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“He did.” Pavel gives me the ghost of a grin. “From the lavatory, where he’s been hiding for the last hour.”

Roman snorts, shaking his head.

I pull Abby to me. “Do what they say. I’ll be right behind you.”

She touches my arm. “We’ll be fine, Dimitry.” She glances at Roman. “Look after each other,” she says quietly.

I kiss her hard, then look back at Leon and Pete. “If anything happens to her—”

“It won’t,” Leon says grimly. “You have my word.”

“Jesus, mate.” Pete glares at me with more than a touch of indignation. “She’s my bloody daughter.”

Roman snorts again.

Pavel touches one of the girls on the arm. “Come with me,” he says, smiling reassuringly. “We’ll get you out of here, I promise.”

“Mak,” I growl into my comms. “Leon, Pete, and Pavel are heading to the chopper with Abby and the girls. If anything happens to them, I’ll fucking come for you even more than I’m going to already. I know you helped Zinaida fucking plan this.”

“You can thank me later” comes Mak’s breezy tone down the line. “You’d better hurry. Paddy and Bryce have the place fully wired, and things are very hot out there. We need to move.”

I kiss Abby again. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

She nods, her face white. “You better be, muscle boy.” She touches my face, and then she’s gone, following my father and ushering the other girls out in front of her, Pete and Pavel bringing up the rear, guns in hand.

“I like your father-in-law.” Roman grins as we head for the door.

“Fuck knows how I’m supposed to explain all this.” I shake my head, which is still spinning. “And it’s going to take me a while to get used to the tech geek having a gun.”

Roman half smiles as we run toward the door. “Pavel is actually fucking good. All those years shooting at a screen pay off, it seems.”

The corridor is dim and deserted. Beyond the windows automatic rifles crack the night, lighting up the darkness in brief brutal flares.

At the far end of the corridor is a heavy steel door with multiple locks. “Christ.” I pull out the grenades I’ve got, eyeing them skeptically. “Hope these are enough.”

Roman gauges the door with an experienced eye. “They’ll do it.” He grins at me. “It’s no Borovsky vault.”

“Thank Christ for that.” I pull the pins, and we retreat.

A moment later, the door is hanging in tatters—and our mouths are hanging open.

“Brother,” Roman says slowly, staring around at the shelves. “I think we’re gonna need a bigger chopper.”

We liftoff in Mak’s chopper just before the compound blows.

In the end, Roman and I manage to leave with about half the fortune Yakov had stashed away. We take the smaller pieces and all the paintings we can carry, including a lost master worth more than the rest of the room put together.

I hold Abby hard against me as the compound bursts into flames beneath us, still giving orders through my radio. I keep up a constant stream of communication with the various teams throughout the entire flight back to the yacht. Somehow I manage to keep it together enough to coordinate the ground forces throughout the long hours that follow.

The escapees were on the river long before the compound blew. Alexei’s crew and Zinaida’s team go with them to guard their escape. By the time our chopper lands on the yacht, they are already across the border and in Thailand, where Zinaida has resources set up to take care of them.

Luke, Bryce, Paddy, and the Cardeñas crew stay on the ground with the rest of Mak’s men after we take off, dealing with the remaining triad members still putting up a fight. I remain in constant contact during their retreat, until they finally reach the exfiltration point deep in the jungle, where more Black Hawks are flying in to take them back to the Myanmar military air base Mak is operating out of.

I don’t ask how he gained access to a Myanmar military air base. I’ve learned it’s never worth asking Mak those kinds of questions.

Apart from a few bullet wounds, we’ve all made it out relatively unscathed.

Finally, the comms go quiet, and I pull the wire out of my ear. I’m standing on the upper deck of the yacht, where I’ve been since we landed.