Under Control: Chapter 28

The van smells like fucking produce. Which makes sense, since only a day ago it was a legitimate produce delivery vehicle.

Now it’s a front.

“They’ll be fine,” Anton says from the front seat. He’s watching the back of Pomegranate House with a bored look on his face.

Four of his best, most trusted soldiers are taking care of this fake delivery. It took a few days to set it up, but I dumped all my resources into pulling this off. We managed to track down the company that takes care of the Pomegranate House’s vegetable deliveries, and since they come every single day with fresh food, it wasn’t hard to intercept their normal van and swap it with our own.

The Armenians that work here didn’t even notice the change, and why would they? We’re just a different crew than usual, that’s all.

“I should be in there,” I say, grinding my jaw. I hate sitting in the back, doing fucking nothing.

“You should be happy I let you come along at all.”

“I’m your Pakhan. Sometimes I think you forget that.”

Anton snorts and glances back at me. “You’re a pain in my ass.” He looks away and crosses his arms. “Fact is, the general shouldn’t be leading his troops into battle.”

“Napoleon rallied his men more than once,” I grumble.

“Yeah, well, you’re not fucking Napoleon. I don’t want you to get killed on some mid-level job. That would make all our lives difficult.”

He has a point, and that’s why I’m sitting in the damn van instead of going inside with my gun ready, but I don’t like it.

Time drags. Five minutes turns to ten. “What’s going on?” I ask and push my way up front. Fuck the way it looks. I glare at the back of Pomegranate house, but it’s quiet. “This was supposed to be fast.”

“They’re finding Arsen. We knew that might not happen instantly.”

“Still, it’s strange for a delivery crew to be wandering around for so long. They’re acting suspicious.”

“What do you want me to do?”

I open the glove box and take out a gun. “We’re going inside.”

“Valentin—”

The radio crackles. “Boss, I think—” Then there’s a shout and the radio goes silent.

But gunshots echo from the building. Four of them in rapid succession.

“Shit,” I say, already pushing open my door, but Anton grabs my arm to hold me back.

“What’s happening?” he shouts into the radio.

“Tipped off,” comes a reply followed by more gunshots.

I rip away from Anton and storm to the back of the restaurant. I hear Anton yelling at me to stop, but fuck him.

I kick open the door and come into a kitchen, my gun up and aimed forward. There’s a scream nearby and more gunshots. I move low with Anton at my back and enter into a narrow galley space. Two Armenians are up ahead, both of them armed. I squeeze off three rounds, putting two in the lead man and one in the second before Anton finishes him off. Their bodies crumple to the ground, bleeding profusely from their ruined skulls, but I don’t see our men anywhere.

“This way,” I snarl, rushing forward. A man in a chef’s outfit is hiding under one of the tables and I’m about to move past him, when I have an idea. I reach down and grab him by the shirt and drag him out. I stuff my gun barrel, still warm, into his mouth.

“Where is Arsen?” I ask.

The man stares at me with terror and tries to speak.

“Move the gun,” Anton suggests.

I pull it from the chef’s mouth. “Upstairs,” he gasps out. “Steps are to the right.”

I pat his cheek and hit him hard in the side of the head. He goes limp, unconscious, probably not dead. I push him back under the table and move fast, following his directions. When I turn right, a set of stairs disappears to the second floor.

There’s more gunfire from up there.

Anton pushes past me and goes first, the fucking bastard. When he reaches the top, someone shoots at him, forcing him back. He nearly falls down the steps, but I steady him. There’s shouting in Russian, our men telling us to be careful and noting the Armenian positions. I come up firing blindly in the direction they mentioned and manage to wound one man as I stagger up the steps and fall into a blind roll.

Gunfire erupts, barely missing me, but Anton’s got my back. He kills my attacker, a man leaning out of a door to the left. The Armenian I injured is trying to crawl into another room, and I shoot him three times to make sure he can’t get away.

My soldiers emerge from a door toward the end of the hall. “Sergei is dead,” the leader says, a grizzled veteran of several Eastern European conflicts named Leonid. “Target is in there.”

“On my back,” I say, stalking past him. The door is clearly marked office, and it crumbles inward when I kick it hard.

I find Arsen Sarkissian hiding in a closet.

He’s young and brash, and he tries to fight, but I shove my gun against his throat before he can so much as land a punch. I smile at him, enjoying the fear in his eyes. He’s got dark hair and dark eyes like his father, with a little piggish nose. I don’t know how this ugly shit is related to my beautiful wife.

“You are coming with me,” I tell him.

“Russian scum,” he says, showing his teeth. “You’re a dead man, Valentin. When my father finds out⁠—”

I slam the butt of my gun into his front two teeth. One gets knocked loose and he gags on it before I wrench his arms behind his back and drag him out to the van.

He’s spitting blood and cursing the whole way, but we fix that with a gag and some rope before Anton speeds off back toward Philadelphia.