Page 67 of Bratva Stalker Kidnaps His Bride

“Heard you the first time, love,” I wink at him.

He exhales, exasperated, and we move.

The northeastern approach is not lit by the compound's exterior system, a band of shadow between the service road and the boundary wall that helps us immensely. I stay by Mikhail, matching his pace exactly, reading his body for the signals he gives without giving them—the slight shift before he changes direction, the raised fist that means stop, the flat palm that means stay.

I have been learning him for months, after all.

The shadowed gap is exactly where the satellite indicated. Fifteen meters of unobserved wall, the guard position on the inside blind to this section for a forty-second window in their rotation pattern.

Mikhail's team moves through it smoothly in less than twenty. I am through with them, inside the compound's outer perimeter before the adrenaline has even taken control of my body, before the colors become brighter and sounds more distinct, my body feeling simultaneously lighter and more capable than it usually does.

The compound interior opens in front of us.

Just like the coastal road in Greece, something tingles up my spine, signaling that something is deeply wrong.

The compound is too quiet. It’s an eerie kind.

“Mikhail,” I breathe.

“I think so to—”

The lights come on before he’s even completed replying.

I bring my arm up to shield my eyes, squinting against the sharp, directed beams of light positioned along the compound's interior walls, designed to disorient intruders, nothing like the amber exterior lighting. Through the flare of white, I hear the compound doors opening from multiple points, completely coordinated.

We fucking walked into it.

“Secondary, seal the southern exitnow,” Mikhail barks into the comm, authoritative and sharp. “Primary, collapse to the interior structure.Move.”

Little did I know the next ninety seconds of my life would put every action movie I’ve ever watched to shame.

We pull back to the cover of the interior, which is a concrete outbuilding that offers protection. The syndicate's personnel emerges from their prepared positions around the compound’s boundary walls.

The number is not as many as I feared and more than I hoped; twelve, maybe fourteen masked men in gear moving into us aggressively, like they already have us beaten.

They are not wrong, and they are not entirely right, because they did not prepare for Mikhail Korovin in a situation where something he needs to protect is on the other side of the compound wall.

“The north interior rooms,” I pant, pressed against the concrete beside him while the ambush terrorizes us. “We need to get to the north interior rooms.”

“Already on it,” he grunts back calmly, even though sweat has bead at his collar, where only the smallest hint of his tattoo peeks through. Somehow, watching him stay cool helps me keep my cool too.

My fingers fold around his bicep on their own, and he looks at my hand on his arm, then at my face. The look he gives me brightens up everything more than those stupid fucking floodlights ever could.

He blinks reassuringly.

“On my count,” he starts lowly, crouching, and I follow his stance. “One… two…”

I swallow roughly, the sounds of gunshots drawing closer.

“Three!”

We dart from the spot into the building, a sprint that has to be the longest twelve meters I have ever run. Every step, my shoulder nearly collides against his, the squeak and groan of a blade driven through flesh at our backs pushing us forward.

The fucking door turns out to be locked.

We get in within four seconds, all thanks to Mikhail, ending up in the dim interior corridor of the compound’s main building. The corridor seems to inhale around us.

Concrete walls swallow the sounds from outside until the gunfire becomes something distant and muffled, like thunder trapped beneath the ocean. Every fluorescent light fixed to the ceiling hums with mechanical indifference, illuminating pale walls scarred by old impacts and hurried repairs.