Page 99 of Beautiful Ruins
“You come onto my soil,” I went on, “discuss a civilian as currency, threaten her safety, and expect me to treat this as business.”
“And you expect us to accept our loss?”he forced out.
“I expect you to understand boundaries,” I answered.
A beat.Then another.
“You are arrogant,” one of his men directed in Russian.
I didn’t look at him.
“My arrogance,” I responded calmly, my eyes never leaving Chernov’s, “is built on five centuries of territorial dominance.No matter how many outsiders attempt to infiltrate this region, the law of this land remains unchanged.”
Chernov’s jaw flexed slightly.
“And what law is that?”
“The Cavalho family law.Here,” I informed him, “our word is gospel.Our boundaries are absolute.And anyone who does not wish to abide by those laws should get the fuck out.”
That was the moment the first gun came out.One of his men reached inside his jacket.
And that was the exact moment the charges detonated.The explosion was strategic.
Not large enough to collapse the structure.Just enough to disorient, to rupture glass, to fill the room with a concussive blast of sound and pressure that shattered their formation in under a second.
The lights flickered.Smoke burst outward.And all hell broke loose.
Gunfire erupted instantly.Loud.Sharp.Relentless.
One of Chernov’s men dropped before he even cleared his weapon, a clean shot from the upper balcony where Marcello had positioned himself.Another lunged for cover and caught a bullet through the shoulder from the corridor entrance—Gianni’s angle, precise and merciless.
I drew my weapon without hesitation and fired twice.The man in front of me collapsed backward, blood blooming across his shirt as he hit the floor.
Chernov moved fast.Faster than most men his size should.
He overturned the table, using it as partial cover while returning fire with disciplined bursts instead of panicked shots.Professional.Trained.But surrounded.
Outside the room, the muffled thunder of additional gunfire echoed as Atlas’s men sealed the perimeter.No one was leaving.No reinforcements were entering.
Another Russian lunged toward the side exit.
He never made it.He received two shots to the leg and another to the chest before he crumpled with a wet gasp.
Smoke thickened the air, the scent of gunpowder biting the back of my throat as the last standing guard attempted a final push toward me.
I stepped forward and fired once.He dropped instantly.
Silence did not return immediately.It staggered back in pieces.
There were the soft sounds of groans.Delayed breathing.The faint crackle of damaged lighting.
Three of them were dead.Two were wounded.
One restrained within seconds as Gianni entered the room, weapon still raised, expression irritated.
“I leave you alone for one meeting,” he growled, kicking a discarded gun away, “and you start a war.”
Marcello followed behind him, scanning the room.
