Page 78 of Break For Me
I take the Glock. Two spare magazines go into my right cargo pocket. My left pocket is useless.
I open the door. The cold air hits my face. The plate armor settles against my ribs, a cold, heavy weight.
We move. Fast and low. We use the line of parked cars for cover, moving from shadow to shadow.
The front door is locked. I circle to the side gate. The backyard is a square of frozen lawn. The kitchen slider is visible from here. The glass is intact. The curtain is drawn.
I reach the slider. I press my ear to the cold glass. Through the curtain, through the double-pane, I hear a voice. Low. Male. Speaking Russian. The cadence is conversational, unhurried. Conversational, unhurried. He owns the room and the voice confirms it.
I try the slider. The latch yields. The door rolls open on its track, silent as a grave. The curtain brushes my face as I push through.
The kitchen. Granite counters. A breakfast nook. A bowl of cereal on the table, the milk still wet. Elena's breakfast, interrupted. The smell of cinnamon and sugar hangs in the air.
The voice is coming from the living room. Through the kitchen doorway, I can see the hall. A shadow moves on the wall. One man. Pacing.
I move through the kitchen, my boots silent on the tile. Adrian is a ghost behind me. His hand touches my back, a light, stabilizing pressure. I know where he is without looking. I know where he is the way I know where my own ruined hand is—present, but not whole.
The hallway opens on my left. I round the corner with the Glock up.
The first man is ten feet away. He's facing the staircase, his back to me. He has a compact submachine gun hanging from a sling on his chest. He's covering the stairs. Elena went upstairs.
I shoot him in the back.
The suppressed Glock coughs, a sharp, wet sound. The round hits between his shoulder blades. He's wearing soft armor. The impact staggers him forward. His face smacks into the staircase railing. The submachine gun swings wildly.
I close the distance in three strides. I bring the Glock's muzzle down on the base of his skull. The polymer frame cracks against bone. He drops.
The sound brings the second.
He comes from the living room doorway. Fast. Trained. His weapon is already up. He's bigger than the first. A rifle, not a submachine gun. He sees me and fires.
The round hits my plate carrier dead center.
The impact is a mule kick. Two hundred foot-pounds of energy transfers through ceramic and Kevlar and into my sternum. It drives me backward a step. My broken rib detonates in a supernova of pain. My vision stutters, a flicker of white light.
I stay on my feet. Falling means dying.
I return fire. Right hand, one-handed. The recoil is manageable. The muscle memory is fresh.
Two rounds. The first misses—high, into the doorframe. Wood splinters. The second catches him in the thigh, below the armor.
He buckles. His rifle clatters to the floor.
I close the distance and kick him in the jaw. The kick is everything my fist can't be—full body weight, the steel-toed boot connecting with his mandible. The crack is audible, wet and final.
He goes down. I stand over him, breathing through the pain in my chest. The plate carrier is dented where the round hit.
"Elena!" Adrian pushes past me. He's at the staircase, looking up. "Elena, it's Adrian. Come down. Come to my voice."
A door opens upstairs. Light footsteps on the hardwood.
She appears at the top of the stairs. Dark hair. Pale face. Her eyes are wide and wet. She's wearing a sweatshirt and pajama pants. She looks like a college student. She looks like the girl in the photograph.
She sees Adrian.
The sound she makes is not a word. It's the raw, unfiltered output of a nervous system recognizing safety after sustained fear. She comes down the stairs fast, two at a time. Adrian catches her at the bottom. His arms close around her. He holds her the way I held him in the container—total, committed, every muscle engaged.
"I'm here," he says. His voice cracks. The clinical mask fractures. What's underneath is a brother. "I'm here. You're okay."
