I clear my throat from the invisible, stubborn obstruction and introduce Ryan. "My partner."

If I have to point at this door again, I'm going to scream.

The Russian-speaking-guy bobs his head, then unleashes a stream of unfamiliar words supported by the energetic gestures. He mostly addresses two men: one has an aquiline cast to his weather-beaten features, and the second who has the same enviable bone structure obscured by a network of wrinkles. Could be family, could be a fine example of these mountains' stamp on their people.

With the conference over, the orator turns to me with a toothy smile.

I bite my lip. We probably don't look trustworthy; I smile back so hard the lips barely fit my face. No teeth though; that's not good for trustworthy.

"You want us to release dogs, then yell like we're on fire," he pokes the Walkie-talkie, "until they come out, so we can kill them? Yes? Yes?"

I exchange a brief glance with Ryan to confirm. "Yes. That's the plan."

The guy's smile grows even wider, ever toothier. Really, what a remarkable set of teeth in a place with a pitiful dentist per person ratio.

"We two come with you." He points at himself and the old man. Then to his younger friend. "He takes the women to hide."

This gives me a pause. The grandpa is gnarly, but it would be too late to work through the misunderstandings when the gunfight breaks out. "He comes with us to fight?"

"Yes, darling," he confirms. "Yes, yes."

His eyes narrow to confide a dangerous secret to me. "He talks to the dogs."

Okay then. The dog-whisperer is hired! Anything and anyone to control the feral shepherds. "Good. Let's do it."

Ryan hands out the liberated machine guns—he has them hanging from his neck like some macabre Christmas decorations—to the eager hands. That eagerness gives me a pause, but hard places breed hard people. We came looking for allies, not fodder, so it's too late for the second-guesses. Let them keep the hardware after... what comes after isn't my problem, and I have far too many problems on my way to after.

When it's my turn to receive the spare handgun from him, I have to put it down by my feet. There are no convenient straps on my ankle, and I can't very well stuff it into my back pocket. That's some tough work conditions.

I'll carry a gun in each hand, firing by turns, like a harridan when the party starts, but let it rest on the dirt floor for a sec. I need my hands free right this minute for a more important thing.

I grab Ryan's hands in mine. "Don't get yourself killed, love."

He nods. "Likewise."

It takes forever for his fingers to slip from my grip until even the tips no longer touch. When this is over, I'll hold his hand for an hour. Just hold his hand! Yes, I'm this badly in need of him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a strange smirk on the younger local's lips. Is he a traitor? But then the sun catches the bright gold on Ryan's finger, and my paranoia recedes. Ryan still wears his wedding ring. The local's thoughts are flickering in his eyes: you dog! Or, perhaps, you fool! Or whatever else men think about the cheaters in these parts. He pegged the wrong person with his suspicious mind.

My fingers instinctively tap Luca's ring stashed for safe-keeping in the zipped pocket. There it is, the metal circle, the cut jewel, a hard cold shape even inside the fabric of my jacket. I fight the impulse to dig it up and put it on, which is ridiculous: I'm the cheater here.

Plus, the ring is uncomfortably valuable. Not uncomfortable enough to leave it in Luca's room, but I don't feel like flaunting it either, even to make an honest man out of my husband in the eyes of complete strangers.

God, my head is going to explode if I keep worrying about this. It's action time!

Our duo of new allies barely wait for Ryan and me to take place on either side of the door to the sizable farmhouse.

The older guy's marvellously straight back bends over the dog pen. The baying switches from chaotic to rhythmic, then dies down. The pause is deafening, even though the phantom barking rings in my ears for a good minute of this silence.

The translator shields his eyes with the same hand that squeezes the walkie talkie to check with us. I give him a thumbs up, realizing at the same time that the sun will be in our opponents' eyes. That's good juju. The omens favour the righteous. We're righteous. I'm righteous. I am!

A machine gun is an overkill against the padlock, but our friends don't care about running out of ammunition. The chain and the lock burst under the hail of bullets—heck, the door of the pen explodes into splinters!—while the men scream into the radios with a wild abandon.

I can't hear them, because the dogs explode in the nightmarish cacophony. If I thought it was loud before, this is almost enough to cover the gunshots and shred my nerve endings.

Fucking dogs!

I hope that's what Luca, Scali and whoever else is in the house think. If metal bars did not cover the windows, I'd hurl rocks at them for emphasis.

The dogs swirl round the old guy in a shaggy merry-go-round... the pounding of boots comes from inside. The door opens and the first two fighters spill out.

Ryan and I hold our position.

The pack freezes, then zeroes in on our foes in a magnificent wave.

The old guy scrambles for cover. Sun glints on the barrel of our younger ally's gun.

That's when four more fighters come out into the open to murder the dogs.

All this takes maybe two seconds, tops.

Ryan shoots the closest opponent, pushes him into the other ones, then blocks the door. Now they can only get back over his dead body.

I don't wait for the unthinkable to happen. I slide forward from the wall, lifting both guns in a smooth arc... yes, like a fucking harridan... and discharge both, nearly point blank. I'm rewarded by the wide-flung, fading eyes and the blooming red splatters. The recoil vibrates its way from my wrists into my shoulders.

Ryan fires his second shot near-simultaneously.

Death in a gunfight is quick. Blink, and you'll miss it.

The dogs crash into the remaining mother-fuckers. The biggest, meanest-looking one seizing on a wrist with a t-Rex grip. The wailing man hits it with the butt of the gun, to no avail.

Ryan drags me inside by the belt before I can shoot again or get shot.

The dogs and the two locals can finish the job. They are allies, not fodder or by-standers. Allies.

We shut the door on the scattered gunfire and the shouts.

Luca, Scali and Gleb's partner are who we're after now. And we're in some hurry.

Inside, the farmhouse is the opposite of the fresh-painted emptiness of the villa where Luca first hunkered down. It's old and borderline cluttered. Every individual piece seems lovingly chosen. Small rugs, fur-and-embroidery decorated folk costumes, vintage rifles, copperware and clay jugs, even a shield—all local make or from neighboring regions, I bet. If someone had the heart to remove 10% of the stuff, give the other pieces some breathing room, it would look awesome. And dead.

"I like what Gleb's associates did with the place," I grunt, as Ryan methodically kicks in all three doors on the ground floor.

"All clear," he says, and motions for the staircase. Decor doesn't interest him one bit.

We race up, two or three steps at a time. The nearest door slams open and bingo!

It's an office, eerily reminiscent of my dad's. Same obsession with heavy oak furniture, but smaller and with only one computer and a printer from the electronic gadgets' selection.

The familiar ornate chest sits in the middle of the desk, opened. I suppose Luca is just too used to having the evidence on display or something, so he brought his day job habits into his mafioso moonlighting.

The rest of the furniture is pushed to the side, to free up space for a prisoner tied to a high-backed chair. He has a bleeding swollen nose and a fat lip; he's hunched over a little, but overall, Scali is saving the serious efforts for when Luca is done playing a tough guy, and leaves things in his capable hands.

Their complicated relationship doesn't bother me at this point.

What bothers me is that the prisoner in the chair is Gleb. At least that's what my senses report to my resisting brain. Did Gleb fuck up with our brains just like everyone else in this god-forsaken country?

"A brother, probably," Ryan whispers behind my back.

I have no time to ask him if he knows, or just guesses. Luca raises from an overstuffed beige armchair.

"There you are, my love." His eyes glitter harder than the glass shards. "I've missed you."