Page 150 of Fall Before Her Throne

“I’ll go first,” I said to Kolya. “You follow me up.”

He nodded.

Quickly, I did a front roll across the pavement, staying underneath the glass windows of the coffee shop. When I reached the other side, I peeked above the glass and spotted five Camorra men. I signaled the number and then lined up my shots. Cas did the same on the other side.

He counted down.

3…2…1…

We both laid a wave of gunfire across the shop. All the men collapsed with screams of pain. A few quick follow-up shots silenced them.

We didn’t wait. With Cas, Kolya, and me leading the charge, we rushed the shop. Felix and his men followed closely behind. Cas and I knew each other well enough now to be in total sync with our movements. He watched my blind spot, and I watched his. We were in tune as we took out another group of Camorra men in the back room of the shop.

It was chaos.

Everything was trashed. Blood splattered the walls. Kolya stepped over bodies, grimacing when he recognized them. It was like the Russians had tried to withhold a siege, but they’d been pushed back room by room.

“Where is he?” I whispered to Kolya.

Before he answered, a bullet whizzed past my face. Decades’ worth of training made my body move on instinct, lunging to the side before a hail of gunfire shot up the floor tiles where I’d just stood.

Cas returned fire. He and Kolya mowed down seven more Camorra soldiers, hiding behind storage shelves and inside a walk-in refrigerator. Three heartbeats later, and all was quiet.

I let out a tense breath. Cas reached down a hand to pull me up. “You okay?”

“Fine.” I gusted a breath. “Are we almost fucking there or what, Kolya? Fuck.”

A barking laugh drew our attention to the left. Konstantin Makarov, Head of the Russian Bratva, stuck his stupid head of curly blond hair out of a storage closet.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, face split by a wide grin. “I thought we were done for.”

Kolya slammed against him, giving him the largest hug and most physical affection I’d ever seen the two brothers exchange. “I should have let you die so I could run the Bratva.”

Kostya ruffled Kolya’s bloody hair. “You’d never manage it, little brother.”

I rested my elbow on Cas’s shoulder. “You’re welcome!”

Kostya’s head snapped toward me. “Bastard,” Kostya said, even though the relief on his face was clear. “You sure took your sweet fucking time.”

“I was making out with Leona,” I replied. “I could be balls deep in her right now if it weren’t for you, so you owe us. Big time.”

Cas rolled his eyes, but he smiled. “Happy to help, Makarov. This is Anton Felix, an ally of ours, and his men.”

The two men exchanged handshakes, but a slight movement caught the corner of my eye. One body by the walk-in refrigerator moved. A twitch? A nervous system’s last movements as it died?

My eyes narrowed.

“What…” I murmured.

Suddenly, the body leapt to its feet, a gleaming knife in his hand. He lunged at Cas.

“Cas!” I choked out. The knife flew from my fingertips and landed in the Italian’s neck right before he could stab my boyfriend in the fucking back. Cas whirled, punched the guy in the stomach, and he crumbled. I fired three bullets into the fucker’s skull. His face exploded onto the tile floor, brain matter scrambled and destroyed.

Cas let out a breath. “Thanks for watching my back.”

I swallowed, my heart in my fucking throat, before I let out a light laugh. I’d just gotten him to open up to me. I would not lose him now. “Always. Let’s make sure there aren’t any more of these fuckers. I’d rather you not get stabbed.”

Felix barked an order, and the rest of his men spread through the building, double-checking we’d taken care of the rest of them. Kolya walked to the front of the shop, hands on his gun.