Page 104 of Protection (Mobsters + Billionaires 2)
“Hop,” I hiss into the line. “We said silent.”
“Whoops.”
Charlie, Everett, and Omar race toward the front of the house, and based on the commotion, a good number of the assholes inside do the same.
Olga and I share a glance, and she gives me a sharp nod. We approach the back of the house, and I kneel quickly, checking the guard for communication devices, weapons, and, most importantly, keys.
As I reach the door, Olga turns the knob, and we look at each other, surprised. No keys necessary.
She opens the door, which leads into the kitchen. There are two more guards, but their attention is riveted to the front of the house. Whoever trained them should be ashamed of themselves.
Olga and I, perfectly in sync, raise our weapons and fire, silently bringing down two more people who mean to do Mads harm.
The blueprint we got from Ryder seems to be accurate, and as much as I want to tear ass up the stairs and put eyes on Mads, we have far too many Russians to contend with now.
Olga and I up-nod each other, communicating with a few hand signals to flank the contingent at the front of the house. That seems to be a pretty decent idea until we pass a darkened hallway and are immediately jumped by two enormous men shouting at us in Russian.
One guy reaches Olga first, and he punches her in the face. Her lips and teeth bloodied, she smiles at the guy, and I feel a little sorry for him. He's allowed himself to get too close, and she brings her knee up with devastating force. The guy immediately drops to the ground, and she begins pummeling him in the head with her steel batons.
My guy comes in for the haymaker punch, easily tracked, but when I throw up my arms to counteract the blow, the force of his strike makes me lose my grip on my gun. He pulls out a knife, smiling like he’s done something special.
That is his first mistake.
He takes a swipe at me, equally as trackable as his haymaker, and I pivot away, letting his forward momentum take him off-balance before swinging around with my elbow and connecting right under his eye, crushing the maxilla.
He goes down in pain and makes the ultimate mistake of reaching for my gun. I kick in the other side of his face, reach down, grab the gun, and press it to his forehead. His eyes cross as he tracks the movement, then he looks up at me. I wink and pull the trigger.
Olga and I make it to the living room, and we witness a scene that can only be described as pandemonium.
Anders and Hopper are both covered in blood and grinning like idiots. The bad guys in the living room seem to have had better training than the ones Olga and I encountered, but they are inevitably cannon fodder.
Anders is finishing off someone with a mixture of bare-knuckle fighting and knife skills when an enormous guy comes at him from behind. I raise my gun and pull the trigger. Simultaneously Hopper leans forward and jams his knife into the man's eye, making it look like the knife thrust burst out the back of his head.
“Nice,” he says, nodding at me as he blindly jabs backward, gutting whoever is coming up behind him.
Anders, having killed everyone around him, looks outside and starts running. Olga, Hopper, and I follow him out.
Charlie, Everett, and Omar are outnumbered three to one, and while they’re holding their own, these bad guys actually know what they're doing.
Omar is particularly good at disarming people, and Charlie's fighting is poetry in motion. He smashes an attacker’s nose with the heel of his hand, then reverses the follow-through and breaks his nose in the opposite direction. Everett is brutal and accurate, cleaning up whoever those two miss. The rest of us join them, making it a more even fight.
There are too many of us in play, so I holster my gun and go in on one of the fighters right as he pulls out a nightstick. He cracks me in the ribs with it, lightning-fast, so I knuckle-punch his neck below his Adam's apple, and he pitches forward, choking. I bring up my fists behind his ears, knocking out his balance as I wrench his wrist in the wrong direction. Wresting the nightstick from his hands, I bring it down on his knee with a satisfying crack.
He falls, gripping his wrist as he brings his knee up in agony. I pull my gun and put a bullet in his head.
Hearing a familiar laugh, I look over, and Hopper's got somebody in a wicked chokehold. He shifts, twisting the man's head up and back with horrifying force.
The guy falls to the ground, limp, breathing funny.
“You didn't sever the spine, Hop,” I say, gesturing with my chin at the man.
“I know,” he says, smiling proudly. “I'm saving him for later.”
I spy Anders out of the corner of my eye, twisting his knife in his assailant's groin before ripping it out. Screaming as he grips his junk, the man falls to the ground, a large pool of blood spreading quickly beneath him.
Anders and Hopper give each other finger guns, which…yeah, that’s about right.
“Omar’s in trouble,” Rafi says, his gentle voice urgent on the line.
