Roza, Roman, and Cassie exited the Shadow Club. I radioed down to my team and had the driver go pick them up as I packed my rifle. The other Oligarchs must’ve left already—though how they got out of that place, I didn’t have a clue.
Didn’t matter. Wasn’t my job.
I rounded up the men I brought for protection detail and had one car follow Roman while I drove another and went straight to the bunker. Roman took a detour, probably over to Central Park for a little bird watching, but I had to get back and check in with everyone there.
I left Rocco in charge and I’d be lucky if the whole place hadn’t burned down.
I slowed and approached the gated drive and came to a screeching hold.
The gate itself was wrecked. The metal was twisted and shattered, like something rammed through. My heart shuddered and sweat formed on my skin. I revved the engine and drove over the debris, riding fast toward the house and the bunker.
The trees were the first sign of a fight.
They were shredded in places, their trunks ripped to shreds by high-powered rifle fire. As I got closer to the buildings, smoke rose up in the air, thick and black and billowing. I stopped the car at the crest of the hill and leapt out to find the topside structure burning.
Corpses littered the ground.
My men, all of them dead.
I recognized them all. I hired them, vetted them, trained them—spent hours and days with them. We laughed, joked, shared drinks, shared smokes.
Mikey lay pale, with a thick red bullet hole in his throat. Hector had his ribs blown out, his hands against his face, lying in a pool of his own blood. Cameron was collapsed near a fountain in the middle of looking for cover.
All of them my friends. All of them dead.
There were other bodies I didn’t recognize. I kicked one over—white guy, early 30s, scar under his eye.
He wore military-grade body armor and carried an AR-15. This was no fucking joke.
The ground was drenched in water and blood. It pooled in the low places. I walked through it, gun drawn, my hand shaking.
In all my years working with these people, I’d never seen a slaughter like this before.
So many dead. Ten, twenty. I knew it happened, knew the Oligarchs were capable—but they never attacked one of their own.
I thought we were safe here.
But no, when the Oligarchs were involved, nobody was ever safe.
The bastards. The fucking bastards. I picked my way through the killing field toward the security building.
My command post was in tatters. The computers were crushed and broken. The main room was a bloodbath—it must’ve been their last stand. The fighting was vicious. Bullet holes riddled the walls and several scorch marks suggested the attackers used grenades and flashbangs to breach the door.
I found Rocco’s body in the back, leaning up against the wall, dead from a shot to the gut and the chest.
Fucking bastards.
Everything was ruined, everything broken.
Everyone gone.
I failed them.
Roman was going to lose his mind when he saw this.
Then I realized.
Fucking Roman. He was still out there.
I sprinted out of the command post, trudging over corpses, through blood and guts. I jumped back into my car and started calling as I drove away from the horror.
