Page 77 of The Bratva's Bounty

That surely got Nikolai's feet moving at top speed, much to his brother's surprise. His body practically flew around the place, making various trips to some room down the hallway and dropping off various pieces of equipment on the coffee table with each round. After the third round, he skidded to a halt at the hallway's entrance to bark something in Russian at his brothers with an angry and somewhat panicked face.

They all looked at their brother with wary eyes, not budging from their spots until he shouted at them again, this time with more urgency. I don't know what Nikolai told his brothers, but it got them scrambling to gear up in a flurry—even Alexei got his ass geared.

Leaning over to Angel, I asked in a hushed voice, "Uhh, what did he yell at them?" If anyone—besides his brothers—was to know what Nikolai said, Angel would be our best bet because she'd been pretty active with learning Russian out of all of us.

Scratching her temple, Angel mumbled the words repeatedly for a moment before her lips twisted with unsureness. "Uhh, something about how he'd out them with something, but don't quote me on that."

All of us, minus Angel, were out of the house and on the road in less than fifteen minutes. Everyone was in their own vehicles to the destination, and we were all connected on a group call to work out the impromptu plan as much as possible before shit went down.

"Three groups, Alpha, Beta, and Delta. I'll head Alpha. Stepan and Hanna will take the lead for Beta while the twins lead Delta. There aren't any good spots for sniper nests, so we're all going in on foot." Nikolai paused for a second before continuing after clearing his throat, "We'll forgo a sweep as long as Bao and Nicole can cover that end for us with their drones. Alpha team will come in through the front, Beta will handle the side, and Delta will be the back."

"What about the waterfront?" Alexei questioned, sending an eerie silence through the call. "We're going to need—"

A heavy breath crunched through the speakers before Nikolai's low voice rumbled through. "We are not going in for a full takedown. Our priority is to get Lev and do what damage we can during the process, but we are not focusing on Igor. If he escapes, then so be it. We can always find some way to track Igor down again and kill him, but we only have one Lev."

"Bao and I will handle surveillance. You guys just worry about going in there and giving them hell and saving Lev," I told them flatly while messing with my tablet.

Feeling a wave of unease trickle down my arm, I glanced over in the direction I felt the chill. "What?" I snapped softly at Bao after muting the call.

Bao's eyes nervously glanced at me as he continued to drive, and his tongue kept darting out and licking his lips as he hesitated. It wasn't until I glared full-on and snapped at him again that he got his words out. "You're going to do something stupid." He let out a defeated sigh as if he accepted the fact before it came to fruition.

"Depends on how you define stupid," I muttered, rolling my eyes.

Waving a dismissive hand at my brother, I told him, "Just focus on driving. Don't worry about any of it."

As if I would let the others have all the fun. Also, my impatience may or may not be playing a huge part in my rash plan.

"Uhh, does it have to do anything with what you had me gather…" Bao questioned warily with a glance at the back of the van.

Once again, not wanting to deal with possible pushbacks from anyone, my brother included, I waved him off. "I said, don't worry about it," I bit out sternly, throwing him a warning glare.

Sighing heavily, Bao dropped it and unmuted the call so we could participate again. There wasn't much from me and Bao, mainly because we didn't have much to comment on. Well, I wasn't participating because I was too busy running my programs to make sure things would run smoothly later.

The last thing I wanted was for something to blow up in my face or Lev's—literally.

Just as I thought, we didn't immediately jump into action when we reached our destination. Everyone was too busy trying to finalize the last-minute plan to march their ass into the place. Also, they were waiting around for Bao and me to finish our sweep, which took longer than I anticipated as well.

"Nicki… What are you doing?" Bao hissed over my shoulder. "We're done with our part, so why the fuck around you still cruising around?" He reached around me to shut the screen off, but I slapped his hand away.

Then, his mouth opened again, but no words came out when his eyes landed on the other computer screen. "What is that? What are you trying to hack?" He moved his hand for the mouse, but I stopped him with a grab to the wrist. "I'm not going to shut it down," he remarked with genuine eyes. "I just want to see what you got going on because it looks weird."

Letting go of his hand, I turned my attention back to my drones. "It better be a good weird and not a bad weird," I muttered. "Do not touch the codes…" My voice trailed out with reluctance.

I didn't want to tell Bao that the program I had running was a prototype of sorts, so the lines of codes were kind of… Experimental, so to speak. I mean, this wasn't the first time they've been used or tested—technically. I've only ever tested things through virtual simulations and on a very small handful of unlucky people with a success rate that was rather low. It was probably risky of me to use it today without having all the kinks out, but what better way to figure out if my last round of patches worked or not than to test it out firsthand?

Oh yeah, I was more than prepared for this shit to blow up in my face. But fuck it.

"Do I even want to know?" Bao sighed heavily as he plopped down next to me.

"Probably not," I answered him truthfully with an innocently wicked grin. "But you should help me either way because you're the best brother ever."

"I'm your only brother where it matters." Bao deadpanned before pulling the keyboard closer to him. "I'm gonna ignore what diabolical plan you're executing over there to fix your whack-ass program." He jabbed at me playfully with a chuckle.

"There is nothing wrong with my program," I retorted, scoffing in slight offense.

"Your shit is gonna make phones blow up." Bao deadpanned with a slightly raised voice.

Rolling my eyes, I shot him a flat stare. "That's the point."