UNDER ATTACK

The explosion came at 2:47 AM.

Anya bolted upright in the too-soft bed, training overriding grogginess. The window rattled. Gunfire, automatic weapons, at least three positions.

She was moving before her conscious mind caught up, grabbing the jeans she'd left folded on the chair.

No time for the bra. Sports bra, shirt, boots. Fifteen seconds.

The door burst open. Alexei, shirtless, gun already drawn. "Stay..."

"How many?" She was already at the window, eyes scanning the tree line. Muzzle flashes. Four positions. No, five.

"What the fuck are you...get away from the..."

Another explosion, closer. The east wing. She saw the fireball reflected in Alexei's eyes, saw him make the calculation. Not enough men. Too many entry points.

"Where's Dimitri?" Her voice was steady. Cool. The voice that had gotten her through Kandahar, through Somalia, through everywhere the Agency had sent their best ghost.

Alexei stared at her. Really stared, seeing past the omega facade for the first time. "South corridor. Coordinating..."

Glass shattered downstairs. Yelling in Russian. Then screaming.

Anya's fingers twitched. No weapon. The brothers wouldn't arm her, wouldn't trust her. Of course they wouldn't.

Alexei grabbed her arm, dragging her into the hallway. Smoke already curling up the stairs. "Safe room. Now."

"Your men are dying."

"I know." His jaw was granite. "And you're the target."

She wanted to argue, wanted to tell him she could help, but another explosion, this one inside the house, sent them both stumbling. Her ears rang. Alexei caught her, his bare chest hot against her back, and for a split second she felt it again. That pull. That wrongness that felt too much like rightness.

"Move!" He shoved her forward, down a corridor she hadn't seen before. Nikolai appeared from a side door, blood on his knuckles, murder in his eyes.

"West wing's compromised. They're not trying to breach...they're trying to burn us out."

"Safe room." Alexei's voice was pure alpha command. "Both of you."

"Fuck that," Nikolai snarled. "I'm not hiding while..."

A man in tactical gear rounded the corner.

Suppressed weapon already rising.

Anya moved.

Three years of training compressed into two seconds. She grabbed Nikolai's gun, felt his surprised resistance, twisted it free with a joint lock that made him curse. The weapon came up smooth, natural, and she put two rounds center mass before the attacker could fire.

The man dropped.

Silence.

Both brothers stared at her. At the gun in her hands. At the way she stood, balanced, ready, the stance of someone who'd done this before. Many times before.

"Anya..." Alexei's voice was strange. Careful.

She shoved the gun back at Nikolai. "Safe room. Now. Before more come."

They didn't argue.

The safe room was hidden behind a false wall in what looked like a supply closet. Steel door, biometric lock, the kind of setup that cost more than most houses. Alexei's palm on the scanner, retinal scan, then a keypad code she memorized without thinking. Old habits.

The door was six inches of reinforced steel. It closed behind them with a pneumatic hiss that should have felt like safety.

Should have.

Dimitri was already inside, phone pressed to his ear, his shirt torn and bloody. His eyes found her immediately, raking over her with an intensity that made her skin prickle. Looking for damage. Looking for... something else.

"Da. Da, I understand. Pull everyone to the inner perimeter." He ended the call. "Report."

"Four dead," Alexei said. "Maybe five. They hit us coordinated...east, west, and south simultaneously. Professional."

"Very professional." Dimitri's gaze hadn't left Anya.

"And our guest just disarmed Nikolai and dropped a Spetsnaz-trained operative with two shots. Center mass. In the dark. While her adrenaline should have made her shake apart."

The air in the safe room got very thin.

"I got lucky," Anya said.

"Bullshit." Nikolai rubbed his wrist where she'd twisted it. "That was a textbook disarm. Military. Where the fuck did an omega breeder learn..."

"Nikolai." Dimitri's voice cracked like a whip. But his eyes stayed on Anya. Calculating. Reassessing. "Everyone shuts up. We have maybe ten minutes before they breach this door."

"It's six inches of steel," Alexei said.

"They brought thermite charges. I saw the burns on the east door." Dimitri moved to the weapons locker, started pulling out rifles. Tactical vests.

"This isn't a smash and grab. This is an execution."

Anya's mind raced. Execution. That changed things. That meant...

"They're not here for me," she said quietly. "Not to take me. They're here to kill all of us."

Three pairs of eyes locked on her.

"Explain," Dimitri said, his voice deadly soft, "how you know that."

"Because if they wanted to extract me, they'd have waited until I was alone. Isolated." The words came automatically, tactically sound. Too sound.

"This is a clean sweep. Kill the brothers, kill the witness, cover the tracks."

"The witness to what?" Alexei demanded.

Before she could answer, before she could figure out what lie would work, the lights went out.

Emergency lighting kicked in, bathing everything in red. Dimitri cursed in Russian. Outside the safe room, she heard boots. Many boots. Radio chatter in English, American English, she noted with her stomach sinking, coordinating positions.

"They're stacking up," Nikolai whispered. He'd gone pale. "Fuck. They're going to breach."

Dimitri handed out weapons. Rifle to Alexei.

Shotgun to Nikolai. His own rifle, some custom AR platform she didn't recognize, held with the ease of long practice.

He looked at Anya. At the way she stood. The way she'd automatically shifted to cover the weakest angle of approach.

He held out a Glock 19. Extended magazine. One spare.

"You know how to use this?"

She should say no. Should play dumb. Should...

"Yes."

Their eyes held. She watched him add it up.

Combat training. Tactical awareness. The way she'd moved, fought, shot. Not a pampered omega. Not a breeder. Something else entirely.

Something dangerous.

"Good." He pressed the gun into her hands. His fingers lingered a moment too long, and she felt it, that electric current, that bond-pull she'd been fighting for days. "Stay behind me. If they get through, you run. Understand?"

"Where?"

"Anywhere but here."

The door began to glow. Thermite, just like Dimitri said. The cutting torch of the gods, burning at 4,000 degrees, turning steel into molten metal.

Anya checked her magazine. Nineteen rounds. One in the chamber made twenty. She had maybe thirty seconds before they breached.

Thirty seconds to decide who she was.

The CIA operative who'd infiltrated to destroy the Volkov Bratva from within.

Or something else entirely.

The door started to fall.

"Here they come," Dimitri said. His voice was calm. Alpha-steady. The voice of a man who'd faced death before and spit in its face. "Make them regret it."

The safe room door crashed inward. Smoke and sparks. Through it came the first man, tactical gear, night vision, rifle up.

Anya shot him through the throat. The gap in the body armor. The kill shot.

The second man took Dimitri's round to the face.

Then it was chaos.

Muzzle flash and cordite. Deafening in the enclosed space. Alexei's rifle on full auto, chewing through the doorway. Nikolai's shotgun boom-boom-booming, each blast like a physical blow.

Anya moved like she'd been trained. Smooth.

Efficient. Two rounds, shift, two rounds. Center mass when she could. Head when she couldn't.

Every shot placed. Every shot counted.

Six men down. Eight. Ten.

They kept coming.

Her magazine ran dry. She dropped it, slammed in the spare, racked the slide. Muscle memory. The choreography of violence she'd learned in a dozen black sites across three continents.

A man got through. Big, alpha-rage making him fast. His hand caught her throat, slammed her against the wall. She saw his eyes widen, surprise that an omega could fight back, could hurt him, then she drove her thumb into his eye socket and pulled the trigger point-blank.

He dropped.

She didn't.

Dimitri was suddenly there, his body between her and the door, his rifle singing its death song.

Protecting her. Even now, even covered in blood and surrounded by corpses, his instinct was to shield her.

The bond pulsed. Hot. Insistent.

"Behind you!" she screamed.

He turned, fired, but not fast enough. The round caught him high on the shoulder, spinning him.

He went down.

Anya didn't think.

She stepped over him, put herself between Dimitri and the doorway, and started shooting. The Glock bucked in her hands. Once. Twice. Three times. The last attacker went down gurgling.

Then silence.

Just harsh breathing. The smell of blood and gunpowder. Smoke curling through the ruined doorway.

"Clear," Alexei rasped. He was bleeding from a dozen places. Minor wounds. Nothing fatal. "I think we're clear."

Nikolai was checking bodies. Making sure. Professional.

Anya's hands didn't shake. That was the problem. They should shake. An omega who'd just survived her first firefight should be a shaking mess. Should be traumatized.

She was calm. Cold. The killing calm that came after combat, when the adrenaline faded and left only the body count.

Dimitri sat up, pressing his hand to his shoulder. Blood seeped through his fingers. His eyes found hers.

"Who are you?" he whispered.

Before she could answer, Alexei's phone rang.

They all stared at it. Who calls during an active firefight?

Alexei answered. Listened. His face went white.

"You're sure? Absolutely certain?" A pause. "Bozhe moy."

He lowered the phone. Looked at Dimitri. At Anya. At Nikolai.

"That was Pavel. Our contact in the Sokolov organization." His voice was hollow. "The Sokolov Pakhan. He's dead.

"We know," Dimitri said. "That's why they hit us. Retaliation..."

"No." Alexei's hand trembled. "You don't understand. He was killed three hours ago. Three hours before this attack."

The safe room went very still.

"That's impossible," Nikolai said. "You said the Sokolovs ordered this hit. Payback for..."

"These aren't Sokolov men." Anya heard herself say it. Heard the pieces clicking together. "Look at their gear. American. High-end. This isn't Bratva."

She crouched by the nearest body, pulled back his balaclava. White. Clean-shaven. The face of someone who'd never seen the inside of a Russian prison.

"Someone set us up," she continued, her mind racing through scenarios. "Killed the Sokolov Pakhan. Made it look like you did it. Waited for the retaliation. Then hit you both while everyone was watching the other enemy."

"Who?" Dimitri's voice was rough. Pained. But his eyes were sharp. "Who benefits from both organizations burning?"

That's when Anya realized.

Her handler. Marcus. The mission parameters. Take out the Volkov brothers, frame it as a Bratva war, let the Russians kill each other while the CIA cleaned up.

But if someone killed the Sokolov Pakhan first...

"We need to move," she said. "Now. This was just the first wave."

"First wave?" Nikolai looked at the dozen corpses. "What the fuck is the second..."

The window exploded.

Not shattered. Exploded. Professional charges, shaped to blow inward, sending glass shrapering through the room. Anya felt something slice her cheek, felt blood run hot.

Then the grenade came through.

"Gas!" Dimitri lunged for her, tackling her down. His body covering hers. Protecting.

The grenade popped. White smoke. Thick. Chemical. Her eyes burned. Her throat closed.

Nikolai was coughing. Choking. "Alexei...get..."

Shapes through the smoke. Fast. Efficient. She heard the pneumatic hiss of rappelling lines. Saw silhouettes dropping through the destroyed window.

Not reinforcements.

Extraction team.

And she recognized the loadout. The movement. The tactics.

CIA.

"No," she whispered. "No, not yet. I'm not done..."

A hand grabbed her arm. Tried to pull her away from Dimitri. She twisted, broke the grip, another

disarm, another move that screamed training, and drove her elbow into someone's throat.

They'd sent a team for her. To pull her out. To complete the mission by killing the brothers while they were weak.

She could go. Right now. Let them extract her.

Mission complete. Another successful operation for Agent Anya Volkov.

Except.

Through the smoke, she saw Dimitri trying to stand. Saw him bleeding. Saw him looking for her with panic in his eyes, not for himself, but for her.

Saw Alexei dragging Nikolai toward the door.

Protecting his brother. The way brothers should.

The way her brother had protected her once. Before the Agency took her. Before they made her into this.

The extraction team moved with lethal efficiency. She saw suppressed weapons rising. Saw them targeting Dimitri, Alexei, Nikolai. Clean shots. Quick deaths.

Loose ends.

That's all the brothers were to them. Loose ends in an operation that had gotten too complicated.

Anya made a choice.

She stepped in front of Dimitri and raised her gun at her own team.

"Stand down," she said. Her voice carried. Clear. Authoritative. "Extraction is refused."

"Agent Volkov." The voice was familiar. Stevens. Her partner from Prague. "Don't be stupid. Move aside."

"I said stand down."

"Your mission is complete. We're pulling you out."

"My mission isn't complete."

She saw Stevens' finger tighten on the trigger. Saw him making the calculation. Could he drop her before she fired? Would he?

Then something changed in the air. A pressure. A presence.

The smoke swirled, and through it came something massive. Something white.

A wolf. But not a wolf.

Too big. Too old. Its fur glowed in the emergency lighting, and its eyes, ancient, knowing, fixed on Stevens with an intelligence that was decidedly not animal.

Stevens fired. Three shots. Center mass.

The bullets passed through the wolf like it was made of mist.

"Bozhe moy," Alexei breathed. "The White Wolf. The old stories..."

The wolf moved. One moment it was near the window. The next it was between the extraction team and the brothers. Its lips pulled back, revealing teeth that shouldn't exist. That couldn't exist.

Protect what is yours, young Luna.

The voice was in her head. Female. Ancient.

Amused and deadly all at once.

Your path splits here. Choose.

Stevens and his team backed toward the window. Professional. Not running, but definitely retreating from something they couldn't kill.

"This isn't over," Stevens said, looking at Anya. "You know that, right? You just chose them over us."

"I know."

"They'll come for you. Marcus will..."

"I know."

He shook his head. Disappointed. Maybe sad. Then he was gone, rappelling back up the lines, disappearing into the Moscow night.

The wolf watched them go. Then turned to look at Anya. Its eyes were too human. Too knowing.

Interesting choice, daughter of wolves. We will see if you are strong enough to survive it.

Then it was gone. Simply not there anymore. Like it had never existed at all.

Except for the feeling in the air. The sense that something very old and very powerful had just taken notice.

The smoke began to clear.

Dimitri was staring at her. Blood running down his arm. His eyes dark. Unreadable.

"You just," he said slowly, "refused extraction from what I'm assuming was your intelligence organization. Refused by aiming your weapon at your own team."

Anya said nothing.

"You're a spy."

"Was."

"Was." He laughed. It sounded broken. "And what are you now?"

She looked at him. At Alexei helping Nikolai breathe through the gas. At the bodies of men who'd died trying to protect what was theirs.

At the brothers who, for reasons she didn't understand, had made her feel something other than cold efficiency.

"I don't know," she said honestly.

Dimitri held out his hand. "Give me the gun."

She should refuse. Should keep her weapon. But something in his eyes, not anger, not even suspicion, just a terrible weariness, made her comply.

She flipped the Glock, offered it grip-first.

He took it.

Their fingers touched.

And the world exploded into sensation.

Heat. Connection. The bond that had been simmering between them since the first moment, now blazing to life. She felt him. Not his body, but his essence. Alpha and ruthless and protective and so damn tired of fighting.

He gasped. She gasped.

The immunity suppressant she'd taken this morning, the 90% protection, cracked.

She felt it shatter. Felt the bond slam into place with a force that nearly drove her to her knees.

85% her mind supplied. Immunity is now at 85%.

Dimitri's eyes went wide. "I feel you."

"I know."

"Anya..."

His phone rang.

He stared at it. At her. At his hand still touching hers.

Then he let go and answered.

"Da?" A pause. His face went carefully blank.

"When?" Another pause. "Are you absolutely certain?"

He ended the call.

"The Sokolov Pakhan," he said quietly, "was murdered exactly three hours before the attack on us began. His head of security just confirmed it. Which means..."

"Someone's playing a bigger game," Anya finished.

Their eyes held.

Outside, sirens. Police. Fire. The whole city responding to the explosions and gunfire.

They had maybe five minutes before everything got much more complicated.

"We need to move," Alexei said. He'd gotten Nikolai to his feet. "They're coming. Everyone's coming."

"Agreed." Dimitri stood, still bleeding, still steady. Still alpha. He looked at Anya. "You're coming with us."

It wasn't a question.

She nodded.

Because she'd made her choice. In that moment when she'd stepped between the extraction team and the brothers, she'd chosen.

She just didn't know yet if it was the right choice.

Or if it would get them all killed.