Page 102 of Power's Fall
God, all this time, she’d thought she was prepared to lose her sight.
Now she could see nothing was further from the truth.
Dahlia sank to her knees, listening to the sounds of pounding footsteps, forcing herself to use her other senses. Her men were in danger. Now wasn’t the time to fall apart.
Vadisk raced after the Spaniard,his vision spotty. The instant he’d seen the Spaniard pull something out of his pocket, he’d closed his eyes, but his eyelids weren’t enough to block the flash, only mute it.
Vadisk bounded into the hallway, racing for the stairs.
He skidded to a stop when the Spaniard stepped out of a recessed doorway, gun raised and pointed at him. Vadisk froze, his own gun clenched tightly in his hand.
“I’m not going to shoot you,” the Spaniard said quietly. “And I don’t have the resources to take you and your spouses with me now that Abduramanov and I are no longer working together.”
Vadisk would tear this man limb from limb before he would let him take Dahlia and Montana.
“Why?” he demanded. “Why do you want to destroy us?”
“Heard that?” The Spaniard’s head tipped to the side, the movement somehow menacing, given the only exposed part of him was his eyes. Vadisk cataloged the physical features he could see, knowing every bit of information would help. The Spaniard’s brows were thick and dark, his skin tone darker than Vadisk’s but not the Mediterranean bronze he always associated with people from Spain.
“This didn’t go the way I’d hoped,” the Spaniard said, “but I think maybe it’s time I send a message.”
Fuck.
Vadisk braced himself to take a bullet. He was dead center of the hallway and there was nowhere to go for cover. The closest doorway was the one the man had emerged from.
The Spaniard smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I’ll tell the militia you’re here on my way out.”
Again, Vadisk cursed. He had no idea why the boom from the stun grenade he threw—which, unlike the one the Spaniard used, had both light and sound—hadn’t brought the militia running. It was possible that the building was just so big that they hadn’t heard it. Whatever the reason, they were lucky Ivan hadn’t shown up wielding a rocket launcher.
The Spaniard was going to ensure that luck ran out.
The other man’s smile disappeared. “I have a message I want you to deliver.”
“What message?”
The Spaniard’s voice dropped to a dangerous rumble. “Tell your admiral I said ‘hello’.”
Nikolett answeredthe ringing phone without looking.
“Hello?” she mumbled, groggy from the painkillers Elena kept injecting into her IV. She’d hoped not to need any, but her leg had started swelling and the pressure was almost unbearable where it pulled at the sutures.
“Lock yourself in,” Vadisk ordered.
Nikolett sat bolt upright, no longer groggy.
“Nik! Lock yourself in,” he shouted.
“What’s happening?” she asked as she swung her legs out of bed. She nearly passed out from the pain that flared from first the movement, and then having her leg lower than the rest of her body, which made the throbbing so much worse.
“The Spaniard is after you.”
Nikolett was rarely surprised, but that did it. “Me?”
“Yes. He said to say hello to my admiral.”
Nikolett rose, grabbing the IV pole beside her bed and using it as a crutch as she walked to the door.
“Are you in your office?” Vadisk demanded.