Chapter Fifty-One
Adriana
One exhale.
One smooth pull.
One bullet leaves the chamber.
A sharp crack, a kick of recoil, a prayer — all send it on its way.
It impacts with Ruslan Volkov at the wrist; bone splinters, skin splits, flesh and muscle part and spray and spatter in a puff of bloody spray.
The knife whirls, flying across the room, while his fingers and other bits of his hand arc about the room in a cloud of gore.
His thumb lands on Reaper’s chest, pointing upward.
My voice — an echo of the days when I had a badge and a devotion to the law — snaps out of me with utter command. “Don’t you fucking move a muscle or so help me god the next round goes in your head, you motherfucker.”
It’s an old habit. From a time when it mattered whether pieces of shit like Ruslan Volkov were brought before a judge and jury. It’s a weakness now.
What should follow from my lips is a bark — lay flat on the ground with your hands behind your back.
I should send him face-down into the lake of Reaper’s blood, maybe to drown, maybe to be arrested, either way to face justice of some kind for the countless crimes he’s done, the worst of which is that he reminded me that the man he’s mutilated still has a hold on my heart, but I don’t get the chance.
Because Ruslan Volkov isn’t bound by those rules, and I shouldn’t have been na?ve enough to bind myself to them, either.
Even missing a hand, he propels his gangly, gaunt body with surprising agility to leap to the side before I can pull the trigger. A split second later, his bodyguards have their guns in their hands and raise them to return fire.
I duck.
I run.
Bullets hit the ceiling right above where I was kneeling. Some hit the fluorescent light and send shards of glass and fill the air with the smell of phosphorus. Some hit the ceiling panels and send particles of drywall falling upon me like misshapen snow.
“Kill her,” Ruslan yells in a pointless, obvious expression of fury. Because what else are these motherfuckers going to do? Invite me to brunch?
I flee into the office that I entered through, crouch low into a defensive position, and aim my gun at the staircase leading up here from the floor below.
There may be other ways up, there may be elevators, hell, there could even be fucking ladders and walkways, but I’m not the architect who designed this torture pit, I’m just a former law enforcement officer who lost her heart to a criminal and didn’t bother scouting the entire building before jumping in here to save the man’s life.
I hear one set of footsteps coming up the staircase. The other set… has disappeared.
Fuck, there must be another way up.
A rattling at the door to my left draws my attention.
The rattle turns to a heavy kick, and the door flies open before I can aim.
I scream — not in fear, but in rage — and lunge toward the son of a bitch, anyway.
His gun is ready, aimed, there’s a smile on his face as he gloats at me, knowing that he’s got the advantage and with a simple crook of his finger he can paint the walls with my blood.
His head explodes.
Bone sprays, flesh and blood, and he crumples to the ground just as I register the sound of the shot and see a moving shadow — the marine — leap in through the window behind me.
“You didn’t wait for me before you started the fun, Adriana,” he says.
“Thanks, Marine,” I say.
“You do know my name, right?”
“Yes, but there’s no more time to fuck around. We have to save Reaper,” I say over my shoulder, turning and firing several shots at the opening of the staircase and sending those ascending footfalls diving for cover.
“How many are there?”
“Two more at least, plus Volkov. Ruslan's wounded but still mobile. He's the priority target."
"Negative. Getting your boy out alive is the priority."
“I… thank you, Conrad.”
“Less chatting, more doing our damn jobs. Come on, let’s go.”
With a gesture, I send him cutting to the right to look for another way down, and I head to the top of the stairwell. I have to cut through these Russians. I have to get to Reaper. I have to save him.
Several bullets flying up the stairwell cut my progress short, and I drop into a combat position.
I count three seconds between shots, then lean out just far enough to return fire.
The muzzle flash illuminates a figure pressed against the wall halfway down the stairs.
I squeeze off two rounds and hear a grunt, then the heavy thud of a body tumbling down concrete steps.
"One down," I call to Conrad, who's disappeared through what looks like a maintenance door.
My radio crackles — wait, I don't have a radio. The sound is coming from the dead bodyguard back in the office. I strain my ears; Russian voices, urgent and angry. I can't make out the words, but the tone is clear enough — they're regrouping.
I need to get to Reaper now, before they bring in reinforcements or decide to finish him rather than risk losing him to rescue. The thought sends ice through my veins. If I'm too late, if my hesitation with Volkov cost Reaper his life...
No. Focus. Move.
I sprint toward the torture chamber, keeping low and sweeping left to right with my weapon. The fluorescent lights flicker overhead, casting everything in stuttering shadows that make it hard to distinguish between debris and threats.
Reaper hasn't moved. The pool of blood beneath him seems larger now, darker. His chest rises and falls in shallow, irregular breaths that make my heart clench.
"Reaper?" I whisper, dropping to one knee beside him while keeping my gun trained on the doorways. "Can you hear me?"
His eyes flutter open, unfocused and glassy with pain. When he sees me, something shifts in his expression — surprise, maybe relief, maybe just delirium.
"Adriana," he whispers, his voice barely audible. "You came back."
"I never left," which is close enough to the truth that I feel comfortable saying it to a man who might be — no, he can’t be — dying. “I went to get drunk. Real drunk. Saw what happened on the news and decided…”
“That if anyone was going to kill me, it’d be you?”
“That maybe I made a mistake. Just like maybe you made a mistake way back when. And maybe… maybe there’s still hope.”
A crash echoes from somewhere deeper in the building. Conrad's found trouble, or trouble's found him.
Reaper slumps in his chair as whatever adrenaline is animating his bleeding body fades.
“If you two insist on whispering sweet nothings to each other while Reaper dies, fine, that’s your fucking choice and I hope he dies happy, but can you at least let me out of here so I can kill a few Russian motherfuckers before I die?” Tank growls as he tugs at the chains binding him.
“Fine. Where are the keys?”
“Volkov has them.”
“Fine. Cover your eyes and ears. I’ll use my own key,” I say, then I aim at the spot on the wall where the chains meet a steel bolt. With a pull of the trigger and five heavy recoils later, and a grumbling, grumpy Tank shakes off his chains and steps away from the wall.
“Still cuffed, but it’s better than fucking nothing. At least I won’t die like some chained-up animal…”
I’m sure there’s more to his diatribe, but a wild spray of bullets cuts him short, and I turn to see Volkov, submachine gun in his off hand, firing like a fucking windmill.
Screaming, I shove over the metal chair that Reaper is chained to, sending the both of us sprawling for cover into the lake of blood.
Volkov’s voice is a vile, vicious scream. “You will not take this from me. His life is mine. His death is mine.”
He staggers and screams like a maniac, firing a cloud of bullets with indiscriminate, incoherent rage.
“You motherfucker,” Tank roars, charging. Volkov whirls and aims.
A puff of blood erupts from his shoulder — a grazing shot that a split-second earlier would’ve been through the back of Volkov’s head — and he screams like a man possessed. My eyes track the shot upwards to see Conrad, who winks at me.
Tank hits him like a freight train being driven by an enraged gorilla.
They collide in a symphony of violence that sends Volkov's submachine gun spinning across the blood-slicked floor.
Tank's momentum carries them both backward, but Volkov is wiry and desperate, twisting like a wounded snake in Tank's grip.
His mangled wrist sprays blood as he claws at Tank's face with his remaining fingers.
I struggle to untangle myself from Reaper's chair, my hands slipping in his blood as I try to get a clear shot. The two men are locked together, rolling and grappling, and I can't risk hitting Tank.
“Hold on. Don’t die on me. I love you. I need you to live…” I beg Reaper as I get to my feet, steadying my grip on the rifle.
Something that might be an acknowledgement comes from him. That, or it’s a death-rattle. I pray it’s not the latter.
"This is for every fucking person you've tortured in this room," Tank snarls, his cuffed hands finding Volkov's throat. “And this is for my brother. Reaper. Ricky fucking DeMarco, you sick, soulless piece of shit.”
Volkov’s eyes bulge as Tank’s grip tightens on his throat. Veins pop in his eyes, turning them a sick red. Spittle and blood drip from his mouth, and the stub that used to be his hand fruitlessly flails at Tank’s face.
But his other hand?
It’s edging slowly toward his back pocket. In a snakelike gesture, it dips into his pocket and whips out in a sinister arc to bury a knife in Tank’s belly.
Tank bellows and releases his grip, falling backwards. Volkov grins.
Then his eyes meet mine. Just as I raise my gun. Those red orbs go so wide it’s a wonder they don’t fall out of his skull.
“No,” he whispers.
“It’s over, motherfucker.”
One exhale.
One pull of the trigger.
One bullet splinters apart his skull like a watermelon meeting a sledgehammer.
But one is not enough.
I pull the trigger again. And again. Sending bullet after bullet into his head, his torso, his groin, every part of the monster that I can hit before what remains of his body hits the ground.
Then I turn to Reaper.
He’s still.
Blue-gray.
I wail wordlessly and run to his side, Tank running alongside me, the knife still buried in his gut.
“Wake up, brother,” he says as he kneels beside Reaper’s body. “You can’t die on me. You can’t.”
“Please,” I whisper. “I need you. I love you.”
I press my fingers to his blood-slicked neck to check for a pulse.
I feel nothing.
The gunfire from outside cuts off abruptly, replaced by the distant wail of sirens growing louder by the second. My hands shake as I press harder against Reaper's neck, searching for any sign of life.
"Move," Conrad's voice cuts through my panic as he drops beside me. His fingers find the spot on Reaper's throat that mine just abandoned. For several agonizing seconds, he's silent, his face a mask of concentration.
"There," he says finally. "It's weak as hell, but it's there."
Relief floods through me so suddenly I nearly collapse. "Thank God. Thank fucking God."
Heavy footsteps thunder down the stairs, and Mayhem bursts into the room, his mohawk disheveled and his clothes splattered with blood that isn't his own. Diesel follows close behind, both of them breathing hard.
"Cops are maybe three minutes out," Mayhem announces, his usual manic energy replaced by grim efficiency. "Probably FBI too, judging by the radio chatter I picked up. We need to move. Now."
"We can't move him," I snap, my protective instincts flaring. "He needs medical attention. Real medical attention. The ambulances will be with the police—"
"And we'll all be in federal prison," Tank interrupts, still clutching the knife in his abdomen. "You don't understand what kind of heat this brings down. The torture room, the bodies, the weapons—there's no talking our way out of this kind of trouble."
I shake my head violently. "I don't care about that. He's dying. The only way to save him is to stay here and wait for the paramedics."
"You don't have a choice," Tank says, his voice carrying a finality that makes my blood run cold. His eyes run me over, flattening me beneath their weight and power, allowing me only a second of a breather as he kneels beside Volkov’s body, takes the keys from his pocket, and unlocks himself. “You’re coming with us.”
Before I can react, Mayhem moves like lightning, ripping my gun from my hands with practiced ease. "Sorry, sweetheart."
“What the hell are you — "
Strong hands grab my shoulders and yank me backward. Diesel's arms wrap around me as he forces my hands behind my back. The cold bite of metal handcuffs clicks around my wrists before I can even struggle.
"Let me go!" I scream, thrashing against his grip. "You can't do this! He'll die without medical attention!"
"He'll die in a federal prison if we all get arrested," Diesel says quietly, his voice heavy with regret but unwavering in conviction.
“You selfish fucking cowards. Leave me here with him. You go, I’ll say, just put him down and let me stay with him…”
Tank draws a gun and presses the cold steel to my forehead.
His voice is cold, level, a promise. “I lied when I said you didn’t have a choice.
You can shut your mouth and come with us and live, or you can keep screaming and struggling and I’ll put a bullet in your head.
I have no loyalty to you, Adriana. None.
And I refuse to let my brother die here or in federal custody, so the choice is yours. What will it be?”
I close my mouth and nod as tears fall down my cheeks.