Page 279 of Gilded Cage (Kovalyov Bratva 1)

I just fire it into his face.

The gunshot makes me wince. But I’ve just announced my presence to the whole damn mountain range, so the guns might as well come out to play.

I hear more coming. I curse viciously under my breath.

By my count, I would guess at three more men, at least, and that’s a modest estimate.

And they’re coming fast. Too fast to hide.

I hear raised voices a quarter-second before they emerge into the clearing.

I dive for cover and start firing with abandon. I hit one man in the shoulder and one in the chest.

The latter falls to the ground instantly and I know I’ve made a kill shot.

The others take firing positions or fan out. I duck behind a rock outcropping and curse again under my breath as I replenish my ammo.

The adrenaline is still coursing hot through me, but now there’s worry and a twinge of fear.

All I can think of is Esme.

Stay with her, Cillian. Don’t fucking leave her side.

We’re still close enough to the cabin, that both Cillian and Esme will have heard the gunshots.

I’m hoping that Cillian is in the process of getting Esme out of these fucking mountains as soon as possible.

But I can’t be sure and it’s driving me fucking crazy.

Focus, Artem. Think about this later.

For now, you need to concentrate.

New determination gives my muscles fresh strength as I peer around from the boulders.

I can see four men, all large and all armed. They are dressed differently than Razor and his men were, but I don’t dwell on it.

Instead, I dart between trees just long enough to get another round of bullets in the air, forcing the attackers to scatter for cover.

Fuck.

There’s too many of them.

It’s starting to dawn on me that if this becomes a fight to the death, I might not make it out of these woods alive.

I may be more skilled than all of them, but guns don’t care about skill. They’ll kill you no matter how good you are.

One bullet is all it would take. One bullet, to make my wife a widow, to leave my child fatherless before he is even born.

Fuck that.

This is not the day I die.

I burst out from behind the tree, a gun in each hand as I fire like a madman with nothing to lose.

The moonlight glitters above me, illuminating the blood seeping out from the dead bodies that litter the leaf-covered floors.

One man crumples to the ground.

---