Chapter Thirty-Six
Too much noise and not information. Knox fisted both hands on the desk in front of him, his forearms pressed so hard on the high-priced furniture the wood groaned in protest. He didn’t dare touch his laptop for fear he’d squeeze the ever-loving hell out of it or chuck the damned thing out the window.
Beckett, Danny, Axel and Ivan barked out feedback, but the details were too clipped to form a decent picture. It was still better than the Russian bullshit flying from the mouths of Sergei’s crew, though. Those words he didn’t stand a hope of understanding.
And not one peep from Darya. Only a few grunts and shouts from Gia beside her.
“Last one,” Beckett said, followed by a loud thump that sounded like a car door slamming. “Danny with me. Ivan get the tail car. Axel back the Caddie up.”
“On it,” Axel said.
Another thump sounded. Then another.
Engines revved and tires squealed, but Knox didn’t dare speak. The last thing any of them needed were distractions.
“You breathin’, Knox?”
Zeke cut in first. “Only one thing you’re gonna say that makes that happen.”
“Well, time to start,” Beckett fired back, more than a little satisfaction coating his voice even through his accelerated breaths. “Your girl’s clear, men are contained, and we’re on the move.”
Fuck.
He tried to relax. Tried to force his hands to uncoil and his mind to unhinge from the terrified freeze-frame it had held for the last thirty seconds. “Where’s Darya?” he finally managed, though how enough air made it up the back of his throat to ask he couldn’t figure. God knew his diaphragm was still knotted up like a pretzel.
Fumbling sounded and a second later Darya’s shaky voice sounded through the line. “I’m here.” Heavy huffs filled what would have been silence, but the smile in her words lingered. “I lost my earpiece in the shuffle, but I’m fine.” An adrenaline-coated laugh followed tight behind her claim. “We’re all fine.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Danny chimed in.
Already back in tactical mode, Beckett’s voice sliced through the feed. “Knox, need you to check for any reports from police. Caught a few onlookers in the middle of it all. Sergei’s got Ruslan’s men in the cargo van behind us. Not gonna go good if he gets busted before we can get intel out of ’em.”
As a way of getting his head straight fast, the need for intel worked like little else could have. Before his brain could even fully process the request, his fingers were flying over the keyboard, intercepting 911 dispatches the way he used to just for shits and grins as early as high school. “Two calls. Intercepted them both. No dispatches sent. How far out are you?”
“Just pullin’ onto the service road, takin’ it slow to blend in,” Beckett said. “Axel, get on 75. We’ll take the service road to give us more time. Sergei, you with us?”
“Keycards to Ruslan’s suite and phones secured,” Sergei said. “No outgoing calls after we engaged. Only two others before we moved in, none to Ruslan.”
“So, Ruslan’s got no ETA and no alert for what happened,” Axel said.
“We hope,” Beckett confirmed. “Better not to get too cocky. Not until they’re out for the count and we’re the only ones standing.”
Knox magnified the camera feeds he’d kept pinned to the corner of his screen. “He’s still got two guards outside the front door we’ll need to deal with. You get a head count on what’s waiting inside yet?”
“Give me thirty minutes.” The low rumble in Sergei’s voice ensured whatever went down inside that van in the next half hour wouldn’t be pretty for the captured men, but Sergei was definitely looking forward to it.
“Darya, you got your phone?” Knox said.
“Um...” Movement sounded through the line along with a decent amount of rustling. “Yes, I have it.”
“Good. Anyone needs me, ping Zeke. I’m offline.” He tugged his headset free and punched her number on speed dial.
“We did it,” was her answer. Part whisper, part overwhelming thrill. “You should have seen Gia. I thought the guy trying to tie her up had knocked her out, but when Beckett said, ‘Go,’ she sprung into an action hero. I want to learn how to do that.”
“Sweetheart, after we get through the rest of this day, you can learn how to do anything you want to, so long as you don’t do any of it without me next to you. Not until I can get over the last seven hours.”
For a second, she was quiet. When she spoke again her voice was soft with need to match his own. “I miss you, too.”
Knox sighed and fisted the hair on top of his head, elbows braced on the desk in front of him. “I couldn’t see anything.” The words came from the very pit of his soul. A confession and a plea for her to understand. “It took ninety-seven seconds. Over a minute and a half when the bits and pieces I heard wouldn’t form a visual in my head, and you were in the thick of it. Without me.”
“You’re where you’re supposed to be. Doing what you’re good at.”
Funny. Ever since he could remember, he’d had a driving curiosity to poke and prod at things. To break them apart and see how they worked. The habit had driven him into computers and he’d been devoted ever since. The code and the challenge of sneaking into places he shouldn’t be had been his comfort. His way to escape and flip a mental bird to the people who’d been all too effective at keeping him out of their life. Now that he had Darya, he didn’t need the solace. Didn’t need to prove anything. “The only thing that matters anymore is taking care of you.”
Zeke smacked him on the shoulder and pointed at Knox’s headset on the desk in front of him.
Knox snatched it up, but directed his comment to Darya. “You got your earpiece on?”
“I’m putting it on now.”
“Good. Remember the plan. And no more covert shit with you in the middle and me not beside you for as long as I’m breathing.”
Her light laughter was the last thing he heard before Sergei’s voice gut through their link. “Eleven inside including Ruslan. They sent more for surveillance than we thought.”
Axel’s low voice slid through the link. “Nice. You came in five minutes under.”
“I’ll bet that also means we’ve got a van to dispose of when this is all over,” Beckett added.
Sergei’s breath was slightly elevated, but his accent was twice as thick and there was grim satisfaction in his tone when he answered. “You would be correct.”
“How much time do you need to head up?” Danny said.
“My men are gearing up now,” Sergei answered. “Take your team up the stairwell and be ready.”
“We’ll need Gia’s trigger to even out the eleven,” Beckett said. “Gia, you good with that?”
Before Gia could answer Knox cut in. “Gia covers Darya. I’m in.”
“Knox, we need you on the controls,” Axel said. “Besides, not a one of us are going in without vests. I know damned good and well you don’t have one.”
“Odds of anyone aiming at anything other than our heads are slim and a vest’s not gonna help me there. And once we activate at the entrance, there’s nothing Zeke can’t handle here. He’ll be prepped, but Darya’s not stepping a foot in that door without full cover. If we need another gunner it’s me.”
Silence crackled through the line, though there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Axel, Danny and Beckett were all scrambling for one decent reason to keep his ass in his chair.
“Glad we got that straight,” Knox said before any of them could come up with anything. “Danny, I’ll watch the feeds and meet the rest of you in the stairwell.”
To his credit, Zeke waited all of ten seconds from the time Knox muted his mic before he spoke. “You sure you want to do this? If something backfires in there, they may need you behind this keyboard more than in the line of fire.”
Under normal circumstances he’d agree, but Ruslan had bought and paid for the whole floor. No matter what went down in the next half hour, no innocent bystanders were going to be close enough to fire off any 911 calls. “I walked away from my woman seven hours ago and have sat in this chair ever since. I did it because this was the place I could do her the most good and it almost killed me. But right now, if it were Gabe walking into a room with guns firing off in all directions and we needed another trigger to even the score, where would you be?”
Zeke held his gaze and nodded. “Point taken.”
In the garage camera feed, the service van’s side door slid open and Sergei’s men piled out, all but Sergei and his two best shooters heading to join Danny, Axel and Ivan already positioned in the stairwell. Beckett, Sergei and his men surrounded Darya and Gia, acting the part of Ruslan’s guards.
Knox stood, switched his headset out for a mobile unit and checked his gun. “I’m up. All you have to do is keep a sharp eye on the guards outside the door and clue us in before they can signal any alarms inside.”
“Yeah, that and make sure no one ends up dead.” Zeke slid into Knox’s vacated chair behind the desk and cracked his knuckles. “Do me a favor. Save me some overtime and avoid the bullets, all right?”
“Says the guy who went into a break-in for his own woman without a gun and came out with a trophy wound. At least I’m armed.”
He reached the stairwell landing on Ruslan’s floor, Danny, Axel, Ivan and Sergei’s men already in place. Despite their slightly rumpled appearance and a few stray blood splotches on one of the men’s shirts, the three Russians all sported bland expressions. The sort that said they were either so damned used to this line of work it didn’t faze them anymore, or were doing their best to hide how much they hated the idea of working with a mixed crew.
With the door to Ruslan’s suite just outside the landing, no one said a word.
Beckett’s voice cut through the line. “Two floors away.”
Axel stepped back and nodded.
Danny took his place in front of the door.
“Zeke, we good?” Knox said low enough not to let his voice carry.
“Guards are still in place, but look bored as shit.”
“They won’t be for long,” Axel muttered.
The elevator ding sounded through the line. “Moving out,” Beckett said.
As soon as Beckett spoke, Gia and Darya kicked into action. Even without a visual, the sound of their struggle reached through the steel stairway door. He might not understand a lick of whatever it was coming out of Darya’s mouth, but the sound of it was vile. Perfect for their approach.
Sergei’s voice cut in. A command in Russian.
“I’ve got the one farthest from the stairwell,” Beckett muttered through the chaos. “Danny, you’re on the one closest. Fifteen feet.”
More Russian sounded, but this time it came through the guards on the other side of the door.
“They’re gettin’ itchy,” Zeke said. “Think you’d better move.”
Beckett’s order came right behind it. “Danny, go.”
Danny yanked open the door, snatched the startled guard outside Ruslan’s suite and yanked him into the stairwell. Five seconds. It couldn’t have been more than that, but every bit of it happened in a blur, Darya’s and Gia’s protests more than covering the guard’s struggles and ending with the two of them in lifeless heaps on the concrete landing.
Darya’s voice died off, her gaze aimed through the open stairwell door at the dead men and her face a sickly white.
Knox stepped in close.
“Guns up,” Sergei said as he pulled the keycard they’d pilfered from Ruslan’s men from his pocket.
Knox gripped Darya’s chin tight. “Look at me. Focus.”
Her eyes shot to his and she jerked a terse nod. “I’m good.” She spun and said something loud in a string of Russian that made Sergei smirk.
He punched the keycard into the slot and Gia stumbled through the opening as though someone had shoved her. She pulled Darya along with her, fully clearing the door, dropping to the floor and rolling to cover Darya.
The unexpected entrance and the girls as a distraction gave them the jump they needed. The silencers on the guns might have muted the shots, but did nothing to muffle the instant mayhem. Terse commands in both Russian and English fired through the room mixed with the grunts, crashes and the thump of bodies hitting the floor.
Knox stepped in front of Darya and Gia, shielding the two of them while Gia hustled Darya deeper into the safety of the elevator landing. He was just about to head into the suite and engage when another door in the hallway behind him yanked open.
Connecting rooms.
The paranoid motherfucker had bought out the whole floor. Of course, he’d have an escape hatch if he needed one.
Two men surged out, braced shoulder to shoulder with Ruslan right behind them.
“Action in the hallway!” Zeke called out through the headpiece.
Gia drew her gun the same second Knox did and shouted, “Beckett!”
Shots fired all at once, Knox and Gia taking the two men in front. Knox aimed again, one heartbeat from taking the shot at Ruslan, but froze the second his brain registered Ruslan’s gun trained on Darya.
Sergei moved in from the opposite side, gun drawn and aimed at Ruslan’s head, but hesitated when he took in Ruslan’s target.
“Pull the trigger and she dies as well.” His accent was thick, barely intelligible, but Ruslan’s steady hand and the maniacal gaze he kept locked on Darya was clear enough.
No one moved.
Ever since Darya had told Knox about Ruslan he’d wanted this shot. A chance to make her life safe by his own hands. But now all he wanted was a distraction. Anything to get his woman out of the line of fire. She was one step away from him. One stroke of luck or a miracle was all he needed to cover her.
Zeke’s voice slid through the earpiece. “Got a distraction coming. Be ready.”
A low hum fired through the landing, the sound of an elevator approaching their floor filling the quiet.
“You’ve given me quite a chase, little dove. I look forward to all the ways I’ll make you repay me for the time and trouble.” Ruslan narrowed his eyes and motioned Darya toward the elevator with a jerk of his head. “Move.”
For all of a second, Knox locked stares with Sergei still locked in place in the suite’s entrance, but it was enough to make his intention clear. The elevator dinged and Knox growled, “She’s not going anywhere.”
The doors swooshed open and the housekeeping cart they’d stolen with the intent of getting a better look inside the suite shot forward.
Knox spun, shielded Darya with his body and took her to the floor.
Gunfire filled the landing, bullets splintering into wall, wood and metal all around them. Pain exploded in his right shoulder, a sharp stab that radiated down his arm and out along his upper torso, but he held himself in place, forcing both hands up and around Darya’s head.
The gunfire ceased and footsteps stomped around them, Russian words coated with disgust coursing from Sergei across the room.
Darya pressed her hands against his chest and tried to get up, but Knox didn’t move. Didn’t dare before he got the all clear from one of the men.
“Oh my God!” Darya struggled harder beneath him. “Gia, help me. Knox is bleeding.”
Quick footsteps sounded on the thick carpet and Gia crouched beside them. “Hold still, let me look.”
“I’m fine,” he managed. Whatever had hit him hurt like hell, but he could move his arm and his lungs were both working, so it couldn’t be too bad. He pushed up on one forearm just as Beckett, Axel and Zeke stormed toward him, helped him off Darya and up to his feet.
In all of five seconds, Zeke ripped Knox’s T at the neck and down the bloodied sleeve, peeling back the ruined sides for better inspection.
Darya all but linebacked Beckett out of the way for a better look. “Is he okay?”
“Shoulder wound. Probably ricocheted off the elevator, but nothing we can’t handle at Sanctuary.”
Sergei turned from issuing a command to his men and met Knox’s gaze across the housekeeping cart still lodged between them.
“Tell me that fucker isn’t breathing,” Knox said.
With the coldness of a long-jaded man, Sergei shoved the cart aside.
On the floor, Ruslan lay sprawled on the floor, sightless eyes aimed at the ceiling and a puddle of blood building beside a gruesome hole where his temple had been.
Darya gasped and turned away, but Knox hugged her against his chest with his good arm and cradled the back of her head. Finally, she was safe. No more running or living with fear dogging her step. And while it hadn’t been his bullet that had done the deed, she was breathing. In the end, it was the only thing that mattered. “He can’t hurt you anymore. No one can.”