The warehouse erupts into chaos the moment we breach the loading dock. Gunfire echoes off concrete walls as Vadim’s men resist our advance with the kind of desperation that comes from knowing there’s no escape. Muzzle flashes illuminate the industrial space in strobing bursts while my team spreads out to secure the perimeter and eliminate threats.
I press forward through the smoke and debris, my weapon raised as I bark orders into my comm. “Alpha team, secure the east wing. Beta team, take the stairwells. Watch for secondary positions.”
Maksim appears at my shoulder, weapon raised as he scans for targets. Blood streams from a cut above his left eyebrow, but his movements are steady and controlled. “Six hostiles down, but there’s got to be more. This place is too big for a skeleton crew.”
The sound of automatic weapons fire intensifies from somewhere above us, punctuated by shouts and the crash of overturned equipment. My men are meeting organized resistance, which means Vadim prepared for this assault in his “Plan B” in case the bomb didn’t take us out at the storage facility.
Dmitri’s voice crackles through the radio with barely controlled urgency. “There’s movement on the second floor with multiple shooters in defensive positions.”
I duck behind a concrete pillar as bullets chip away pieces of the support beam inches from my head. “Engage and neutralize. Keep pushing forward.”
The firefight continues around me, but I follow a hunch that’s been nagging at me since we entered the building. While my team engages the obvious threats, I head toward the back corridor, where the warehouse connects to what used to be administrative offices. If Vadim is holding Sabrina here, he’ll want her somewhere he can control access, with limited entry points that make rescue attempts more difficult.
The hallway stretches ahead of me, dimly lit by emergency lighting. Most of the rooms I pass are empty, filled with nothing but dust and the detritus of whatever legitimate business operated here before Vadim turned it into his base of operations. The air smells like rust and decay, with an underlying chemical odor that makes my throat burn.
At the end of the corridor, I find a reinforced door with fresh scratches around the lock mechanism and heavy steel construction built for security rather than privacy. There’s light bleeding underneath the door, and I hear voices inside, though the words are muffled by the thick metal.
I test the handle and find it locked, which only confirms my suspicions. I step back and kick the door just below the deadbolt, putting all my weight behind the blow. The door remains intact, but the frame splinters with a sharp crack, and the door swings open to reveal the room beyond.
There she is.
Sabrina sits in a metal chair in the center of a small, windowless room. The sight of rope burns around her wrists and dried blood on her temple enrages me, but relief supersedes it, hitting me so intensely it nearly buckles my knees. Immediately, the rage rises again, fueled by what they’ve done to her. She’s alive, she’s conscious, and she’s looking at me with an expression that’s more determined than afraid.
Vadim stands behind her chair with a pistol pressed to the back of her head, his expression calm and controlled despite the gunfire echoing through the warehouse around us. He’s changed out of his expensive suit into tactical gear, but his silver hair is still perfectly styled, and his eyes hold the cold satisfaction of a man whose plan is proceeding exactly as intended.
He tilts his head slightly, as if greeting a dinner guest who’s arrived precisely on time. “Nikandr, so good of you to join us. You’re earlier than expected.”
Off to the side, near what appears to be the room’s only other exit, Irina watches our confrontation with nervous energy. She keeps shifting her weight from one foot to the other, and her perfectly manicured fingers drum against her thigh in a rapid pattern that betrays anxiety despite her composed expression.
I keep my weapon trained on Vadim while calculating angles and distances, looking for any opportunity to take a clean shot that won’t risk hitting Sabrina. “Let her go. This is between us.”
Vadim adjusts his grip on the pistol, making sure I can see exactly where it’s pointed, with the barrel pressed against Sabrina’s skull in deliberate menace. “It’s been between us for twelve years, ever since your brother killed my nephew, starting this blood feud, but I thought she should be here to witness the end of our story.”
Sabrina meets my gaze, and I see strength there instead of fear. I can see she’s scared from the slight tremor in her hands and the way she keeps taking careful, controlled breaths, but she’s not broken. Whatever she’s endured since they took her, it hasn’t destroyed her.
I need to know how badly she’s been damaged, both for tactical reasons and because the not knowing is killing me. “Are you hurt?”
Her voice is steady, though I hear exhaustion underneath. “I’m okay. The baby’s okay too.”
Vadim’s mouth curves into something that might be a smile if it held any warmth whatsoever. “How touching. A family reunion. Unfortunately, it’s also a farewell.”
The gunfire from the rest of the warehouse is becoming more sporadic, which means my team is winning the fight against his men. Soon, they’ll come looking for me, and Vadim’s window of opportunity will close. If he’s going to make his move, it has to be now.
I lower my weapon slightly, making the gesture deliberate and obvious while maintaining eye contact with him. “You want me? Here I am. Let her go, and we’ll finish this the way it was always meant to be finished.”
Vadim’s eyes narrow as he considers the offer, and I can practically see the calculations running through his mind. “Drop your weapon.”
I shake my head slowly, keeping my movements non-threatening but firm. “You first.”
His grip tightens on the pistol, and for a moment, I think he’s going to pull the trigger just to prove he can. “I’m not the one making demands.”
I spread my hands slightly, weapon still pointed toward the floor but ready to raise if necessary. “Neither am I. I’m offering you a chance to kill me face to face, without hiding behind innocent people or elaborate traps.”
For a long moment, we stare at each other across the small room while the sounds of battle continue to echo from the warehouse beyond. He’s weighing his options, likely calculating whether he can trust me to honor whatever agreement we make. Sweat beads on his forehead despite the cool air, and there’s something almost hungry in his expression as he considers the possibility of finally getting his hands on me.
Finally, he steps away from Sabrina’s chair, moving with deliberate slowness while keeping the gun trained on her until the last possible second. Then he tosses his pistol to the far corner of the room, where it clatters against the concrete wall. “There. Now you.”
I drop my weapon and kick it away, keeping my hands visible while maintaining eye contact. I hate giving up my gun, but this is what needs to happen to keep Sabrina and Elizabeth safe. “Just you and me.”
He rolls his shoulders like a fighter preparing for the ring, and there’s anticipation building in his posture. “Just you and me.” His voice carries the satisfaction of a man who’s about to get everything he’s ever wanted.
We circle each other in the confined space, both of us looking for openings and advantages. Vadim is older than me, maybe fifty, but he moves with the fluid grace of someone who’s stayed in fighting shape. There are scars on his knuckles and forearms showing he’s done this before, probably more times than I have. His gaze never leaves mine as we move, and there’s a predatory patience in his movements that tells me he’s confident about how this is going to end.
He strikes first and faster than I expected, with a quick jab aimed at my throat that I barely manage to block with my forearm. The impact sends pain shooting up to my shoulder, but I don’t have time to process it because his follow-up comes immediately—a hook to my ribs that connects hard enough to drive the air from my lungs and send fire shooting through my torso.
I stagger backward, gasping for breath, but manage to respond with an uppercut that catches him under the chin. His head snaps back with the impact, opening a cut on his lower lip that immediately starts bleeding. The blood streams down his chin and drips onto his tactical vest, but he doesn’t seem to notice as he presses his attack with renewed fury.
We fight like animals, brutal and raw, with years of hatred and vengeance driving every blow. He’s faster than I expected and also more skilled, but I have rage on my side from what he did to my brother and what he’s put Sabrina through.
His fist connects with my cheekbone, splitting the skin and filling my vision with stars. I taste blood in my mouth as I swing wildly, catching him with a solid right cross that staggers him backward into the wall. The concrete makes a hollow sound as his body hits it, and I follow up immediately with a knee to his solar plexus that doubles him over.
He recovers quickly, grabbing a handful of my shirt and using my momentum to throw me sideways into the concrete wall. Stars explode across my vision as my head connects with the rough surface, and the taste of blood in my mouth becomes stronger. My legs feel unsteady, and for a moment, the room spins around me like I’m drunk.
Vadim presses his advantage, landing a series of punches to my kidneys that make my legs weak and my balance uncertain. Each blow sends lightning through my lower back, and my strength starts to ebb as the damage accumulates.
I’ve been in enough fights to know desperation can overcome technique, and I have more to lose than he does. I drive my elbow backward into his ribs, feeling something crack under the impact. It’s either cartilage or bone, but I can’t tell which. He grunts with pain and his grip loosens just enough for me to pivot and grab him by the throat.
We crash to the floor together, rolling and grappling for position while trying to land devastating blows. He’s stronger than his age would suggest, but I’m fighting for my family’s future while he’s only fighting for revenge that won’t bring back the dead.
I manage to get on top of him and wrap my hands around his throat, squeezing with everything I have while he claws at my wrists and tries to buck me off. He rakes his fingernails across my skin, drawing blood, but I maintain my grip as his face turns red, then purple, as I cut off his air supply and watch the life start to fade from his eyes.
His struggles become weaker, more desperate, and for a second, I think it’s over. Just as his eyes start to roll back, I see movement from the corner of my eye that makes my blood freeze.
Irina has produced a small pistol from somewhere in her clothes and is raising it toward me with obvious intent to kill. Her hands are steady despite everything that’s happened, and there’s cold determination in her expression that tells me she won’t miss from this range.
Sabrina moves faster than I would have thought possible. She lunges forward, the metal legs scraping against concrete as she propels herself into motion, knocking over the chair as she reaches behind her back.
A second later, she also has a gun that she aims at Irina with shaking hands. Her face is pale with concentration as she tries to line up the shot, but her whole body is trembling from adrenaline and fear.
The sound of her pulling the trigger fills the small room, but nothing happens. The safety is still on, but the distraction is enough for me to roll away from Vadim and out of Irina’s line of fire just as she pulls her own trigger. The bullet gouges concrete where my head was a second before, sending chips of stone flying through the air and filling the room with the acrid smell of gunpowder.
Irina jerks her weapon toward Sabrina with predatory focus, clearly intending to eliminate the threat before returning her attention to me, but as she adjusts her aim, I hear the distinctive click of a safety being disengaged.
Sabrina’s voice is steady and cold as ice. “Don’t.”
This time, when Sabrina fires, the gun functions exactly as designed. The bullet catches Irina center mass, spinning her around and slamming her back against the wall with enough force to crack the concrete. She slides down to the floor, leaving a trail of blood on the rough surface, her expensive clothes now ruined, and her perfectly styled hair matted with sweat and gore. Her eyes are already glassy with approaching death, and the small pistol falls from her nerveless fingers to clatter on the floor.
Vadim tries to take advantage of my distraction, his survival instincts overriding the oxygen deprivation that was about to kill him. He reaches for the knife on his belt with desperate fingers, managing to get it partially free before I’m on him again. The blade is military issue, serrated on one edge, and designed to do maximum damage.
We struggle for control of the weapon, rolling across the floor while he tries to drive it into my chest, and I fight to turn it back on him. His strength is returning as oxygen flows back to his brain, and for a terrifying instant, I worry he might actually overpower me, but rage at nearly losing everything that matters to me because of this man’s obsession with revenge gives me the edge I need.
The knife goes into his torso just below the ribcage, sliding between bones to find his heart. The blade penetrates with surprising ease, parting flesh and muscle like they’re made of paper. His eyes widen with shock and pain as blood begins to bubble from his lips, but he’s not dead yet. He’s just wounded and growing weaker by the second.
I pull myself to my feet, breathing hard and tasting blood in my mouth. Looking down at him bleeding on the concrete floor, the same floor where my brother died ten years ago, there’s poetic justice in the symmetry. More importantly, there’s finally an end to the violence.
He tries to speak, and blood froths at the corners of his mouth, but whatever he wants to say is lost in the gurgling sound of damaged lungs.
His death is taking too long, even now, so I step hard on the knife blade, driving it deeper into his chest and severing whatever vital structures were still keeping him alive. The metal grinds against bone as it penetrates deeper, and he convulses once, his mouth opening as if to speak, then goes still.
Vadim Morozov is dead. The man who killed my brother, terrorized the woman I love, and turned my life into a constant battle for survival, is finally gone.
I turn away from his corpse and rush to Sabrina, dropping to my knees beside her chair. She’s still holding the gun, her knuckles white with tension, but her hands have stopped shaking. There’s something different in her eyes now. It’s a hardness that wasn’t there before, and I hope it will soon fade. I don’t want this to scar her for life, though it will inevitably change her.
I pull her into my arms and hold her like I’ll never let her go again, feeling the solid warmth of her body against mine and the gentle movement of our daughter between us. I whisper into her hair, breathing in the familiar scent that means home and safety and everything worth fighting for. “It’s over. It’s finally over.”
