from the way he moves. His military training is evident.
The figures disappear. A few moments later, only one comes back, and it’s Liam.
“He’s fucking deadly with a knife,” Luka whispers.
Two down, only another twelve or so go to.
Damen is sending Marcus a false feed of the inside of our house. He’s using the security cameras that Reece fixed in the upstairs hallway and the front door. In reality, he’s using footage taken nights ago when we were all sleeping. So far as Aram is concerned, we’re tucked up in bed like babies, in the land of dreams.
When no more men follow the first two, I wonder how long it will take Aram’s men to figure out something is wrong. Clearly the first two were meant to do something. They went around the back. The utility room. Damn, the dogs.
“Fuck.” I push away from the window. “I’ll be back in two minutes,” I tell the men. “Andrius, call Damen and tell him to stop the feed, now. Make it look like it’s been interrupted by a loss of signal or something.”
I race downstairs, and the dogs, as I had hoped, start to bark when I clatter into the kitchen. I open the utility room door and put my finger to my lips, which these beauties understand means quiet. Then I lead them out of the utility room and down to the basement. The man guarding the door from the outside raises a brow at me. I knock on the door. “It’s me,” I tell Ethan inside.
He opens the door, and I push the dogs in.
He takes them, slams the door back shut, and locks it. I jog up the stairs and into the kitchen, where I pause. They were heading for the utility, I’m convinced of it. Probably to take the dogs out, and then open the front door from the inside. Fuck it. Let’s give the men waiting outside what they’re expecting.
I turn the kitchen lights on. The blinds are mostly closed, but there’s enough of a gap between the slats that the light from the kitchen will stream out. Then, I open the front door for Aram and his men before bolting up the stairs.
They won’t have had time to see me and recognize me. The light from the kitchen will mean the dark hallway wouldn’t have given them a clear view. I hope that Aram and his men now believe their vanguard have taken out my dogs and opened the door for them.
We need enough of his men to get out of the other two cars for us to take them out. With the feed cut, Aram won’t be able to see if it is or isn’t his men in the house. Thank fuck I thought of it because if Damen had kept sending him the footage of the downstairs with nothing happening, then he’d have known the feed was doctored. This way he’s going to think it’s interrupted.
I join the others at the window in the turret and watch. The front doors of the rear car open, and two men climb out. They raise their guns; one of the idiots is holding it out sideways, gangster style.
“Fuck me,” Andrius whispers. “They make it too easy.”
They approach the house, and the front car disgorges its contents. Five men, all with AK47s, head toward the house.
Luka goes on high alert. He’s using an Accuracy International sniper rifle, which is what he would have used in the SAS.
I man the M16.
Andrius has a Russian sniper rifle with a German rifle scope.
The men near the door. They inch ever closer; the two in front with the cheap pistols are only feet away from entering the house when pop, pop. They go down like a sack of potatoes as Luka takes them both out one after the other, seconds apart.
The floodlights illuminate the outside like a Christmas tree, and the dazzle will blind them for a moment.
Andrius fires on the remaining five men carrying the AKs. He hits three in rapid succession in the chest, but the other two aim up at the windows and start firing. Andrius and Luka both duck behind the walls to the sides of the window, and this is where I come in. I aim the M16 and unload a fuck-ton of bullets in the Armenian’s general direction.
Much as I hate to admit it, this Western made machinery is much better than the AKs the Armenians are using. The two men go down, and then rapid fire