Bravery’s Sin: Masters’ Admiralty, book 5, page 26
Eric crossed his arms, his muscles bulging, his expression ferocious. “This ends today.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
A tarp-backed chain-link fence surrounded the hotel. Grigoris dropped to one knee, took the tin snips out of his pocket and cut a vertical line through the wires, holding aside the chain link so the team could slide through. As Nyx slid in, Grigoris squeezed her shoulder, reassuring himself as much as her.
“Still quiet,” Leila said, her gently accented voice clear through the headphones built into the helmets. She was on the roof of a building not far away, with a clear line of sight to two sides of the building. For safety, they were breaching the fence on the short side, where they weren’t visible from the street but where Leila could see and protect them.
Eric barely fit through the opening, his tactical gear giving him the proportions of a comic book character. Once everyone else was through, Grigoris slid in and turned, using a few short lengths of wire to close up the fence. He’d have preferred leaving it open for a quick getaway, but in a place filled with military personnel, they didn’t want to risk someone noticing the damaged fence.
Once that was done, they tucked the tarp back into place. It hid their movements from street view, but Leila would still be able to see them, at least until they went inside the building.
Milo raised a hand, motioned right, then left. Silently, they split into two teams. Eric, Grigoris, Nyx, and Sebastian were going to breach via the front door, while Milo, Dimitri, and Lancelot went in the back. Milo’s strategic assessment had been that the front door was more likely to be potentially booby-trapped, while there was a better chance of success of getting into the building through the back door.
Grigoris and Nyx were going to the front door because Grigoris didn’t want Nyx in the building, didn’t want her creeping through the dark hallways of an old hotel with the man who’d destroyed her life potentially lurking behind every corner. He would much rather keep her with him and attempt to go in the front door, where they would no doubt be stymied by some sort of defensive measures. Then he could take Nyx back to the vehicle and wait until the rest of them had captured Petro and Hanna.
“Team one, go,” Milo said quietly.
Nyx did as they’d practiced, standing behind Eric as the fleet admiral used a short crowbar to force the door open. Eric was large enough to be a full-body shield. Perhaps Grigoris should feel bad for thinking of the fleet admiral as nothing more than a walking, talking barrier between Nyx and danger, but Eric was the one who’d insisted on bringing her into danger, so Grigoris didn’t feel the slightest bit of remorse. Besides, he was beginning to believe the fleet admiral was bulletproof.
Eric finished popping the door, then stood to the side, Nyx moving with him. He pushed the door open with one hand. Grigoris and Sebastian flattened themselves to the wall on the other side of the set of wooden double doors.
“Team two breaching,” Milo said.
They waited, listening for the sounds of team two needing help.
“We’re in. Going up.” Milo’s voice was cool and calm, proving that this wasn’t the first, or even fiftieth, time he’d done something like this.
“Team one going in,” Eric said, then motioned for Grigoris to go first.
Gun at the ready, Grigoris whipped around the open door, pausing, gun trained on the darkened foyer and reception area. They’d been able to pull both the original hotel plans, and the construction permits with the new plan for what it would look like after the remodel. The problem being, they weren’t sure what the actual state of the building was. Luckily, floors one and two—the hotel rooms—and the reception area of the ground floor were the same.
Grigoris pulled a can of Silly String from a pouch on his vest and sprayed it over the area just beyond the doors. The stuff was light enough to lay on, rather than trigger, any trip wires. The bright pink sticky ribbons fell to the floor.
“Clearing second floor,” Milo said.
“Foyer clear,” Grigoris responded. Sebastian, Eric, and Nyx joined him.
Nyx, dwarfed by the tactical gear, took up position just inside the door, her body angled so she could see outside and, more importantly, Leila could see her.
“Eyes on Nyx,” Leila said.
Grigoris looked at her and winked. Nyx gave him a little half smile.
Eric tapped him on the shoulder, and Grigoris refocused on the task at hand. Moving in tandem, he, Eric, and Sebastian swept through the foyer, then behind the reception desk. Eric shoved open the swinging door behind the desk, and Grigoris ducked in, gun sweeping the small office.
“Clear,” he murmured.
Next, they cleared the bathrooms and a storage area under the staircase. Eric tapped his shoulder and pointed to the elevator shaft. Grigoris and Sebastian took up positions on either side of the doors as Eric swung his gun onto his back, then forced the elevator doors open.
The hotel was dark, but moonlight filtered in the windows, providing enough illumination to work by. Compared to that, the elevator shaft was pitch-black.
Grigoris took a knee, then flipped on a pen light attached to the top of his gun. He swept the base of the shaft, seeing nothing, then leaned in, looking up, to check where the elevator car was.
He looked up just in time for the beam of his flashlight to catch a slender hand tossing something into the elevator shaft.
“Pull back!” Grigoris snapped, scrambling back himself. “Female on the second floor at the elevator—”
The flash bang went off, sound and light incapacitating Grigoris. He gritted his teeth and waited for the ringing to stop. He’d closed his eyes before the flash, but when he tried to look around, he still saw spots, the blast of light bright enough to temporarily blind him even through closed eyes.
“Flash bang,” Eric shouted. “She’s on your floor, Milo.”
“We see her,” Dimitri said. “We’re going—”
Another burst of sound, but this time it was coming through the com link. Petro and Hanna had thrown a second flash bang.
Eric snarled and started up the stairs, taking them three at a time.
“Fleet Admiral!” Grigoris called.
“We’ve fallen back into one of the rooms.” Milo’s voice was strained.
“Do they have anyone with them?” Grigoris asked.
“Visual confirmation of Hanna only,” Milo added.
“Where’s Petro?” Eric snarled.
“We’re exiting the room. Headed west down the hall to target’s last-known position.” Milo’s voice had lost some of the strain. “Ericsson, hold your position in case they retreat down the stairs.”
There was a sound like a growl, and then Eric said, “I want them alive. So I can kill him, slowly.”
Grigoris looked back over his shoulder, exchanging a glance with Nyx from across the dark foyer.
For a moment there was tense silence, and then a pop, followed by shouts. Grigoris tensed.
“Elevator shaft!” Sebastian shouted.
Grigoris whipped around in time to see something silvery fall through the darkness. A second later there was a pop, and then a gagging, stinging smell filled the foyer. Grigoris’ eyes burned, and the inside of his nose felt like it was on fire.
“Pepper spray.” Milo coughed out the words. “Coming down.”
“It’s here too,” Grigoris choked. He raced across the foyer, elbow over his mouth, and grabbed Nyx, hauling her outside where the air was clear.
“Gun.” Leila’s voice was clear and calm.
Grigoris’ body reacted before his brain—distracted by the burn of the pepper spray—had fully processed, and he stopped abruptly.
The concrete of the circular driveway at the front of the hotel chipped and exploded a meter in front of Grigoris’ toes. He backpedaled, shoving Nyx behind him.
“Where is he?” Eric demanded.
Grigoris turned and shoved Nyx back toward the open front door.
“First floor, fourth window from the corner,” Leila said coolly. “Female. No sign of anyone else. You can’t use the front exit, unless I lay down cover fire, but that will attract attention.”
“Hold your fire.” Milo’s voice was hoarse.
Grigoris and Nyx were back in the foyer. Sebastian had been thinking fast and shoved the elevator doors closed, which protected them to some extent.
“For fook sake, why didn’t we bring masks?” Lancelot wheezed.
Eric, and then the three members of team two, stumbled down the steps into the foyer. Milo used hand signals to guide them all out of the foyer and into the construction zone in the restaurant kitchen.
Nyx ran to a small handwashing sink and grabbed paper towels from an old dispenser that hadn’t been removed yet. The water was off to the building, but when Nyx handed him the stack of paper towels, Grigoris grabbed a small silver pouch of water from the supplies tucked into the cargo pocket of his pants and ripped it open with his teeth, dousing the towels, and then passing them around.
Everyone wiped their faces, and the air in the kitchen was clear enough that after a few deep breaths and a lot of coughing, they were able to speak normally.
“Leila, do you still have a visual?” Milo asked.
“No.”
“We exit the building and flush them out with tactical crowd disbursement,” Milo said. “They know we’re here and going after them in close quarters is an unnecessary risk.”
“If she’s still one floor above us, let’s get under her and shoot up through the ceiling,” Lancelot suggested.
“And give away our position so they can shoot down on us?” Grigoris asked.
“If we kill them, they won’t be able to,” Lancelot snarked.
“The fleet admiral wants them alive,” Dimitri reminded him.
“Are we sure Petro is here?” Nyx asked. Everyone looked at her, and she raised a brow. “Have we seen anyone besides Hanna? And are you sure it is Hanna?”
“I saw her well enough to say it was Hanna,” Milo said. “But I haven’t seen anyone else.”
“We can’t stay here,” Eric growled. “We have to move. You think you can flush them, her, out, Milo?”
“Yes.”
“Then we go out the back and come at this a different way.”
“No,” Leila said immediately. “There are windows that face the back of the hotel, she can walk into a room on that side and take you out, and I won’t be able to protect you.”
“We go out the front and run for it?” Nyx asked.
“Leila, did you see what kind of gun?” Milo asked.
“Long-range rifle. I wouldn’t bet your lives on the vests and helmets being able to stop one of her bullets.”
Nyx looked around. “We’re trapped?”
“No,” Milo said. “We need a distraction. Keep her focused on one person while the others get out.”
“We’re not sacrificing someone,” Eric said immediately, then his cool demeanor cracked and he grabbed a large metal cabinet, picked it up, and began methodically smashing it against the cracked tile floor.
They watched him in silence. When the cabinet was warped, Eric dropped it, his shoulders sagging.
“Feel better?” Lancelot asked.
Grigoris pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, the noise will have alerted her as to where we are.”
“How did one fucking woman with a gun manage to fucking back us into a corner?” Eric growled.
“Don’t underestimate one woman with a gun,” Leila said.
Milo’s eyes narrowed. “Leila, you think you can shoot her before she shoots me?”
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to shoot her?”
“Can you shoot to wound?” Eric asked.
“I can try, but I can’t promise.”
Milo adjusted his grip on his gun. “Here’s the plan.”
Nyx was strangely calm. Despite the fact that she was effectively trapped in this hotel with a gun-wielding mad woman, who also happened to technically be her wife, which should have panicked her.
She kept one hand curled loosely around Grigoris’ belt. Eric’s outburst in the kitchen had made going with Grigoris the far more preferable option. She and Grigoris were on the top floor, hunkered down in a stairwell landing. Eric and Dimitri were on the first floor, Sebastian and Lancelot on the ground floor. Eric and Dimitri were closest to Hanna’s last-known location, but it was Milo who was in the most danger. He was about to run out the front door, lure Hanna into the window, and then Leila was going to incapacitate her.
“Going in three, two, one,” Milo whispered through the coms.
Nyx waited, tense, eyes closed so she could focus on what she was hearing.
“I see you,” Leila said. “Stay close to the building. I need her in the window.”
“Understood,” Milo said.
“I have movement.” Leila’s voice was tense. “She’s on the second floor, center window.”
Nyx’s eyes popped open, and Grigoris cursed softly. While they’d been in the kitchen, Hanna had moved, going up a floor, meaning she and Grigoris were now the closest ones to her.
“Stay here,” Grigoris breathed, pressing her gently against the wall by the stairwell door. He eased the door open, wedging it in place with a short knife he pulled from his ankle, the handle thick enough to serve as a doorstop.
There was the crack of a gunshot, and Grigoris and Nyx both froze.
“You’re too far out,” Leila said. “Get closer to the building, make her come into the window to get the angle.”
Faintly, Nyx heard a curse, but it wasn’t coming through her headset. Hanna was close enough that her snarled words were audible. Fear pooled in Nyx’s stomach, but she yanked the helmet off so she wouldn’t be distracted. Grigoris gestured frantically for her to put it back on, but Nyx pointed to her ear, gesturing that she was listening.
Grigoris cupped a hand over his mouth, murmuring into the communications link while she inched closer to the open door, straining to hear.
“Basszon agyon a kenkoves istennyila!” Hanna snarled.
Grigoris looked at her, and Nyx mouthed the words, “Fuck you,” though a literal translation was, “Get fucked to death by lightning with sulphuric stones.”
There was the sound of metal clinking, then breaking glass.
Nyx took a deep breath, and then crawled out of the stairwell and into the doorway to the hall, hoping she’d be able to hear better.
“You said there was a plan,” Hanna muttered in Hungarian. She sounded tired. Defeated. “You said it would end. But it will never be enough!”
Was she actually talking to someone? They hadn’t seen Petro or anyone else.
There was another crack of gunfire, and Hanna cursed again, calling Milo several names and wishing that a wheelbarrow of small monkeys would fuck him. Hungarian curses really highlighted the lack of creativity in other languages.
Grigoris crept up next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.
There was a noise of triumph, another crack of gunfire. Hanna had fired again. Had she gotten Milo?
As those questions whipped through Nyx’s head, there was another, distant crack of sound.
Hanna cried out.
Grigoris was up and moving, Eric—who’d crept up the stairs—pounding after him, Nyx scrambling to her feet to follow.
Grigoris was already through the door and had Hanna’s gun in hand by the time Nyx raced in. Eric was on his knees, pressing his hands to the wound in Hanna’s abdomen.
He’d pulled her shirt up to get a look at the wound. The bullet had partially destroyed two of the tattoos on her stomach. Her entire abdomen, from waist to breasts, was covered in intricate designs.
“Hanna,” Nyx murmured in Hungarian. “Where is he?”
“I won’t tell you.”
“He has to be stopped.”
“He cannot be stopped.” She grimaced, clearly in pain. “You cannot stop the sun from shining.”
“Hanna, he was injured, a brain injury. That’s why he’s like this. We can stop him, maybe help him.”
Hanna’s brows knitted for a moment, but then her face smoothed out. “Even if I wanted to, it’s too late.”
“It’s not too late. Whatever you did, it was because of him.”
“She’s going to bleed out,” Milo said as he dropped down beside them. “It looks like the bullet hit the abdominal aorta.”
Lancelot yanked a small first aid kit from one of his pockets and pulled out a gauze pad. The instant Eric lifted his hands, blood gushed from the hole in Hanna.
“Not too late for me. Too late for them.” Her hands raised, fluttering down to rest on her stomach. Nyx wasn’t sure if she was trying to push away Eric’s hands, where he was desperately trying to keep her blood in her body, or help him stem the flow of her lifeblood.
“Nyx, where is Petro?” Grigoris asked in English.
“She didn’t say.”
“Find out,” Eric snarled.
“Hanna,” Nyx asked once more in Hungarian. “Hanna, where is he?”
Hanna’s eyes slid closed.
“No pulse. She has no blood pressure. If we race her to a hospital…” Grigoris had his hand on her wrist.
Eric sat back, bloody hands on his knees. “No.”
Nyx lay a hand on Hanna’s head and offered up a prayer in several languages, and to different deities. “Let her be at peace.”
They were silent for a moment, then Eric looked around. “Burn this place to the ground.”
“They’d find the bones in the rubble,” Sebastian said quietly. “I’ll take care of the body.”
“See?” Eric said. “You are here to help.”
Grigoris closed the door to their bedroom, leaning against it wearily. Nyx was already dressed in her nightgown, sitting up in bed, waiting for him. He’d insisted she head to the bed without him as Eric demanded that he, Milo, Lancelot, and Dimitri go over every detail of the raid, dissecting it and trying to decide how they could prevent making the same mistakes again. Even with all of their tactical knowledge, Grigoris wasn’t sure they could out-plan Petro.
Especially since now Petro knew they were there. Once again, they’d lost the element of surprise.
