Two men look over the side one story up, whipping short-barreled rifles down at me as they do so.

I slam the magazine in and rake them with outgoing fire, dumping two dozen rounds onto their position above. One man gets a single shot off before he flies back out of the view, and the second sentry spins away and falls onto the stairs above an instant later.

I’m up and moving again, bursting through the door on the ground floor, where I catch one man kneeling down, getting into a fighting position. He obviously heard the battle in the stairwell and wanted to be prepared in case I made it out of there.

I made it out of there, and he’s not prepared, so I fire the last six rounds from the B&T at him, killing him where he lies, and then I drop the empty gun on its sling and pull my Glock again.

The house is dark, but I see a door open slowly on my right. I spin my weapon towards the movement, take up the give in the trigger safety on my weapon, then see the face of a middle-aged woman looking out at me. She isn’t holding a weapon, so I keep going, but as I near her position, I shout, “Close your door!”

My ears are ringing from the gunfight in the stairwell, so if she says anything to me, I don’t hear it. But at least she shuts the door.

I attempt a mental head count while I run. There were twelve security on the property when I came in; I knifed the dude upstairs, took down four in the stairwell, and another here.

Six left. Shit.

I open a door to find a bathroom with no window large enough to escape from. As I turn out of the space, I realize that I have not accounted for all the threats.

It’s not just six sentries. It’s also the dogs. Can’t forget about the two—

I face the room again and see a massive black form flying through the air in the darkness right at me. One of the Belgian Malinois slams my pistol against my chest as he knocks me against the wall. We both fall to the floor, and his crazed teeth snatch my right hand. The hand is wearing a Kevlar-lined glove with the trigger finger cut out, so he doesn’t rip it off immediately. Still, I know that with a simple shake or two he can snap my wrist.

With my left hand I punch the dog hard in the snout, and he lets go and recoils an instant, but I’d broken this hand a couple months back, and the pain from the punch prevents me from driving it harder into the canine’s face.

The dog recovers quickly, then charges at me again.

He leaps, I duck, the eighty-pound animal flies into the bathroom, and I spin around and grab the door latch, yanking it closed in his snarling face.

Hefting my pistol, I stagger a few feet; the damn dog knocked the wind out of me, but soon I’m heading off again.

I don’t shoot dogs. Ever. Still, my Glock is up, and I’m muttering to myself as if I’m talking to the barking dog in the bathroom. “Where’s your buddy? Where’s your buddy?”

I hear continuous voices in the earpiece, and I really wish I spoke Serbo-Croatian, because I could use some clarity on where the other halfdozen assholes are right now. I make my way into the kitchen, scanning for threats as I advance, then pass a stairway on my right. Looking up with my pistol trained, I see two men rush past up there, but neither looks down in my direction, probably because they don’t have night vision.

I don’t fire; I continue through the kitchen towards a door, and then, through my ringing ears, I hear a sound behind me in the large living area I’ve just passed.

Paws beating on hardwood, getting louder and louder.

The other dog is running me down from behind.

“Shit!” Fresh panic wells in me, and I know I have to make it outside, because I don’t shoot dogs.

I run as fast as I can, desperate to get out before the black monster rips me apart, but when I put my hand on the latch and pull, nothing happens.

I see two deadbolt locks, and both are engaged.

Behind me the beast keeps running; it snarls frantically as it races across the kitchen tile.

I’m in trouble, serious trouble, but I don’t shoot dogs.

I turn one of the locks, then begin to reach for the other, but I can tell I’m not going to get out in time. He’s only three huge bounds away from sinking his teeth into the back of my neck.

Fuck it. I’m shooting this dog.

Spinning around, I lift my pistol to line it up on the animal’s fat face; he’s ten feet away, just on the far side of the stairwell.

The Malinois launches himself at me just as a man appears, leaping into view from the stairs, obviously responding to my shout or the sound of movement down here in the kitchen.

He turns towards me, swinging his subgun, and the big canine slams into the man’s back, knocking him facedown and causing the dog to roll and slide on the tile, crashing through chairs and a small wooden table.

I turn back to the door, open the second lock, and dive outside while pulling it shut behind me.

I’m in the well-lit drive; there could be four or five guns lining up on me right now, but I don’t even scan for threats.

I run. I just . . . fucking . . . run.

* * *

• • •

Twenty-four-year-old Liliana Brinza raced through the woods down the hill, lost in the dark with no real concept of where she was or where she was going; all she knew for certain was that she had to get the hell away from the dungeon she’d been living in for the past week or so.

She’d arrived at night, and since then she’d lived in the room with the red light, only to be dragged out, away from the other women, once or twice a day to be raped.

The old man was the worst. He’d beaten her and raped her, and he’d been seconds away from doing it again when the man in black appeared. Liliana was no fool; she saw the opportunity and raced up the stairs, hid in a closet while she decided on her next move, listening to gunfire and the frantic shouts of men downstairs. Then she heard the dogs in the house and finally she took a chance and ran for the back door next to the empty kennels. She saw no one outside at all, so she raced across the back pasture to the woods, hid in some brush for a few minutes, and now she wanted to find a road or a town or another house with a phone or anything that could help her out of this desperate situation.

She ran on, her bare feet bleeding and thin branches whipping against her body, and she told herself she was in the clear, that no one was out here looking for her.

This horrific ordeal was over.

Just then a form spun in her direction from behind a tree, moved in front of her in the moonlight, took her by the mouth and covered it, and pulled her down to the ground.

He had her in a headlock, held her facing away from him as they sat in the grass, with his other hand still tight against her mouth.

She couldn’t scream, but she could bite. So she did.