Chapter 5 - The Hunt Begins
I didn't go back to the safehouse immediately. I knew the Volkovs. They wouldn't just send a hit squad after Richard; they would try to secure the loose ends. That meant they would go to my registered address—my downtown apartment—looking for my mother and me.
I needed to make sure they understood exactly who they were dealing with.
I drove to my apartment complex as dusk settled over the city. I parked three blocks away and approached the building through the service alley.
My apartment was on the fourth floor. As I slipped into the stairwell, I noticed the subtle signs. The security camera in the hallway had been tilted upward by two degrees. The dust on the baseboards near my door had been disturbed by heavy combat boots.
They were already inside, waiting in the dark.
I didn't use my keys. I picked the lock silently, bypassing the deadbolt with a tension wrench.
I cracked the door open an inch. The apartment was pitch black. But with ten years of combat experience, my senses were heightened. I smelled cheap tactical oil and heavy cologne. Three men. One by the door, one in the kitchen, one in the bedroom.
I reached into my coat and pulled out a high-lumen tactical strobe flashlight.
I kicked the door wide open and threw the flashlight into the center of the living room, immediately activating the strobe.
The room erupted into blinding, disorienting flashes of white light.
“She’s here!” a voice shouted with a thick Russian accent.
I moved beneath the chaos. I swept the legs of the man by the door, sending him crashing onto the hardwood. Before he could raise his suppressed pistol, I drove my knee into his jaw, instantly knocking him unconscious.
The man in the kitchen fired blindly into the strobe light. The bullets shredded my drywall, but I was already flanking him. I grabbed a cast-iron skillet from the stove and swung it with devastating force, connecting with the side of his skull. He dropped like a stone.
The third man charged out of the bedroom, a massive brute wielding a combat knife. He lunged at me in the dark.
I sidestepped his thrust, grabbed his wrist, and used his own momentum to throw him over my shoulder. He crashed through my glass coffee table. Before he could recover, I locked him in a blood choke.
In eight seconds, he was unconscious.
I stood in the wreckage of my living room, breathing evenly. I pulled out a zip-tie from my pocket and bound the brute’s hands and feet.
I picked up his ringing burner phone.
“Is it done?” a heavy, accented voice asked on the other end.
May you like
“Tell Yuri Volkov that if he sends his dogs to my door again, I won't just break their jaws,” I said coldly. “I’ll send them back in pieces. Richard Sterling stole your money. Not us. You want your $2.5 million back? Meet me at the abandoned shipyard on Pier 9 at midnight. Come alone.”
I hung up and walked out of the apartment, leaving the bodies for the local police.
