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Lev

The night breathes around us—cool, quiet, heavy with the kind of stillness that only comes before violence.

I crouch low beside a rusted shipping container, binoculars pressed to my face. A hundred meters away, framed by floodlights and chain-link fencing, stands the compound.

Mendes’s safehouse.

It’s worse than I expected.

The place isn’t just guarded—it’s fortified. Armed men walk the perimeter in staggered shifts, rotating every five minutes like clockwork. There are motion detectors near the east wall. Cameras positioned high in the corners. The main gate is reinforced steel. The kind used for keeping people out—or in.

Smart bastard. He knew someone would come looking. But what he doesn’t know is that nothing—no lock, no army, no concrete fortress—is enough to keep me from her.

I lower the binoculars slowly, jaw clenched.

Anton shifts beside me in the brush, his rifle slung across his back. “Too many eyes,” he mutters. “Not just posted—they’re patrolling like they expect war.”

“They’ll get one,” I say coldly.

He glances over, waiting for orders.

I scan again, tracking guard paths, noting intervals. I spot a potential blind spot along the northern edge—just a few seconds of overlap, but enough. There’s a vent system snaking out from the west wing. Possibly a weak point. The second floor has no patrols. Either they’re arrogant… or they’ve got something or someone inside that is worth hiding.

My muscles tense.

Alina.

Every beat of my heart is a drum in my ears. Every breath I take burns with the image of her—frightened, alone, waiting.

I don’t even know what condition she’s in. But I know she’s here.

And that’s enough to turn my blood cold.

I turn to Anton.

“We go in silently. No mistakes,” I murmur. “I don’t want our arrival quickly noticed. This operation needs to be as quiet as possible.”

Anton nods once. No questions. That’s why he’s here.

Behind us, our men shift into position. Black clothing. Suppressed weapons. Each one handpicked for loyalty and precision. No hotheads. No ego. Just operators.

I glance back at the compound one last time.

They don’t know what’s coming.

But they will.

I pull my blade from its sheath and check the edge. Razor sharp. My pistol is already loaded, tucked close to my side. Every movement I make is practiced. Efficient.

This isn’t emotion anymore.

This is mission.

This is war.

“Move on my signal,” I say quietly.

Anton slips into the darkness like a shadow, and I follow, every nerve in my body humming with deadly purpose.

She’s close.

And I’m not leaving without her.

The night swallows us whole.

Black-clad and silent, we move through the treeline like smoke—no words, no wasted movement. My men fan out behind me, each step calculated. They know the drill. In this kind of mission, sound is your enemy. Hesitation is a bullet to the head.

Anton keeps pace at my side, rifle drawn. His eyes sweep the area as mine fix on the first checkpoint ahead.

A security camera mounted just above the fence line. Old model. Vulnerable.

I raise a fist. Everyone stops.

From a pouch at my hip, I pull a signal disruptor—custom made, short range, just enough to loop the feed without tripping an alert. I press it against the transmitter box, hold it for five seconds, then nod to Anton.

“Camera’s blind,” I whisper.

Anton doesn’t speak. He moves.

Together, we close in on the first wall—twelve feet of reinforced concrete laced with barbed wire. But I know walls. I’ve scaled worse.

We move to the access point I scoped earlier—an old utility ladder partially hidden behind a collapsed tool shed. Anton boosts me up first, and I scale the ladder with barely a sound, the cold rungs biting into my gloves.

At the top, I swing a leg over and drop into a crouch, landing like a shadow on the other side.

Anton follows.

Inside, the air is stale and humid, thick with dust and the faint stench of oil and rot. The hallways are narrower than I anticipated, corridors twisted in sharp angles, every turn a gamble. There are no blueprints, no map—just instinct.

And I always trust my instinct.

We move slower now. Cautious and listening for any approaching interference. Our boots make no sound on the concrete floors. Shadows swallow us, and I become one of them. A lifetime of killing has taught me how to disappear in plain sight. How to become the nightmare that slips between breaths. I signal a stop with a closed fist. Anton freezes at my flank. Two more of our men hold position behind us, weapons drawn, eyes sharp.

A whisper of motion is coming from up ahead. Guards. Maybe two or three. I don’t wait for them to see us. Instead; I step forward—fast, quiet, sure.

The first man turns just as my arm sweeps around his neck. He tries to cry out, but the sound dies beneath my elbow. I twist, and his spine snaps with a muted crack. He drops like a puppet with its strings cut.

The second doesn’t even get that far. Anton’s blade slips under his ribcage and into his heart before he can blink.

The third comes running—too loud, too late.

I don’t give him a chance to draw his weapon.

I meet him in the middle of the corridor, duck low, and drive my shoulder into his gut. He stumbles back into the wall, and I slam his skull against the brick until blood splatters and he stops moving.

Three bodies. Three seconds. I drag them behind a stacked crate and keep moving.

The deeper we go, the more twisted the layout becomes—hallways branching into rooms, blind turns, dead ends. It’s a bunker designed to confuse, to trap. But I don’t stop. Because every second we lose, she suffers. And I’ve already lost too much time.

We reach a hallway flanked by doors. Storage. A boiler room. A barracks. One door creaks open, and a guard steps out, half-dressed, rubbing his eyes.

He doesn’t see me until my knife is buried in his throat. He gasps, wet and gurgling. I hold him up gently as he dies, easing him to the floor so he won’t thud.

Anton gives me a look to say the coast is clear. We keep moving. Every corner we clear, every life we take—it’s not vengeance. It's a debt paid in blood for every hour she’s been locked away in this hell.

We pass another pair of guards talking low in Spanish, distracted near a door marked with reinforced bolts. Anton raises his blade, silent as breath, and pins one to the wall with it, straight through the throat.

The other one barely has time to reach for his gun before I’m on him. My Glock pressed to his temple.

“Take me to her,” I whisper, eyes burning.

He trembles and nods.

Smart man.

Maybe the only smart one in this entire building.

Anton yanks his knife free, and the first body slumps. We leave it where it falls and follow the last man standing. We’re getting close. I can feel it. The tension coils in my gut like a loaded spring. Every breath, every step, is a countdown to her.

We move deeper into the compound, the scent of sweat and metal growing stronger, more human. Somewhere nearby, a generator hums behind the walls, vibrating faintly underfoot. Voices echo from the next corridor—low, casual, careless.

Two men. Guards.

I glance at Anton. He nods once, already reaching for his knife. We round the corner fast and silent. The first guard barely turns his head before Anton’s blade sinks into his neck with a wet crunch. He’s slammed against the wall, pinned there like a gutted animal, twitching but already dead.

The second freezes—eyes wide, mouth open.

Before he can scream, I’m in front of him, the muzzle of my gun pressed under his jaw, angled straight for his brainstem.

He chokes on a breath.

“Where is she?” I snarl.

No theatrics. No bluff. My voice is low, but it drips with violence.

He swallows hard, his entire body shaking. “Wh-who—”

I shove him hard into the wall, my gun digging deeper into his flesh. “Don’t play stupid. Alina Makarova. Where is she?”

“I—I don’t know who that is—”

Wrong answer.

I drive the butt of the gun into his ribs. He crumples slightly, wheezing, but I don’t let him fall.

I grab him by the collar and lift.

“Try again,” I whisper. “Or I start taking pieces off until you remember.”

His eyes dart to the pinned corpse beside him, blood dripping from Anton’s blade.

He starts talking fast. “Back wing—level three. End of the corridor. Reinforced door. Always locked. Only Mendes has the access key.”

Bingo.

I step back, lowering my weapon—but my eyes don’t soften. “How many guards?”

“At least six in the lower wing. But—but the elite are stationed near her room. Heavy weapons. Kevlar. They don’t answer to anyone but Mendes.”

I nod once.

Then I pistol-whip him across the temple and he drops like a rock. Anton yanks his knife free from the other guard with a single, wet pull. Blood sprays as we move ahead.

The back wing. Level three. That's where Alina is being holed up.

"I'm coming, moya lyubov''

The moment we descend toward the back wing, everything changes. The air gets colder and feels tighter. The silence that carried us this far is shattered by tension you can feel in your bones. This is no longer a house—it’s a fortress.

And these men? Not like the others.

We don’t even see the first one—we feel him. A blur of motion from the left, followed by the thunder of a suppressed weapon. One of my men drops to a knee, wounded but alive. Anton spins, firing twice. One body crumples behind a support beam.

Then it begins.

Gunfire erupts like thunder in a canyon.

It’s chaos—fast, loud, brutal.

Anton’s men peel off, splitting into pairs to counter the flanking guards. Shouts echo from somewhere above. Reinforcements. Radio calls. This place is wired.

But I’m not here to run.

I’m here to end this.

A shadow moves ahead. Another elite. Larger than the rest, armored like he’s expecting war. He rushes me with a blade. Stupid mistake.

I duck under the first swing and slam my forearm into his throat, twisting with force. He stumbles, choking—but I don’t stop. I sweep his legs out and stomp his chest as he hits the floor.

His ribs crack. He doesn’t get up.

Three more emerge from the side corridor—tactical gear, full helmets, serious muscle.

They start firing.

I dive behind a crate, bullets splintering the wall near my head. I pull a flashbang from my vest and toss it down the hall.

Boom.

The second the light hits, I move.

I’m on them before they recover—Glock in one hand, blade in the other.

The first takes a round to the chest. Kevlar slows it, but the second shot pierces his throat. Blood erupts. He collapses, twitching.

The next one recovers faster—he swings at me with a collapsible baton. I parry with my blade, duck low, and drive the hilt into his solar plexus. He doubles, and I grab him by the back of the neck and slam him into the wall so hard the plaster cracks.

One left.

We circle each other.

This one’s smart. Skilled. I see it in his stance, the way he doesn’t rush. He’s not just muscle—he’s trained.

He lunges, and we clash. It’s fast. Brutal. Blade to blade. He scores a shallow cut across my side, but I barely feel it. I counter with a kick to his knee, and when he falters, I drive my knife up into the gap between his chest plate and shoulder. He grunts and swings wild. I twist the blade, yank it free, and bury it in his neck. I watch in satisfaction as he gurgles and falls. My chest rises and falls fast. My vision sharpens like glass. Around me, Anton and the rest of the team are finishing off what remains.

I stand amidst the wreckage—broken bodies, shattered weapons, and the copper scent of blood thick in the air.

This is what I was made for. Not politics. Not power.

This.

Killing to protect what’s mine.

A guard tries to crawl away down the hall. I step on his spine and fire one shot into the back of his skull.

Anton limps up beside me, blood streaked across his face.

“You good?” I ask.

He nods. “Clear. Back hallway should lead to the reinforced door.”

The door.

She’s behind it.

I holster my weapons and grab a breaching charge from my bag.

The hallway is long, dimly lit, and heavy with silence.

Every step echoes louder than it should, each footfall a countdown to the moment I’ve been bleeding toward.

At the end stands the door—steel-reinforced, bolted, thicker than any we’ve come across so far.

That’s how I know.

She’s in there.

I stop a few feet from it. My chest heaves, not from exertion, but from the weight of everything I’m about to face. The fear of what I might see. The fury of what she’s endured.

Anton appears at my side, breathing hard. “This the one?”

I nod once.

He stays back without a word. He knows this part belongs to me.

I reach into my gear bag, hands steady despite the storm inside me, and pull out a breaching charge—compact, high-yield, perfect for this kind of job.

I plant it carefully along the hinges and lock mechanism. My fingers move fast, precise. I’ve done this a hundred times before—but never when the stakes were her.

The moment it’s set, I stand back and press the detonator.

“Clear,” I say.

Anton steps behind cover.

I count under my breath.

Three. Two. One.

BOOM.

The small explosion rattles the hallway. The reinforced door shudders violently, the lock splintering in a shower of sparks and dust. Metal creaks, then groans open, just enough to push through.

And then—

Silence.

Smoke curls out into the hallway, thick and slow, cloaking the world in gray.

I move through it like a ghost, heart pounding so loud I barely hear the crunch of debris under my boots.

And then—I see her.

Huddled near the far corner of the room. Disheveled. Bruised. Her long dark hair tangled, her face pale, her arms clutching her stomach like she’s guarding something precious.

She doesn’t move.

Not at first. Our eyes lock and time stops. Her blue eyes look haunted, wide, and brimming with disbelief and relief at the same time.

“Alina,” I whisper.

Her lips part. She doesn’t speak. Just stares, like I might disappear if she blinks too hard. I take a step forward. Then another. She rises shakily to her feet, swaying like she hasn’t stood in hours, maybe days.

She doesn’t run to me. She doesn’t need to because I’m already moving, closing the space between us with every pulse of my heart. I reach for her before I hear the heavy footsteps stomping towards us.

I pivot, using my body as a shielded in front of her with both pistols drawn.

Anton’s voice shouts from down the hall, “Lev—company!”

My heart slams against my ribs. Could it be more guards?

Or is it Carlos Mendes?