All Chapters of THE MAFIA'S BLOODY POSSESSION: Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

 Ivan's Pov Ten minutes was enough time to move and not enough time to plan anything beyond the basics. Nikolai took point. I covered the left flank. Ace covered the right. Rem had given us the approach vectors on all three threat signatures before we left the residential unit and we had ninety seconds to agree on a defensive position before the window closed. "The building across the street." Nikolai was already moving. "Four floors. Stairwell access on both ends. We take the second floor and we do not go higher." "The Calloway unit is coming from the north," I said. "If they box us against the upper floors we lose the exit options." "Second floor gives us the street exits on both sides. We stay mobile." We crossed the street fast and went in through the service entrance. Rem was running comms from the safe house and his voice was steady in our

 Ace's Pov The don's message was still on the screen when we reached the safe house. I read it four more times on the drive and by the time we were inside I had the full shape of the problem in front of me. Nikolai did not know about the message until I slid the phone across the table toward him. He read it and put it down and looked at me. "He sent this before he knew you were out," I said. "Yes. He will know now." "Which means the ultimatum changes shape," I said. "He lost the leverage he built it on. He needs to rebuild." "Or he honors the ultimatum on a new timeline," Ivan said from the far side of the table. "He already demonstrated he has the contractor capacity to take one of us. He tries again." "Yes," I said. "He tries again." "Then we hit the Caruso infrastructure tonight," Ivan said. "Before he

Ace's PovThe white dress was still in the box on the floor when I sat down at the table with Ivan at seven in the morning.Neither of us touched the box.Ivan had his coffee in both hands and he was looking at the table and not at me. We had not spoken since Nikolai showed us the card. The silence between us was not the comfortable kind."The wedding is tomorrow morning," I said. "According to the terms.""Yes." Ivan put the mug down. "I know the terms.""We have less than twenty four hours to get Nikolai out.""I know that too.""Then stop sitting in the silence and help me plan it," I said.He looked up. Something behind his eyes moved. He pulled his chair forward and picked up the building layout Rem had left on the table."The don will move Nikolai before the wedding," he said. "He will not keep him at the same location once he believes the agreement is progressing, he moves him somewhere cleaner.""Somewhere we do not have a layout for," I said."Yes. Which means we need the new

Nikolai's PovThe room they were holding me in was a basement level space with a single overhead light and a drain in the floor and walls that told me this room had been used for exactly this kind of thing before.My hands were bound to the chair behind me. My ribs from the alley capture were worse than I had told Ace. Three of them at minimum. My left eye had swollen nearly shut from the initial restraint.The don's people had come in twice since the night. The first time they had questions. The second time they had stopped pretending to ask questions.I had not given them anything.The man who came in the third time was different from the previous two. He was older, calm in the way people were calm when hurting someone was genuinely unremarkable to them.He pulled the chair across from me and sat down. He looked at me for a long moment without speaking."You are Nikolai Volkov,""Yes.""You are aware that your associate has agreed to the marriage terms."I looked at him. "Yes.""Yo

 Ivan's Pov Four hours. The extraction was planned for two in the morning and the wedding was now in four hours and the gap between those two facts was the entire problem. Rem put the Caruso communication on the table. The message was short and formal. The ceremony would proceed at ten that evening at a private Caruso property. Ace was expected to arrive by nine-thirty. The note specified that any failure to appear would result in immediate consequences for the held party. Nikolai. I stood at the table and looked at both locations on Rem's map. The Caruso wedding property was twelve kilometers from the holding location. If the don was moving the ceremony forward he was likely moving Nikolai at the same time. "He is relocating Nikolai right now," I said. Rem nodded, confirming it. "If he moves him before we can run the extract