Page 20 of Happily Ever After

The Beretta 92FS in his hand held fifteen rounds in the magazine plus one in the chamber. He’d already expended three. Thirteen bullets left.

Bullets pelted the floor and walls of the warehouse, blasting from muzzles and zinging through the air, each caliber a different bang and whizzto create a chaotic cacophony like snapping pops. Long, fluorescent light bulbs on the ceiling shattered, dimming the warehouse as bullets flew.

Raphael aimed and shot into the melee.

Piotr staggered and grabbed his shoulder, looking up in surprise. The gun fell from his limp hand.

Raphael raised his gun again, leveling the sights between Piotr’s eyes. He gripped the gun and squeezed the trigger.

A hole appeared in Piotr’s forehead, and he crumpled to the floor.

Raphael dove behind the van that had brought the children into the warehouse and crouched behind it.

Gunsights and barrels gleamed in the darkness as they caught the light from overhead or the streetlights outside. Gunpowder stung his nose like burning sulfur.

He picked out targets as he shot from behind the cover of the van.Brass bullet casings tumbled from his gun to the cement floor, but he couldn’t hear the tinkle of the metal over the echoing gunshots and high whine in his ears. Raphael had been a spotter in military operations, relaying distance and wind conditions to the sniper behind the gun, but he had pulled the trigger, too. Always, it had been on someone else’s orders. Always, Raphael had felt justifiedbecause he had been rescuing innocent people from terrorists or kidnappers.

Saving only his own hide felt selfish, but he lifted the small gun and aligned the sights, readying himself to shoot again.

More shots rang out of the darkness behind him. Gunshots banged, and something larger boomed.

Some of the Rogues hadn’t left with the girls.

Several of the Ilyin Bratva’s men went down. Whetherthey’d been shot or were just taking the opportunity to duck, Raphael couldn’t tell.

He surveyed the remaining people. He’d been introduced to several of Piotr Ilyin’s six lieutenants during his weeks in Geneva, as his father tried to settle him into the crime syndicate. All had been directly involved with importing the girls.

He felt no remorse as he picked off every last one of them, squeezingthe trigger with practiced pulls past the breakpoint. If he didn’t take them out, they’d import another group of innocent girls for slaughter next week. Gunpowder embers pinpricked his face and hands as he shot into the dark. Thunks and screams echoed among the gunshot bangs.

With Piotr and most of the top echelon dead, the Ilyin Bratva would either wither away or become embroiled in a bloodycivil war for leadership.

Both were acceptable outcomes.

The military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz would have approved of Raphael’s strategy. He always structured campaigns to result in two alternate winning outcomes, rather than in a victory or a defeat.

Gunshots still peppered the air.

More light bulbs exploded, raining fine slivers of sparkling glass onto the men and bullets in the warehouse.Darkness overtook the right side of the warehouse when no bulbs were left burning, and the left side dimmed.

Four bullets remained in Raphael’s gun.

He leaned around the edge of the van and shot three times,bang-bang-bang.

Heads ducked from the quick barrage coming their way.

Raphael took advantage in the lull of return fire to run, crouched, for the warehouse’s half-open bay doors.

Morebullets chewed through the air over his head.

A man’s voice yelled“Stop!”directly from his right, a too-familiar voice so much like his own.

Raphael looked as he ran.

Valerian Mirabaud, his father, stood to the side of the bay doors under no cover and was pointing a handgun at him.

Light from an outside streetlight shone on his silver hair and craggy face. He stood proudly with his legsbraced apart and both hands wrapped around the gun, a learned stance. Raphael almost faltered with surprise.

But, of course, Valerian Mirabaud had done his time conscripted into the Swiss army as a young man, too.