Page 20 of Deceptive Vows (Bound by Vows #3)

Thea was at my side in seconds, her knife already out, the blade catching the light. “You didn’t kill him?” She nudged the guy with her foot.

“Maybe he’ll have a loose tongue,” I shot back, dragging him behind a dumpster.

I patted him down—keys, a pack of smokes, a burner phone. No immediately visible sign of a tattoo. Perhaps he wasn’t a Wolf. Maybe he was one of Marco’s men. I pocketed the phone and nodded at the door. We’d check out the phone when we were in a safer setting. “You’re up, tyomnyy angel .”

She didn’t even acknowledge the nickname, just pulled a pick from her cuff and worked with the lock with practiced ease. The door creaked open, casting a sliver of dim light into the night, and we slipped inside, the air shifting to a damp, metallic tang that coated my tongue.

The warehouse loomed like a cavern, heavy with shadows that hung between stacked crates and tarped machinery.

The temperature dropped ten degrees inside, the concrete floor radiating cold through the soles of my boots.

Dust motes danced in the few shafts of light that penetrated broken windows, and each breath tasted of metal and mildew.

A faint hum buzzed from deeper in—generators, maybe—vibrating subtly through the floor, while the drip-drip-drip of a leaking pipe marked time somewhere in the darkness.

Voices drifted, low and muffled, bouncing oddly off the high ceiling .

I noted a second exit visible from our position at the loading bay on the far wall.

Thea tilted her head, listening, then pointed left toward a rusted catwalk bolted to the wall, its metal grating honeyed with corrosion. I nodded, and we moved like ghosts, boots silent on the concrete, our breath held between us.

We climbed halfway up the catwalk, some twenty feet above the main floor where we were partially concealed by a support column.

The voices sharpened, echoing from behind a tarp-draped partition thirty feet below us.

Two men argued in clipped Russian, their shadows stretching long against the makeshift wall.

I caught “shipment” and “Friday”—three days from now—and my gut tightened.

When I tensed at a specific Russian phrase about “merchandise,” she squeezed my arm in silent question. Another moment of wordless understanding that shouldn’t have come so naturally.

The catwalk creaked slightly, and we both froze.

When one of the men stepped past the edge of the partition into the pool of weak light, I felt her tense.

He was stocky, balding, with a scar bisecting his eyebrow, but it was the unmistakable tattoo peeking from his collar that obliterated any doubt I might have had.

“—telling you, Marco better hope his plan works,” Ugly growled, lighting a cigarette. “Do you think the brother, Gabriele, has any idea?”

The second guy, taller and wiry with a twitchy eye, snorted. “ Nyet . Gabriele rules like Sergei. If he had knowledge a coup was coming, Marco would be dead.”

Marco wasn’t just working with the Wolves to get rid of Krysha and Thea’s family, he was making a play against his own brother. The pieces clicked together—Marco was using the Gray Wolves to clear his path on both fronts.

Thea’s breath hitched beside me, barely audible.

Two names had stood out to her. She tapped my arm, jerking her chin toward the partition.

I followed her gaze—through a gap in the tarp.

I glimpsed a row of metal cages, rusted and bolted to the floor.

Empty, but the implications sank claws into me.

This was the staging ground. The women weren’t here yet, but they would be.

“We need that phone,” Thea whispered, pointing to the taller man with a phone peeking out of his back pocket. “Numbers, dates— something.” Of course, I knew she wasn’t referring to the one we’d taken from the guy out front.

I already had the one from the guy outside, but she was right—we needed everything.

I pulled the burner from my pocket… It was a cheap flip model, no lock, and I scrolled through the call log—three numbers, all local, one tagged “S.” Sergei, probably.

Before I could show her, a shout cut through the air, sharp and pissed.

“Oi! Who’s up there?” Ugly’s voice bounced off the metal ceiling as he spotted our silhouettes against the faint light. His cigarette dropped, and his hand fumbled for the holster at his hip.

Thea was already moving—her arm whipped forward, sending her knife spinning end over end before burying itself in his shoulder with a meaty thunk.

He howled, staggering back against a crate, and Twitchy bolted for the shelter of a forklift, barking rapid-fire Russian into a radio clipped to his collar.

“Time to go.” I grabbed her wrist as gunfire erupted from the far corner of the warehouse. A third man I hadn’t spotted—positioned near a side door—opened fire with a semi-automatic. Bullets pinged off the catwalk in a shower of sparks, the metal vibrating beneath our feet.

I pushed Thea toward the emergency ladder at the catwalk’s end—fifteen feet of rusted rungs leading to the ground.

“Move!” Drawing my Makarov, I provided cover, firing twice.

Twitchy crumpled as my bullets found his leg. He writhed on the concrete, still clutching his radio.

Thea reached the ladder but ignored it. Instead, she vaulted over the railing, dropping ten feet onto a stack of wooden crates below. The wood creaked but held her weight. I followed her lead, the impact sending pain shooting up my ankles as I landed beside her.

Three more guards burst through a door on the far side of the warehouse, fifty yards of open space between us and the exit. I grabbed Thea’s arm, pulling her behind a forklift as bullets sparked against metal.

“On three,” I muttered, catching her eye. She nodded once, already understanding the plan without words. “One, two?—”

We sprinted across the concrete floor, weaving between machinery and crates as bullets chewed into metal and wood around us. The smell of gunpowder and hot metal filled the air .

“Left!” I shouted, spotting a corridor between tall shipping containers.

We ducked through it, boots echoing on the concrete.

Behind us, footsteps pounded in pursuit—reinforcements, too many to count—and as we rounded the final corner toward the exit, I caught a glimpse of a tattooed arm through the chaos.

A wolf’s head, jaws dripping red. There it was, undeniable confirmation of what we suspected.

We hit the exit door at full sprint, shouldering it open into the cold night air. Lex and Dimitris materialized from their position behind a dumpster twenty yards to our right, guns drawn, faces tight with questions.

My lungs burned with each rapid breath, tasting copper—adrenaline or blood, I couldn’t tell.

“Move! They’re right behind us!” Thea barked, already sprinting toward our SUV parked behind the loading dock.

I slid behind the wheel, jamming the key into the ignition as Lex and Dimitris dove into the back seat. Thea claimed shotgun, already turning in her seat to cover us. The engine roared to life, and I threw it into reverse, backing up until I could make a wide turn.

“Three o’clock!” Dimitris warned, and I spotted them—two black sedans bursting from the warehouse’s side lot, fifty yards away and closing fast.

I cranked the wheel hard and floored it, the SUV fishtailing. Buildings blurred past as I navigated the tight streets.

“Were they wolves?” Dimitris asked, his voice rough as he ejected his magazine to check his remaining rounds. The sedans had fallen behind momentarily but would find us soon.

“ Da ,” I said, jaw tight as I navigated the car. “Working with Marco. I think he’s staging a coup.”

Thea twisted in her seat, staring at me. “What?”

“That’s what the two guards were talking about. Wondering if Gabriele suspected anything.” I took a hard left that sent us fishtailing onto a side street. The sedans stuck close, their engines roaring, and a bullet shattered the back window, raining glass over Lex.

“Son of a—” He ducked, popping off two shots through the gap. One car swerved, tires squealing, but the other gained, a muzzle flashing from the passenger side .

Thea cursed, yanking a Glock from her waistband. She leaned out her window, hair whipping wild, and fired—a single, perfect shot that punched through the driver’s windshield. The sedan veered, slamming into a light pole with a crunch that echoed like thunder.

“Nice,” I muttered, adrenaline singing in my veins as the second car dropped back, peeling off into the dark. Even after years with Krysha, I rarely saw shooting that precise under pressure.

We didn’t stop until the warehouse district was a smear in the distance, the SUV idling in a deserted lot near the L tracks. Silence settled, broken only by the hum of the train overhead and Lex’s ragged breathing.

“That was too easy,” she muttered, eyes still scanning the street.

“Easy?” I glanced at the shattered window. “We walked into a warzone with a flashlight and a knife.”

Thea slipped the Glock back into her pants.

“The phone.” Her palm extended between us.

I placed it in her hand, our fingers brushing, a contact point that felt electric against the backdrop of violence we’d just escaped. Her focus as she worked through the call log was absolute, the same intensity I’d seen when she fired that perfect shot minutes ago.

“Three calls to ‘G’ in the last day,” she murmured, a strand of hair falling across her face. “Last one an hour ago.”

That didn’t track with what I’d overheard. “Gabriele? I know what I heard. Marco is setting him up.”

“Or maybe they’re trying to throw us off.” She frowned at the phone.

Dimitris lit a cigarette, the flare of his lighter casting shadows across his scowl. “So we’ve got two Morettis and a pack of Russian psychos. Great.”

Lex rubbed his neck, glass crunching under his boots. “Those cages will be full by the time that auction takes place?”

“Yeah.” Thea pocketed the phone. “Marco must be planning to bring the girls a few at a time so he can get them ready for the floor. Which means we need to find them before the auction happens. If we hit it, and all of the girls aren’t there, we’ll never find them.”

We drove another mile before Dimi tapped me on the shoulder. “Drop me and Lex here. I’ve got someone I need to see. ”

I slowed to a stop next to the curb.

“I’ll call you later, sis.” Lex nudged Thea’s arm, a crooked smile playing on his lips as he left with Dimitris.

Once they were out, I pulled back into the flow of traffic. Thea and I drove in silence toward the penthouse.

Something bigger was going on, and I needed to figure out what that was. For her sake and Krysha’s.