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“What future?”
Lifting my handgun, I press the barrel firmly against his forehead and look him right in the eyes.
Then I pull the trigger.
The shot rings out sharply, and a few of the other men kneeling flinch at the sound. Aleksander’s eyes roll back, and his body crumples like an empty paper bag as he falls down.
Dead.
It’s over.
All the anger churning inside my chest cracks suddenly, and warmth stings behind my eyes.
I killed him.
For Ivan and Nastja. For Alena. For every man and woman we lost at his hands.
He’s dead.
As I turn to August, my lips parting to speak, the loud sound of heavy-booted footsteps fills the air, and my eyes snap to the nearest kneeling man.
“More of your friends?”
Confusion flashes over his face, and he shakes his head quickly. “No, sir, they aren’t with us. I don’t know who they are!”
I glance at August, unsure whether he planned for more men to turn up in case things went south, but at the shake of his head, I know that’s not true.
Whoever these people are, they aren’t on our side. Which means they’re against us.
Despite our best efforts, the new flood of men armed to the teeth in tactile gear and assault weapons are stronger than us in firepower and in numbers. The few of August’s men who manage to get a shot off are killed immediately, and within thirty seconds, August’s task force is quickly overpowered, with every one of us on our knees and a barrel to our skulls.
The fuck? Is this the Irish?
Not to throw blame on them, but I have no idea who the fuck these men belong to.
A tense silence falls. August and I exchange a glance, but from the look on his face, he’s got no clue either.
A sharp clicking catches my ears, growing louder by the second, and the men around us start to part. Out of the crowd, dressed in red with a pair of black heels to match her poker-straight black hair comes the last person I ever expected to see.
“Mara?”
“Hello, boys.” She stops in front of us, one hand on her hip, then she purses her lips and sighs.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demand.
She slaps me quickly, sending heat flaring across my face and reigniting the anger in my chest.
“I’m here because of you, Kristof. Do you have any idea what kind of mess you’ve made that I’ve been trying to clean up? You couldn’t just take Alena and run away into the sunset, could you?” Her red-painted lips press together. “You had to keep fucking things up.”
Confusion pulses through me, and my hands curl into fists, but when I begin to speak, she raises her hand once more.
“Nu-uh. I sent Aleksander here to kill you, to put an end to this, and he couldn’t even do that, could he?” Mara moves to where Aleksander’s body lies on the floor, then nudges him with her heel. There’s no response, and she tuts softly, then snaps her fingers.
Two men dart out of the crowd and their faces are distantly familiar. It takes until they drag Aleksander’s body out of view for my mind to place them—they were Kuznetsovs. I’d seen them a few years ago at Alena’s birthday party.
“Nice to see you still care for him.” I snort at the unceremonious way he’s dragged away.
“You have no idea who I care for,” Mara remarks. “He never could clean up a deal, could he? I had to come all the way here and fix the mistakes myself.”
