The interruption from someone new was unexpected. He hadn't heard the police sirens, and from the information he got, the house was lived in by the girl and her brother. Viktor hadn't been expecting anyone else, especially not when he'd just let his guard down, so it came as a bit of a surprise, enough to distract him, at least.

Viktor was startled into shifting his aim from Laurie to Mickey and thus loosening his grip on her.

Laurie felt his loosened grip and felt it was her chance. Though Mickey just bursting in had scared her momentarily, thinking that another enemy had come, but was too impatient to keep waiting. Then she saw Mickey there and the relief she'd felt was indescribable. She managed to squirm out of the big guy's grip, no longer leverage to be used for his demands.

Viktor tried to bring his gun back to her, but it was too late. The man at the door had a gun pointed at him, and it would be fatal to point his own gun elsewhere.

Mickey was just glad he'd arrived on time, and just at the right moment. He didn’t want to think of what would have happened if he'd been too late. He glanced over at Laurie, who'd gotten away from Viktor, but was moving farther into the room instead of out like he needed her to. He didn’t keep his eyes on her too long because he couldn’t lose focus on Viktor. Somehow, they were all going to get out of this alive, and Viktor was going to get put away for a long time. He hadn't called anyone in, and he needed to have this standoff be just between the two of them so he could subdue the bastard.

"Laurie," he said quietly, hearing her gasp and taking it as a response that she was listening. "You and your brother get out of here, go through the back." It would be a disaster if she went into the front room and saw the body of who Mickey assumed had been Randy. "There's a car outside. The key's in the ignition. When you're both inside, drive as far as you can, but don’t go to the cops. I'll call you, or someone else will."

Laurie followed Mickey's order, nodding her head as she hurried around both the men with guns and ran down the hall. She didn’t have to think about why he'd told her to go through the back, even though she'd have to circle around the front to get to the road. She remembered the gunshot from earlier and made a whimpering sound, shoving the thought from her mind. If her brother hadn't died, it was either a warning shot or there had been someone else, but thinking that would be the opposite of helpful just then.

Mickey and Viktor held each other at gunpoint. Mickey could see the big man follow Laurie with his eyes as he left, looking decidedly displeased, but his hand didn’t waiver where he had the gun pointed at Mickey.

At least Laurie had gotten out, and Mickey could feel the vise in his chest loosen just a little. But then his eyes slid to the other occupant in the room and he wanted to curse. Of all people to be in this situation with, it had to be this idiot? Mickey could tell he was still high, so he must have gotten a hit of whatever stuff he had before Viktor showed up. The situation going on had only made him more unstable, or he would have done the smart thing and run when left with a couple of people with guns that looked like they knew how to use them.

Karl was supposed to follow his sister, but he was so emotionally overwrought that he made a fatal mistake. Instead of running, he got in the way as Mickey and Viktor squared off.

Mickey wanted to curse. He wanted to call the kid an idiot in every language that he knew, and then kick his ass down the stairs and out of the house. But Viktor had recovered from his momentary distraction. One wrong move and this would be all over. He was just looking for an opening, and like hell was Mickey going to hand one over. He couldn’t just let Viktor Koldovnik get away, not even for Laurie's idiotic little brother.

Not that he thought the man would just leave, anyway. Mickey only had the rumors, and the facts that other agents had managed to get about this guy, but now that Laurie and Karl had seen his face, Mickey was pretty sure he'd had no intention of leaving either of them alive even after he got what he wanted.

He was about to shout at the kid to get out when he started doing some talking on his own, and Mickey could only curse at how stupid this kid had to be. It was a wonder he'd lived this long as the son of a general when he'd clearly been targeted by the mob for a while now.

Laurie, hiding in the car waiting for her brother to join her, heard him starting to yell at Viktor.

The first thing she thought, was why her brother wasn’t taking the easy way out for once and leaving when given a free out. He had to have known they couldn’t get away from that situation by themselves. He couldn’t possibly think that a man that had been sent to kill them over a bunch of papers that may or may not exist, or be of value, could even be reasoned with.

Her second thought, was why hadn't she grabbed him with her as she ran? All she'd had on her mind was getting away once Mickey told her to. He'd said she and her brother had to leave, so she'd assumed Karl had gotten the message and followed after her.

She should have realized something was wrong when she made it to the car and she couldn’t see her brother behind her.

What had she done? She hadn't thought her brother would need someone to hold his hand even through something like this, but just leaving him there, unarmed, while she ran to safety had been unacceptable.

Laurie jumped out of the car in horror, running toward the door. She didn’t bother going around the back this time, the front would be quicker.

Mickey, on the other hand, could do nothing but stand and watch the horror show. He wanted to grab the kid and shake some sense into him or scramble his mind so he was capable of following simple instructions. He was just shouting on his own, Viktor standing like a tall rock and not even reacting to his babbling that only grew more incoherent.

Karl couldn’t think straight. There was no rational thought in his mind, everything was getting all jumbled. All he could think was that he hadn't meant for anything to end up like it had. He'd made a mistake, but it was way bigger than he had thought at first. And then there was this guy, who had shot someone he considered a friend while he watched, who had held a gun to her sister's head while he just watched. A man who had come here to kill him.

He wasn’t sure why his sister's new boyfriend was even there with a gun of his own, but he had all his attention focused on Viktor. He wasn’t even paying attention to whatever words were coming out of his mouth. All he knew was his sister was outside, and this bastard was still there, in his room, with a gun. He didn’t even look at him as he shouted in his face.

Karl had snapped and lunged at Viktor and was trying to wrestle the gun away from him while screaming emasculating insults.

Mickey could only stand by and gape for a second, too amazed by the display in front of him. He hesitated, not sure what he was supposed to do in that situation. Doing nothing would get the boy killed, but they were moving around too much and he might end up hitting the kid by mistake. He wasn’t sure getting closer was a good idea, either, it might just make the big man take action faster.

Mickey hesitated.

Viktor didn’t even seem fazed, like Karl was just an annoying insect getting in his way, irritating but not a threat. He held onto the gun even as the kid grabbed his arm and scrambled for his hand, scratching and coming away with bloody fingertips for the trouble. Somehow, the boy couldn’t tell just how outmatched he was or didn’t care. Mickey was pretty sure he just wasn’t in his right mind.

Then Mickey got hold of his vocal chords.

"Kid, get away from him, now! He's not someone you can handle," Mickey shouted, trying to warn him off. "Just get out of here and go help your sister. Stop fucking making this all about you!"

But Karl, as usual, was not listening. It was only a matter of time, seconds before it would be too late, but Mickey wasn’t sure what to do.

Viktor finally tired of this. The kid was being too loud, and the scratching was stinging his hand and damaging him. His attention deviated from the other man in the room with the gun and turned to the boy who clearly wanted to die. He raised his other hand, knocking the kid in the head and off balance just for a moment. It was long enough to pull his arm from his hold, point the gun and shoot him in the head before Mickey could stop him.

It happened too fast for him to react. Viktor's other hand coming, up, hitting Karl in the head, then taking the shot, straight in the head. Mickey was moving, mouth opened to shout something as he watched that arm raise the gun. But he was just a second too slow, and he heard the gun shot over whatever he could have said, cutting him off.

The distraction cost Viktor his life as Mickey shot him twice in the chest, almost immediately after he'd taken the shot on Karl. They both fell, like broken marionettes, legs tangling together on the way down. Both of them dead.

As Mickey stared around in horror and regret, Laurie ran in—only to scream when she saw the carnage.

Dammit!

Mickey reached for her, wondering why she even came back. The obvious answer was she must have done it for her brother. He grabbed her and hid her face against his chest. This wasn’t something she needed to see. A dead body was one thing, and that would be bad enough but one of those bodies had been her brother. As much trouble as the kid had caused her, Laurie had cared about him, and she was hurting.

All he could do was curse himself. He was trained to react in situations like the one he was in just a few moments ago, yet he had hesitated. If he had moved faster… done something smarter…

But he wouldn’t burden Laurie with any of that. she probably blamed herself for running away and leaving her brother behind, even though nobody would have blamed her for not looking back in that situation.

Laurie clung to him, crying as he murmured apologies.