When I look up, I realize that my distraction has given Budimir and his men the upper hand. They’ve got us surrounded now, and I realize that Alexei is being held at gunpoint and both Adrik and Vasyl are injured, though their injuries look only surface-deep.
When I turn back, Maxim is staring unseeing up at the ceiling.
Rage curdles in my chest like poison.
But it has nowhere to go.
We’re pinned. Surrounded. Outgunned, outnumbered, outmaneuvered.
Budimir steps out from behind his bodyguard, a cold sneer on his face. His two lackeys, Kovar and Bufalino, flank him.
“Did you really think you could storm the meeting with four men and live to tell the tale?” he demands. “I’m going to make an ornament of your f*****g—”
The rest of his threat is drowned by the sound of the main entrance be
