Page 116 of Beautiful Ruins
And underneath the noise and distractions, there was something else.
Structure.Order.Russian discipline.
Two men near the bar watched the crowd without drinking.Another stood near the hallway leading to the back rooms, posture too alert for security staff.
Chernov’s men.
“Front distraction,” I murmured into my comm.
“Ready,” Marcello rasped.
The signal came three seconds later.
Then everything moved at once.
The music cut mid-beat as our men surged through the main entrance and side corridors simultaneously.Patrons screamed.Glass shattered.Chairs overturned as the crowd scrambled away from the sudden eruption of violence.
Security reached for weapons.
But they were too slow and too unprepared.
The first shots rang out in regulated bursts, precise and deliberate, targeting armed threats only.Panic spread across the main floor as dancers fled the stage, servers ducked behind counters, and civilians stampeded toward exits under the direction of my men.
I moved straight through the chaos.I wasn’t running, but I was focused.
The back hallway was narrower, darker.Two guards stepped into view the moment we crossed the threshold.
They barely raised their guns.
Marcello dropped one cleanly.Gianni handled the second with brutal efficiency, disarming him and slamming him into the wall before finishing the job without ceremony.
We kept moving.Door after door opened.
Empty rooms, and those that looked like they were used for storage.
In one room, we found drugs packaged and ready for distribution.
Then came voices.Russian.Low.Urgent.
I pushed the final door open without knocking.
Sergei Ivanovich stood at the far end of the private lounge, thickset, shaved head, a thick gold chain resting against an open collar.His expression shifted instantly from irritation to recognition.
And beside him stood Nathan Azzopardi.
Alive.Pale.Sweating.Like he was coming down off an absolute high.
He froze when he saw me.His face drained of colour.
“Cavalho—” he started.
My gun lifted slightly.
“Silence.”
Ivanovich stepped forward, eyes narrowing.
“You bring war into my establishment,” he spoke in accented Russian.
