Everything was chaos.

Caputo let out a scream as the air filled with the rapid pop-pop-pop of the SMG, everyone in the room hitting the deck. I watched Sergei take cover behind Falcone’s desk, putting an armchair between the two of us for cover.

“You are much more courageous than I thought, Mr. Crush,” Sergei called, from his hiding place, a laugh underlining each word. “I underestimated you, I think.”

The way Sergei talked, you might have thought he was having an actual good time, and when he came up over the top of the desk he was grinning from ear to ear. I ducked back behind the armchair as bullets flew through the fabric and exploded its innards out and into the fire. I was going to need something a little more substantial if I was going to make it through this.

I glanced at the side of the room where Chrissy and her dad had taken shelter from the spray of gunfire. She didn’t seem hurt, but I couldn’t tell whether Falcone was still in one piece.

“What? You are not going to at least do me the courtesy of making conversation?” Sergei laughed before falling back behind the desk again. I took the opportunity to let off another short burst of automatic fire in his direction.

As he hid, I grabbed the coffee table that sat between the two armchairs and turned it on its side, moving behind it for a better vantage point. I need to catch him while he’s vulnerable, I thought as I sent another volley of bullets into Falcone’s rather expensive-looking solid wood desk. But from the way Sergei moved and took advantage of his surroundings, I couldn’t help but feel like he had more experience in these kind of situations.

“I’m not a big talker,” I shouted back, hoping that maybe he might give something away while he moved.

“Ah, man of action, yes?” he responded, popping off a shot that took a corner of the coffee table with it. “I respect that. It is a shame we did not meet under better conditions. I think I would have liked you.”

Jesus fuck, this asshole liked the sound of his own voice.

I looked around for another spot where I might be able to close the distance between us without him noticing. I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him stuck behind that desk; he had too much cover, and I was going to run out of bullets eventually.

A crash behind me forced me to turn my attention away from the Russian as three of his thugs burst through the door, weapons ready, but unsure of where to fire.

That gap was more than enough to allow me to let a burst of gunfire off in their direction. Two of them took bullets directly in the chest while the second caught one in his shoulder, causing all three of them to hit the floor. The third gunman attempted to slink away, pushing at the floor with his feet, his own gun knocked out of reach as he fell.

“I must admit, this is the most exciting thing that has happened since I came to this city,” Sergei said, as though he were talking about spending the day at goddamn Disneyland. I’d just taken out his men, and he didn’t even seem phased by it. “I will make sure you have a quick death, Mr. Crush.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Chrissy hissed, rage filling every syllable as I turned to see her poking up over the table she’d hidden behind, gun in hand, and firing off a shot at Sergei.

From the grunt of pain it sounded like she clipped him in the shoulder, though the laugh that followed didn’t make me any more confident in how this fight was going to end.

“The little girl hit me,” the mob boss crowed. “But I think it was a lucky shot. We must see if she can do it again. I think you might have more luck now with two against one, Mr. Crush.”

He was right. We had numbers, though I had no goddamn idea how good Chrissy actually was with that gun, or whether or not Sergei was right and that shot was just luck. But two against one meant that now I’d be able to move closer while Chrissy covered me—you didn’t need to be a crack shot. You just needed to know where the hell the trigger was and point the gun in the right direction.

I looked across the room and locked eyes with Chrissy, offering a faint smile in an attempt to tell her I was glad she was alive, but all I got back was a look of mild anger and panic. I motioned toward Sergei, trying to mime out the act of firing at him on my signal.

In response, her eyes widened and she pointed behind me frantically.

I felt the chill of cold metal against the back of my head before I could understand what the hell Chrissy was trying to tell me. “Drop the fucking gun,” Lonnie Caputo whispered in my ear, pressing the muzzle harder against my scalp.

Goddammit.

I swallowed and slowly lowered the SMG onto the floor.

I looked back toward Chrissy, her own gun trained on Caputo as he kicked mine away. This had just gone from bad to fucking abysmal.

“Get up,” he said, “and tell your girlfriend to drop her gun too before I paint the floor with what little brains you have.”

“Crush,” Chrissy began, but stopped as I held up a hand.

“Just do what he says, Chrissy,” I told her, doing my best to sound like I wasn’t scared out of my goddamn mind. “We’re going to be fine.”

“Not likely,” Caputo said, shoving me forward. I felt the odd press of something stuck in my belt against my back, suddenly reminded of the knife I’d taken earlier. “None of you are getting out of here.”

“Finally, you are good for something,” Sergei growled as he stood up from behind the desk. “This was getting tiresome.”

I moved as quickly as I could, stepping back onto Caputo’s toe and grinding the hard soles of my boot down until I heard something pop. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to draw his gun off of my head, giving me enough freedom to reach back and grab the knife from my belt.

I swirled around as fast as I could, driving the point of the blade deep into Caputo’s arm, using my momentum to push him to the ground. He let out a scream that sounded more like it came from an animal than a person, which he summarily repeated as I pulled the knife back out again.

Sergei let out a growl as Chrissy turned her gun toward him and opened fire, catching the mobster squarely in the lower right of his torso, drawing a string of curses from his lips as he returned fire, his eyes wide with rage.

“Chrissy!” I shouted, grabbing Caputo’s gun from the floor. “Get down!”

Sergei lifted his gun again, this time firing straight for the window, letting off two slugs.

I squeezed the trigger, just barely missing his arm as he ran at full tilt toward the shattered window and leapt through. I vaulted the coffee table, gun still in hand as I chased after him, out the window, landing with a less than graceful roll that left my shoulder in searing pain.

“Crush!” Chrissy called after me, but there wasn’t any time to stop or look back as I tore off after Sergei as he made a break for the front gate. God only knew how a man that big could run so damn quickly.

As the two of us rounded the corner of the house, I managed to fire off a shot—nowhere near close enough to hit him, but enough to make him dive for cover behind a row of bushes and return fire.

I put my back against a low wall as plaster and cement rained with every shot Sergei took. I fumbled with finding the release for the clip, desperate to get a sense of how much ammunition I had to work with. But as the magazine slid from the handle I felt a sinking feeling come over me. I was completely out.

“Fuck,” I hissed, glancing over the wall to make sure I wasn’t getting snuck up on. If he found out that I was depleted, I was a dead man, and there was an old saying about bringing a knife to a gunfight.

A silence grew as I tried to think of some kind of plan, anything that might save me from getting gunned down once Sergei realized he had the upper hand. I was running out of time.

“Are you still there?” came the mocking tones of the mobster. “Not getting performance anxiety, are you?”

Asshole, I thought, taking the knife from my belt, hoping to maybe get the jump on him if he got too close.

“Is this hide and seek now?” he teased, his rich voice bubbling with sadistic laughter. “Because I am very good at this game, Mr. Crush. And I always win.”

My heart was racing, my mind racing a mile a minute with all the ways this could all go wrong. My hands were slick with sweat, and for a moment I thought I might drop the knife from how badly I was shaking. I was almost sure this was going to be the last thing I ever did.

I could hear the heavy sounds of footsteps approaching, a heavy rhythmic breathing—excited breathing. He was enjoying this, this little cat and mouse game we had going, and he knew full well that he was the cat.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are…”

Wait. Was he… purring?

No. No, that wasn’t purring. It was...

It was low at first, and then louder, rumbling like an entire pride of lions all roaring at once in the distance. But it wasn’t anything so exotic. It was motorcycle engines. A lot of them.

The sound seemed to draw Sergei’s attention away from me, turned instead toward the cacophonous roar that was fast approaching. I knew this was going to be the only chance I was going to get, and I took it.

I sprang from behind the wall, running at Sergei at full-tilt, knife raised high above my head. I let out a scream of pure fury, bringing the blade down just in time to watch the Russian turn his gaze back toward me, his eyes wide as I plunged the knife between his shoulder and neck.

The world stood still for a moment as both of us stared, my hand still firmly holding onto the knife as I watched the Russian start to realize what had just transpired. His mouth moved, his eyes turning as best they could to look at where my knife was currently sticking from him, buried to the cross guard in his flesh.

I pulled the blade back with a sickening sound, stumbling away as Sergei reached up to grasp at the now profusely bleeding wound. His eyes stayed glued to mine, wide with terror, and for the briefest moment before his lips curled into a kind of mad smile as he began to laugh, crimson gurgling up from between his lips.

Slowly, the Russian mob boss crumpled to the ground, his hands still desperately clamping at his neck to somehow stem the tide of red that streamed from between his fingers.

But there was nothing he could do. There was no staunching the flow.

The knife slipped from my red, red hand.