Page 149 of Fall Before Her Throne

“Promise.”

I leaned over the console to give him a quick kiss before I did what he said. I let out a deep breath, palmed my new automatic rifle, and slung the strap over my shoulder. Time to fuck shit up.

Felix’s car pulled up behind us, and his men piled out to join us. The entire street was on fire. It licked out of broken glass and crept up the side of brick walls. People loitered on the sidewalks, eyes wide at their apartment buildings going up in flames. Sirens grew closer and closer.

My eyes flicked up and down, looking for enemies. I didn’t have to look long before the telltale crack of gunfire came from down the street.

We took off running.

“Move!” I shouted, waving civilians away so we could sprint down the sidewalk. Screams echoed through the air, everyone ducking and darting around like chickens with their heads cut off. Hopefully, we could get to Kostya before the Camorra pumped him full of lead.

We rounded the block to find a group of twenty men in a gnarly fist-fight in the middle of the street. What the fuck?

“Who is who?” Cas asked, coming to a stop beside me. “I don’t know the Russians.”

“I don’t know the Italians,” I said, eyes wide. My hand tightened on the grip of my rifle. I never paid much attention to Kostya’s men. The men fighting blurred together. I could start shooting at everyone, but Kostya would be pissed if I killed some of his.

“Ryuji!”

I whirled, recognizing the voice. Nikolai, Kostya’s brother. “Kolya!”

Blood peppered his face, and soot covered his clothes. He socked a man in the face and then stabbed him in the side with a huge knife. The man fell to the ground, dead, joining the dozens of bodies already littering the street.

Fuck. The cops would have a fucking field day with this.

“Where’s Kostya?” I yelled. Cas handed me an extra gun, and I tossed it to Kolya. “Tell us who to shoot!”

Kolya caught it and then immediately fired the entire clip into the fighting mob. A dozen men dropped to the ground. The rest of his Russian men dispatched what remained of this group of the Camorra.

Well, at least he knew who his guys were.

“Split up!” he ordered the Russians. “Take out whatever fucking Italians you can find. Then try to put out the fires!”

They started rushing through the streets, helping injured civilians and dashing into burning buildings. Shit, it looked like a bomb had gone off here.

“Ryu, this way!” Kolya shouted. Cas and I followed, along with Felix and his men. Kolya ran down another block. “It’s a fucking bloodbath out here!”

Three men jumped out of a small side street, guns raised. I didn’t hesitate. I shot all three immediately.

Kolya slowed, eyeing the bodies. “You’re lucky those aren’t my guys.”

“Yeah, probably,” I said. “Now, what’s going on?”

“They’ve got Kostya pinned down,” he said. Our footsteps thundered on the ground. The sound of sirens grew even closer. “He’s protecting the business where we’ve stored our artwork for the black market. The front is a coffee shop. There’s almost five million dollars of merchandise in that building.”

Cas frowned. “How did they know about it?”

Kolya let out a breath and wiped some blood from his forehead. “We don’t know. They hit the entire perimeter of our territory almost simultaneously. I took a group of our men to fight, and then they started torching buildings. When the fires spread, we tried to help our people, and everything fractured. My men and I had just encountered a group of them, but they’re prowling the streets like real fucking gangsters with Molotov cocktails and shit. We don’t do this shit anymore. It’s bonkers. It’s going to be all over the news, and the police are going to want to arrest every single man they can find.”

We slowed when we approached a coffee shop.

Kostya crouched, raising his weapon. Our fifteen men behind him did the same. “Kostya is in the back. He’s with three of our guys. They’re surrounded.”

Gunfire cracked through the air. I nudged Cas, signaling that I’d go to the other side of the entrance to the coffee shop.

“Take out anyone who you can see, and then we’ll breach the entrance and sweep through the building.” I kept my voice low. “Felix, you and your men back us up.”

“Understood,” Felix responded before relaying the command to the rest of his men. They were armed to the fucking teeth. For a moment, I felt relieved by his loyalty to Leona. We needed as many men as we could get.