Page 122 of Bellini Born

Enzo kept close by my side as I approached the rear door to Ballistic. If the bullet holes through the foreheads of the two guards weren’t enough of an indication, the swift kick to the nuts I gave each of them with my combat boots, garnering no reaction, would have been enough to convince me they were well on their way to Hell. Honestly, they’d gotten off too easy, but I couldn’t dwell on that. I had bigger fish to fry.

“Cover us,” Enzo barked to the team flanking us.

Shooting out the lock was enough to announce our presence, and when we pushed inside, there was a chorus of shouts and curses in Russian, only half of which I understood. Muscle memory kicked in, and with a twitch of my trigger finger, two of those bastards dropped like rocks. Enzo took out another two, while the rest of our men spread out to search the premises and take out the rest of Popov’s cronies, leaving me and my cousin free to go after the man responsible for ordering a hit on my family.

“Office is on the second floor,” Enzo supplied, and we took the open staircase that led from the club’s dance floor to the upper level.

The VIP section featured balcony seating, but along the far wall was a single door tucked in the corner—Popov’s office.

Crashing glass sounded before a distant scream, and I peeked over my shoulder to find Enzo had clipped a man on the far side of the second floor. After taking the bullet, the Russian had fallen to his death, his limbs splayed awkwardly amidst the shattered fragments of the balcony wall he’d crashed through.

I stood off to the side of the office door, listening for any sounds of life within. When I was met with silence, I gritted out to my team, “Please tell me that fucker didn’t get away.”

“No, Boss. I’m still showing the heat signatures of two bodies inside.”

My eyes lifted to Enzo’s, and we shared a silent countdown.

Three, two, one.

He kicked through the door, and I stepped inside. A bullet whizzed past my ear, forcing me to duck.

My crouched position allowed my cousin to fire off a shot that blew Dimitri Popov’s—Lev’s younger brother and second—brains out.

One down, one to go.

Enzo’s next bullet caught Lev’s right hand, and his gun clattered to the ground as he clutched the wounded appendage to his chest with a howl.

Rising to my feet, I crossed the room, extending a leg to sweep Lev’s feet out from beneath him and knock him flat onto his back. The air left his lungs when I placed a booted foot directly atop his chest, pressing down with enough pressure to hear the satisfying crack of ribs breaking. It took all my restraint not to rear back and stomp through his sternum so that I could crush his heart beneath my heel.

Replacing my foot with my knee, I got right in the pakhan’s face. And to my ultimate surprise, he laughed in mine.

I gripped his hair by the roots, slamming his head against the floor. “Care to share what’s so fucking funny?”

His putrid breath assaulting my nostrils had my stomach turning over. “He said you were a moron, but I didn’t see it until just now.”

“Who?” I roared, spit flying from my mouth. “Who are you working with?”

Lev Popov only continued to cackle like a lunatic in a mental institution. The shrill sound of it echoing through my brain was enough to drive me insane, along with him.

Desperate to make it stop, I grabbed the knife strapped to my ankle and pressed it hard enough against his jugular to draw blood. Thankfully, that finally got him to shut up.

Swallowing against the steel blade, he rasped, “Oh, I forgot to congratulate you on your marriage.”

The fuck? How did he know about that?

My head whipped around to stare at Enzo, who looked just as surprised as I was.

Returning my attention to Popov, I scoffed, “Now I know why you took the coward’s path and came after me in my sleep. You knew you wouldn’t stand a fucking chance if you tried to take me out face-to-face.” I put more pressure on the knife cutting into his throat. “Come for me all you’d like, but you went too far when you went after a defenseless woman and my children.”

“The way I see it, letting them die in that fire would have been an act of mercy. Once you’re gone and no longer able to protect them, they’ll be sold to the highest bidder. And I happen to know quite a few willing to pay top dollar who like ’em young.” An evil gleam entered his beady eyes as he added for emphasis, “Real young.”

Bile rose up my throat, and I punched him square in the face. “You sick fuck!”

“We’ve got incoming!” The warning came through my earpiece.

Enzo cleared his throat from behind me. “I know you’re itching to torture this piece of shit. Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to watch him suffer for hours after what he just said, but we’ve gotta speed this along.”

Gunshots echoed in the distance, proof that backup for the Russians had arrived. And while we’d entered this building with an advantage in terms of manpower, there was no telling if that still remained the case.