Now that I have everything assembled, there’s too much time to think. Lev is silent, eyes narrowed as he roams the rock outcropping. Is Leonid torturing Roman and Ilia? In the video, they had obviously been worked over, but some of the Bratva’s cruelest tricks - taking out eyes or cutting off ears - hadn’t been employed. That video was from nearly twenty hours ago. What’s happened since? 

I’d authorized Viktor to release the first series of funds. Fifty million dollars was a blow, but we’d recover. My biggest fear was that Leonid would kill one of my brothers, deciding he didn’t need two hostages.

Sighing, I refocus on my position. There are two blind spots where I’ll have to use the thermal imaging scope to track the guards and I check them again.

Ten minutes until all hell breaks loose.

When we’d landed, Lucca had helped me organize my gear and the ammunition when we transferred from the plane to the trucks. “What did you and Alexi talk about?” 

“He wanted to know if I’d ever killed anyone before,” I focused on packing my rifle scopes in the duffel bag.

“What did you tell him?” Lucca asked, putting his hand on my chin, urging me to look at him.

“I told him the truth. That I watched you kill someone and helped dispose of the body,” I forced myself to sound unemotional.

He sucked in a deep breath. 

“He asked me if I could really pull the trigger, knowing that the person in my sights would die,” I continued, zipping up the bag and putting it in the backseat.

“And your answer?” Lucca gently cups my cheek, and I lean into his warm hand, closing my eyes for a moment.

“I told him, absolutely,” I said coldly. “There’s no sitting on the sidelines. I am all in.”

Five minutes, now.

Lucca…

There’s no sign of Giovanni and Dario, and I’m angrier with myself for stupidly hoping to see them. Mariya’s brother Maksim had called in during the meeting and tried to assure me that they’d be here, some explanation of logistics that I tuned out after a minute or so. I didn’t expect anything from them, though I’m a little surprised they didn’t jump in on behalf of the Morozovs, given their alliance. Do they despise me that much?

It doesn’t matter. Everything comes back to protecting Tatiana. Until Leonid Rostova is dead, her family isn’t safe. The satisfaction of wiping out the Costa famiglia and Camilla’s shitty family of butchers is just a bonus.

A heavy hand lands on my shoulder as Alexi moves next to me. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. Kon and Aleksandr are with us, his guidance is crucial in case something has changed in the chalet. 

“Checking in,” Meiying’s voice comes in through my headset. “All set here. Your drone operator is a weirdo, but both ammo drones are ready to go.”

“Two minutes,” Alexi’s voice breaks in. “In position.”

I look over my shoulder one last time at Tatiana’s location behind the rock outcropping. 

Keep her safe, Lev.

“On my mark,” Alexi speaks again. “Three. Two. One.”

The drones perform perfectly, the first one drops its payload on the south wall, exploding into a million pieces of rocks and concrete, and the second explodes on top of the huge garage and barracks used for the Rostova guards.

The first guard at the gate drops to his knees, and then face-down, and within seconds, two more guards are staring sightlessly at the sky with bullet holes in their foreheads.

“Good girl,” Alexi mutters, looking through his binoculars. “Ah. Look at the east wall.”

I check, squinting through mine and another fifteen men are rushing toward the gate. 

“They’re supposed to be halfway to the back by now,” Aleks says, frowning.

Kon’s listening to the chatter through his con. “They’re taking heavier fire than expected. I think the Boucher troops got here before we did.”

There’s a steady, metronomic round of fire from behind the rocky outcropping, and another two soldiers drop, even while running and trying to dodge the bullets. I see three fist-sized holes appear in the concrete wall.

“She’s using her thermal imaging sight now,” Alexi says casually. “Sixty seconds. She needs to clear out the last three guarding the gate and we’ll blow the charge.”

Kon grabs his father’s arm, painting out where two guards are loading the wide barrel with an alarmingly large rocket. “Whoa, nope, nope nope! Blow it now, sir! They’re setting up a rocket launcher on the catwalk!”

“Shit! Lev, get Tati out of there, they have your position and they’re arming a fucking rocket launcher! Go!” I hiss into the headset.

“Copy that,” Lev says tersely. I hear Tatiana’s voice in the background, coldly insisting “The last one.”

“They are ready to fire!” I shouted, forgetting to keep my voice down. “Go now!”

The rock outcropping tears apart in the explosion and only Alexi’s grip keeps me from breaking loose and running for her. 

“We’re out,” Lev’s voice comes over the con, “no thanks to your sniper. But the last man is down, blow the charge.”

“It’s our turn,” Alexi smiles. It is a smile that I hope is never directed at me.

I’ve been in a firefight before. I remembered most of it as a blur of color and sound. It’s not the Toscano way, we prefer more subtle methods but we were getting our people out of South America where they’d been targeted by a local drug lord.

Time seems to slow down, then speed up when we’re inside. “This way!” Aleksandr shouts, and Alexi moves past him, firing short, controlled bursts from his AR-15. There are still more soldiers than we expected, and when I glance at the staircase, I see ten surrounding someone hurrying up to the second floor. 

“That has to be Leonid!” I call to Alexi. He nods and gestures to a group of his men to peel off and join me. I pull a flash-bang grenade - holding it up to warn my group - and launch it right behind the clot of soldiers taking that old bastard up to either a safe room or another way out of here. 

Eight of the Rostova guards are mowed down in seconds, and we charge up the stairs going after the last of them. But there’s more on the second floor, soldiers step out from different rooms down the hall, firing as their fearless leader runs as fast as his legs can carry him. Something that feels like a fist smashes into my left thigh and I grit my teeth. 

My first gunshot wound.

Ahead of me, I see Jun and Meiying appear at the top of the steps from the back of the house, and their sudden appearance with their group sends Leonid and his bodyguards in a different direction, turning to their right and down another hall. Meiying waves her arm in a circular motion over her head, and I know she remembers our signals from a Leader’s challenge last year. 

“Drop!” I shout to my men, “They’re going to lay down cover fire. We’ll go low.”

They keep the new guards pinned down as my group gets past them, racing down the new hallway. There’s a huge set of double doors that the bodyguards are trying to close in time, but we ram through them, shooting his last two men.

“Get your fucking hands up!” I shout, looking at Leonid’s red, furious face. He’s breathing heavily and it’s clear this is more exertion than he’s had for some time. He raises them slowly, grinning at me. 

“I had heard you were fucking the Aslanova girl. Is all this fuss really over keeping her? I don’t mind sharing.” He screams as I shoot him in the knee, dropping like a bag of dirt.

“We’re just waiting for word that your captives are freed,” I said, “and then I’m going to take a little target practice with all your joints and finally, that tiny pecker of yours.”