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“Kill him,” Oleg rasped, blood bubbling on his lips.
Jax aimed another kick at Lagoshin’s skull. Even as he did, the big Russian launched himself upward, hurling himself from hands and knees into a battering ram. He tackled Jax, slammed him to the carpet and straddled him, backhanded him twice and wrapped his huge hands around Jax’s throat and began to squeeze. The pressure forced a strangled grunt out of him, the last of his air. The pressure made Jax cry out in rage and pain.
In his mind, he saw the faces of his sons. Of Tara and of his mother. Somewhere nearby, Trinity and Chibs were in trouble, but he realized he was not going to be able to help them.
* * *
Trinity had fooled herself into thinking they could escape through the window. She’d picked up a chair and slammed it against the glass. If the pool had been full, maybe they’d have been able to make the jump, but they were thirty or forty feet above the rear parking lot. If the fall didn’t kill them, it would mess them up badly enough that they’d be lying there broken and bleeding until Lagoshin’s men came and finished the job. She’d given up smashing the chair against the window after the third attempt. The glass had cracked, but there seemed little point.
Only then had she seen the door to the co
“Chibs!” she called.
He had shoved the dusty, stained mattress off the box spring and put it against the wall, an added layer for the Russians’ bullets to pass through. Now he glanced out the door, assault rifle clutched in both hands.
“I can do this all day,” he shouted to them. “You want us, you’re go
“Chibs!” Trinity snapped.
He whipped around to glare at her. She pushed the floor lamp back so he had a clear view of the co
Chibs held up his hand, palm flat, halting her. She frowned, and he sketched his fingers at the air, indicating that she should go out through that room and into the corridor. It took her a moment to realize what he wanted, and when she did, she thought there might have been a look of mischief in her own eyes as well. She relished the moment. Any second that passed with her feeling something other than fear was something to cherish.
She gestured toward Chibs.
He thrust his assault rifle out into the corridor and fired blindly in the direction of their attackers. With the gunfire as cover, she shot out the lock, blowing a hole in metal and wood, tearing the mechanism in two.
The door swung inward. She didn’t even glance at Chibs as she rushed into the next room, spotted the same dusty bed, the same dust motes dancing in the sunlight streaming through the windows, the same sad, faded artwork on the walls. She ran to the door, hauled it open, and ducked into the hall. The Russians were twenty feet along the corridor, ducked into the recessed doorway of a guest room and so laser-focused on the space where they expected to see Chibs firing at them that it was a couple of seconds before one of them noticed her.
Trinity didn’t try to aim. She lifted the gun and fired its last two bullets, then ducked back into the room and threw herself onto the floor.
Bullets tore up the open doorway, splintered wood and drywall flying.
More gunfire, but echoing now from the next room as much as it was out in the corridor. She heard a cry of pain, a terrible grunt, and then the wet, heavy sound of bodies toppling to the floor. Trinity had provided a distraction, and Chibs had taken full advantage of it.
“Clear!” he called from the corridor.
She lurched to her feet and out into the hall, gun left on the floor, forgotten.
In the hall, Chibs relieved the dead men of their weapons. He handed her a sleek assault rifle. The gun felt heavier than anything she had ever carried in her life.
You’re alive, she reminded herself, and the burden lightened a bit. But only a bit.
Chibs grabbed her arm and gave her a little shake. Trinity snapped her gaze up to stare at him.
“You with me, girl? I need you focused. We’re not out o’ this yet.”
Trinity stared at the dead men. “I’m with you.”
“Quickest way down’ll be the stairs,” Chibs said. “Likely to be some more of these bastards in our path, but my job is to get you out of here.”
“I’m not leavin’ without Oleg,” she said coldly.
He hesitated, and she could almost see him weighing his options. “We have no way of knowin’ where they are. Best thing we can do for them is keep the exits clear.”
* * *
Rollie stood in the lobby, head cocked as he listened to the sounds of gunfire. Baghead and Mikey the Prospect were with him—he’d sent the rest of them off in different directions to do what they could—but now he hesitated.
“Which way?” Mikey asked.
Good question, Rollie thought. They could just hold the lobby, but he wanted to get to Jax before the Bratva did. Like any brotherhood, they might fight among themselves, but if an outsider came after one of them, they circled the wagons. Rollie would give up his life for that principle.
“Front window!” Baghead snapped.
Rollie turned, sweeping his gun hand up and around to take aim at the shattered, jagged remains of the plate-glass windows. He spotted a pair of stone-faced killers just outside, gray in the shadow of the hotel. One wore a white tank, and his arms were wreathed with tattoos. The other wore a black suit and tie.
Mikey the Prospect took a single shot that snapped off a shard jutting from the window frame. The tattooed Russian spun out of view, no longer framed by the window.
“Mikey, knock that shit off!” Rollie shouted, as he and Baghead moved up on either side of the kid. Friggin’ prospects. Even Bag hadn’t forgotten his orders so fast.
The black-suited Russian put his hands up but didn’t drop his gun. “You are Jax Teller’s men?”
Rollie winced. He was president of SAMNOV, and Jax was VP up in Charming. He sure as hell wasn’t one of Jax’s men.
“We’re with him, yeah,” he said.
The Russian lowered his hands. Rollie, Bag, and Mikey covered him.
“Then we are on the same side,” black suit said. “I am Kirill Sokolov.”
“Sokolov,” Rollie replied. “The man who would be king.”
The Russian gri
“All right, then,” Rollie said, lowering his gun. “Let’s go get you a crown.”
* * *
Opie popped a magazine out of his gun and dug a fresh one from his pocket. The bullet graze on his side had started to seep blood through Rollie’s stitches. The wound would stay closed—wasn’t even that serious—but he had to be careful not to tear it open completely, or blood loss could take him out of the fight.
He glanced at Vlad. “I’m out of ammo after this. We keep dicking around out here, and they’ll outlast us.”
Vlad stared at him as if he’d grown a second head. “You want to rush them? We have them pi
“You know these guys,” Opie said, frowning at him. “You think they’re go
Vlad rose up from behind the marble stairs outside the ballroom and took two shots at the open doors, just to remind Krupin and the others that they were still there. Opie slammed home his replacement magazine and chambered a round.
“There are two of us and at least three or four in there,” Vlad said. “I don’t like the odds.”
Opie shot him a withering look. “Neither do I.”
Vlad exhaled, lowered his head, and then laughed softly. “All right. We go on three. One…”