Nikolay crashed the door open, and we were inside in mere seconds.
As soon as we stepped inside, guns were blazing and bullets were flying.
The fucker! He was ready, and he wasn’t alone.
His men surrounded the house, and I quickly ducked, avoiding a bullet which could have pierced my head. I growled in frustration and shot at the man in front of me, my bullet going right through his heart.
I didn’t have time for fucking child’s play.
Turning around, I fired at any men who came into my path. Bullets in their legs, some in the neck, and a few in the head.
Through it all, Alberto was nowhere to be found. A coward. Of course, he was nowhere to be found.
When most of his men were down, I nodded at Viktor and Nikolay. They searched through the house as I continued to gun down the rest of the men, Nina beside me doing the same. She was ruthless in her attacks. Her bullets pierced their bodies with an astonishing ferocity.
I saw a man standing in front of me, pointing his gun at my chest. I pulled my trigger, but nothing happened.
A gunshot echoed across the wall. I expected a fiery pain in my chest, but when I saw the man drop dead, I glanced at Nina beside me.
She rubbed her gun against her leather pants and sent me a wink. “You’re welcome.”
Viktor ran down the stairs, his expression frantic. “Ayla is not there.”
Nikolay came to stand by my side. “I searched the first floor. She isn’t there, either.”
“What?” I bellowed, my body shaking with panic, fear, and lastly rage.
“Look everywhere! She has to be here!”
I looked wildly around the living room, moving from the kitchen to the dining room. Then the bedrooms upstairs. I searched every corner of the house.
When I didn’t find her, I searched again. Frantically. Desperately. I searched again and again. She had to be here.
My Angel was nowhere to be found. Again.
I was standing in the middle on the living room, my head pounding, my chest aching. She wasn’t here, but I felt her. It was an unexplainable feeling, but as soon as I had stepped in the house, my heart had accelerated. Almost as if it knew Ayla was here.
I felt her. My skin prickled with a strange sensation, and I closed my eyes. No, she wasn’t here. We looked everywhere, but she wasn’t here.
My heart felt heavy in my compressed chest, my lungs hurting as I breathed through the agony of failing yet again.
Ayla. Ayla. Where are you?
I heard a scream.
“Boss!”
“Alessio!”
My eyes snapped open, and I stared at a man pointing his gun at me. I didn’t have a chance to raise my gun or even move out of the way. I tried to duck, falling to the ground, and then the gunshot rang through my ears.
A few seconds later, I felt a searing pain run through my right leg. “Fuck!” I bellowed.
I heard a shout and then a scream of pain behind me. I looked down at my leg to see it bleeding where the bullet had gone through.
Still on the floor, I turned around to see Nina pulling out her heel from the man’s chest. “Fuck you! Those were Louboutin heels. Now it’s covered in your dirty blood.”
She glanced back at us. “You okay, Alessio?”
“Just a nick,” I muttered back. It was lie. The bullet had gone through my leg and was now lodged inside.
Nina noticed us staring, and she glanced back at her bloody heel. “What? I told you it comes in handy. I was out of bullets.”
“So you just throw your heel at a man, hoping it kills him?” Nikolay asked as I stood up, ignoring the burning in my leg.
“Pretty much,” she replied, taking off her other heel and standing up barefooted.
“What do we do?” Viktor asked me, his expression forlorn.
I ignored his question, my eyes roaming around the house one last time. We looked everywhere. Did Artur lie?
Or maybe Alberto had already taken Ayla away? I had never wanted to hurt someone so bad in all my life as I did right there.
I let out a harsh, barking laugh. It was empty, void of any emotion. I was going to lose my mind if I didn’t find Ayla soon.
I limped away, but my feet twisted in the rug, and I almost went down. I quickly straightened myself and glanced down at the fucking rug, wanting to tear it apart with my bare hands.
But something else caught my eye, and all thought of tearing the rug apart was gone.
The rug was bunched around my feet, and underneath was a wooden door. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and I pushed the rug away completely.
I heard Nina gasp.
The rug wasn’t there for decoration. It was there to cover something—to hide a fucking door in the floor.