27. Viktor

[ 27 ]

VIKTOR

Fucking Ranger before this mission had been a terrible idea. I had so much to think about, literal life and death matters, but my brain kept defaulting to the arch of his spine as I’d fucked him in the shower. The tight heat of his body around my cock. The promise in his dark gaze before we’d got that far.

The unspoken words that had triggered a need deep inside that I might not live to sate.

I want him.

It was not new. I had always wanted him—I’d had him—but this felt different, and I needed it not to. I needed to push him out of my mind entirely and focus on the last-second plans Alexei murmured as Jake drove our attack van out of earshot of our Russian conversation.

“We will not have much time.” To get to the heart of the building before our loved ones followed us at the pace we had agreed on, every footstep timed to the second. “He will know” —Saint— “in a heartbeat that we are not where we should be.”

Ranger’s foot was close to mine as he leaned against the interior side of the van, drowning in introspective tension. His eyes were shut, posture relaxed, meditative, almost. From a man I knew to be hyper-alert, who had barely slept in weeks, it felt strange. And how was it possible that he was more attractive than he’d been mere minutes ago when I’d last snuck a glance at him?

“We have two choices,” I told Alexei, mindful of Saint not bothering to pretend he was not watching us and seeing every little thing the language barrier could not hide. “We lie over the radio, or we convince them that silence means they should wait.”

“Silence might mean we need them. Waiting might put them in more danger.”

“It is a risk. All of it.” I fought another urge to return to the world we left further behind with each mile we travelled. “And why I question your sanity of bringing them, of being here, when Jake and I could have faced this alone.”

Alexei was momentarily distracted by Cam returning from his own contemplative state and sweeping his gaze through the cramped van. Saint didn’t react, but I’d learned over the last twenty-four hours that Alexei was not as good at hiding the effect his lover had on him, as caught in Cam’s snare as I was in Ranger’s.

“Eto lyubov’ s pervogo vzglyada.”

Cam smiled at the murmured Russian that was certainly not for me. He took a breath to respond, but the van jolted to a rough stop, shaking every man to awareness, Saint to his feet faster than I could snatch a breath.

Ranger was swift to follow, Cam and I the slowest, save Alexei, who did not bother at all.

“Cartel check point. A mile out from the port road.” He fixed the silencer to his weapon. “Jakov knows to behave like a drunk construction worker.”

Lingering softness faded from Cam’s face, eclipsed by a heavy scowl. “You didn’t think to share that half an hour ago?”

“You are awake now, are you not? We all are.”

I hid my amusement with my hand.

Ranger snorted. “Fucking batshit Russians.”

I had half a mind to argue that the split in our merry band of warriors didn’t look good for non-Russians either, but the tension bleeding through the van derailed my humour. “What do you see, brother?”

“Two vehicles.” Jake spoke into his radio mic. “Four men.”

“Radios?”

“Only phones.”

From the front, he was the only man who could see, both the narrow road ahead and whatever technology he was using to monitor our target’s communication, but we had fostered a necessary trust between the six of us, and the bikers took him at his word.

“Get out.” Alexei finally rose. “Stumble. Urinate into the ditch. I will handle the rest.”

It was a good plan. Cam and Saint did not like it, but if they were to mentally survive the next few hours, they would have to withstand the same paralysing fear that squeezed my heart as my brother and Alexei exited the van in perfect synchrony, the slam of Jake’s door concealing the near silent thunk of the one at the rear.

Cam audibly growled. In other circumstances, I might’ve sent Ranger a droll look, underlining the wolf-pack theory I’d unloaded on him while we’d been naked in bed, but those intimate conversations, as murder descended on us, they began to feel as though they had happened to someone else.

Ranger was closest to Cam.

He muttered something that made Cam’s gaze flicker. Then shutter, catching my attention. But the van doors opened before I knew if Saint had seen it too.

Jake and Alexei had returned.

Alexei slipped inside, closing the door a split second before the van was in motion again. Cool. Calm. “We will need to come back this way.”

If we got that far, but I packed the black thought away, searching for the soldier I had become so many years ago in exchange for my life and for Katya’s. Trouble was, that soldier . . . he was a different man now, and as I fought to clear my mind, to purge it like scorched earth, Ranger endured.

Grinning beneath the Mediterranean sun. Dancing in my living room. Grumbling that he didn’t like children, all the while nurturing a permanent spot on his hip for my infant niece.

It was more than sex.

More than love.

In another existence, I would have kept him for as long as he’d have me—forever—and perhaps in the next life I would.

The van stopped again. Jake left the engine running and got out, and we waited in the dark for him to secure the area he’d been keeping tabs on all day. Long seconds that drew Cam, Saint, and Alexei closer together while Ranger and I stared at each other in the murky shadows of the vehicle.

I shouldn’t have been able to see Ranger’s eyes, but to me, they had always been a light in the dark, and I sank into them now, hands tightening around my weapon, radio static thick in my ear. A split second of pure heaven before Jake wrenched the van doors open and swept us with the same droll stare he had a few hours ago when it had become clear that everyone but him had spent their evening fucking.

His humour didn’t last. We had run out of time to just be men. I had run out of time to tell Ranger that I loved him, and it hurt worse than I was prepared for, squeezing my heart in a vice as we piled out of the van and I took my position beside Alexei, the gun in my hand a second limb.

This was it.

We gathered in a loose circle, all of us, silently accepting that these quiet moments might be the last we spent together. I expected Cam to say something, but he simmered his love at Saint and Alexei, then jerked his head at my brother, moving out to take position.

Jake and I did not need words any more than Saint and Alexei. We locked eyes, he grinned, and that was it. We’d said our goodbyes many years ago, prepared for nights like this. He was my brother. I was his. Alive or dead, that would never change.

Jake walked away. I dropped my gaze to give Saint and Alexei some privacy. Ranger’s boots stepped into my line of sight. His smoky sandalwood scent invaded my senses and I closed my eyes to it. To everything, until he brushed his thumb along my jaw, coaxing them open again.

His eyes were an onyx flame. “I love you, Vik. I wanted you to know, just in case we come out of this all dead and shit. And in case we don’t. Remember that when you’re thinking about doing something really fucking stupid.”

He sealed the declaration with the shortest, sweetest kiss. Stole my breath. Then he vanished into the night, and I hated him as much as I loved him.

In the short seconds it had taken Ranger to cast his spell on me, Saint had disappeared too, leaving Alexei in a mood as grim as my own. His heart in shreds. It did not show on his face, but I knew how he felt about Cam and Saint. How I felt about Ranger—about Asher. And right now, it was nothing but pain.

“We must go.” Alexei came to my side. “I do not want to drag this out.”

Donning masks and gloves, we followed the first phase of the plan and fanned out around the target building. Ranger and Saint took the front, Alexei and I the back, while Jake and Cam circled around, monitoring every square inch, in real time and on Jake’s screen.

This is madness. Six of us. Fifteen of them.

Fifteen.

Fifteen.

I’d faced worse odds, but not against an enemy as protected and prepared as this. As resourced. I could only pray that Alexei and I found the unnatural speed we’d need to kill every soul in this building before Ranger and Saint came after us.

The radio crackled. Ranger’s voice filled my ear. “Vehicles are crocked.”

“Copy.” Jake’s tone flattened to accentless English.

“Copy.” I spoke into my mic. “Hold your positions.”

Alexei and I crept on, moving fluidly as if we had fought as comrades many times over. Hand signals. Sharp glances. We communicated like brothers and I felt light on my feet as we neared the building. “Security check.”

Static buzzed in my ear. Then Jake, clipped and calm. “Clear. Cameras down. No infrared. Proceed to the top.”

Of the building, where every man on our list had arrived at some point over the past few days, confident in their ability to protect themselves from an assault like this. Time would tell if they had been right. “Copy.”

I jabbed a gloved finger to the rear entrance.

Alexei nodded and covered my back.

Weapon raised, I moved forward, creeping up on the men guarding the door. Three. No radios. And Jake had already infiltrated their phones, cutting signal to the nearby mast, glitching their Wi-Fi connections, hacking away, a heartbeat ahead of every step I took.

It had been a while since I last killed someone. Over the past few days, I’d wondered if I would feel different when I snapped a man’s neck tonight, but I didn’t. I wrenched bone and cartilage with the same blank efficiency I always had, felling two marks, while Alexei took care of the third.

Inside, we swept the lower floor and killed again. Another three. Nine left and we ascended the building to reach them, following Jake’s guidance until the radio scrambled, cutting him off.

Halfway up the stairs, I froze, glancing back at Alexei. Covered by a mask, his face was hard to read, but his eyes spoke to me.

Keep going.

I concurred with a clipped nod and pressed on, turning my radio down, dulling the static, straining my ears for any sounds of struggle outside. Any sign that we’d misjudged the number of men upstairs.

Nothing reached me, and we made it to the closed door of the last room in the building with time to spare.

I paused, taking a breath. Alexei banked around me, flanking the other side of the door.

He’d barely broken a sweat. I had, but for the discomfort in my hip, a distant grind I’d worry about later.

Too easy. The voice was nagging, insistent. An instinct I shouldn’t have ignored, but so close to the end, with Alexei by my side, I wanted this too much to let it go.

I checked my weapon. Reloaded. Touched my mic. “Final push. Proceeding.”

Nothing but static answered me, but it did not alarm me as much as it had moments ago. It felt safe; it felt right. Nine shots and this was over.

One breath.

Two.

Go.

I spun, raising my weapon as Alexei kicked the door, blasting it open for me to surge through, finger tight on the trigger.

The door hit the wall, splintered against the bricks with a crack that rattled my brain, loud above the noise in my ear.

In my head.

In my heart as it sank to my stomach and the shot I fired off found nothing but air in the empty room.