I turn around to see Maxim collapse to the ground, blood spurting out of his stomach.
“No!” I yell. I abandon my position and run towards him.
I shoot at the fucker who’s standing over him, and he drops before he can finish the job.
The moment I see Maxim, however, I know that it’s too late. He’s bleeding out too fast, the color already draining from his face.
I get down on my knees beside him anyway. Above us, the gunfire continues in every direction.
“Hold on, brother,” I say. “Help’s on the way.”
He smiles hopelessly, and blood drips from his mouth. “I thought you could lie better than that…”
“Surround them!” I hear Budimir order.
When I look up, I realize that my distraction has given Budimir and his men the upper hand. They’ve got us surrounded now, and I realize that Alexei is being held at gunpoint and both Adrik and Vasyl are injured, though their injuries look only surface-deep.
When I turn back, Maxim is staring unseeing up at the ceiling.
Rage curdles in my chest like poison.
But it has nowhere to go.
We’re pinned. Surrounded. Outgunned, outnumbered, outmaneuvered.
I lose.
Budimir steps out from behind his bodyguard, a cold sneer on his face. His two lackeys, Kovar and Bufalino, flank him.
“Did you really think you could storm the meeting with four men and live to tell the tale?” he demands. “I’m going to make an ornament of your fucking—”
The rest of his threat is drowned by the sound of the main entrance being blown into smithereens.
Everyone ducks down, including Budimir, who seems as stunned as I am at the sudden intrusion.
“Who the—”
Within seconds, the huge space is filled with armed men pouring in, their guns pointing towards all of us.
“Guns down!” the masked man at the head of the pack barks.
Is that a fucking Irish accent?
“Artem Kovalyov,” the masked man continues. “Ronan O’Sullivan sends his greetings.”