, seven more reasons why this business was not for the weak or the foolish.
The safe house was a nondescript apartment in the old quarter, three flights up and invisible to casual observation. Perfect for our needs. I half-carried Rafael upstairs, his blood leaving a trail that would need cleaning later.
Inside, I stripped off his shirt and examined the damage properly. The bullet had gone clean through, missing anything immediately vital by pure luck. In this business, luck was often the difference between breathing and bleeding out on a warehouse floor.
“Hospital?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Fuck no. Too many questions, too much paperwork.” He gritted his teeth as I probed the wound. “Just clean it and stitch it up. We’ve both had worse.”
That was true. The scar beneath my right eye was proof enough of that. A souvenir from the last time someone tried to fuck us over. The blade had missed my eye by millimeters, close enough that I could see my own death reflected in the steel.
I worked on Rafael’s wound with steady hands, cleaning and stitching like I’d done a hundred times before. In the Bratva, you learned to be your own medic, or you died waiting for help that never came.
