Chapter 6 - SIEGE UNDERGROUND"How did they find us this fast?" Victoria yelled over the screeching wail of the alarm klaxons, clutching her father's journal and cassette to her chest like a shield.
"Inside help," Alexei said, his face carved from granite as he checked the magazine of his weapon. "Marta. Or someone higher up in my inner circle. It doesn't matter now."
He grabbed Victoria by the hand, dragging her away from the open vault toward a narrow, reinforced maintenance corridor hidden behind a sliding steel panel.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Heavy caliber rounds slammed against the outer vault door. Sparks showered across the concrete floor as automatic gunfire chewed through the thick steel hinges. Dmitri’s mercenaries weren't just here to capture Victoria—they were here to execute everyone in the facility and take the safe's contents by force.
"Get behind me!" Alexei commanded, shoving Victoria into the narrow vertical shaft.
He unclipped two flash-bang grenades from his belt, pulled the pins with his teeth, and hurled them out into the main vault room just as the heavy door blew inward in a ball of fire and smoke.
BOOM!
A blinding flash of magnesium light and a deafening shockwave shook the underground bunker, followed by the agonizing screams of disoriented mercenaries.
"Move! Don't look back!" Alexei roared, grabbing Victoria’s waist and practically carrying her up the steep, winding emergency spiral staircase that led out of the subterranean bunker.
Bullets whined off the metal steps behind them, ricocheting into the stone walls with terrifying proximity. Alexei fired upward and downward in fluid, calculated bursts, shielding Victoria with his own broad shoulders. A hot spray of crimson mist splattered across the back of her shirt—Alexei took a round to his left shoulder, the fabric instantly soaking through with dark, arterial blood.
"You're hit!" Victoria screamed, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"Keep climbing!" Alexei snarled through clenched teeth, his face pale but his grip on his weapon unwavering.
They burst through a heavy trapdoor into the estate's subterranean wine cellar. Alexei slammed the heavy iron hatch shut, spinning a massive combination wheel to lock it from the inside just as a hail of bullets punched through the wood.
Panting heavily, blood pooling on the flagstone floor from his shoulder wound, Alexei leaned against a oak wine rack, his eyes locking onto Victoria.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, his voice strained.
"I'm fine," she breathed, dropping to her knees beside him. Without a second thought, she ripped the hem of her expensive emerald silk dress, tearing a long strip of fabric, and pressed it firmly against the bleeding entry wound in his shoulder.
Alexei hissed sharply, grabbing her wrist. "You're ruining your dress."
"Shut up and let me stop the bleeding," Victoria snapped back, her voice ringing with an authority that left no room for argument.
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Alexei stared down at her, the harsh red emergency lighting casting shadows across his sharp cheekbones. For a fraction of a second, the fearsome Bratva boss vanished, replaced by a man who looked at her not as a transaction, not as a key, but as his equal.
"We need to get to the panic room in the east tower," Alexei whispered, pulling her up by the good arm. "There’s a satellite phone. We can call extraction."
