Chapter 49 Antonio #3
“We meet at last,” I say, my voice soft, almost intimate in the grim space. I squat down in front of her, bringing my eyes level with hers. She tries to shrink back, but a guard’s hand on her shoulder holds her firm. “You have been a nuisance, but every nuisance has its price.”
My gaze flicks to the younger woman beside her.
She’s pretty enough; similar to Ines in the shape of the eyes, the set of the mouth, but it’s a crude imitation.
A cheap forgery. There’s a weakness in the chin, a vacuity in the eyes that Ines, for all her defiance, never had. A cousin, perhaps. Expendable.
Then I look at the man. Big, muscular, dressed in cheap tactical wear. His face is bruised, one eye swollen shut. A hired gun. A nobody. His presence here is an insult. Dead weight.
I rise to my full height, my joints cracking softly. The decision is instantaneous, effortless. A mere matter of logistics.
I turn to the guard nearest me and hold out my hand. Without a word, he places a pistol into my palm. The weight is both familiar and comforting, the cold metal is an extension of my will.
Behind me, I hear Grace’s sharp intake of breath. A tiny, muffled sound of protest which I ignore. My world has narrowed to this moment, to this man who is no longer of use.
The hired gun’s eyes bulge above his gag. He makes a frantic grunting noise, shaking his head, straining against his bonds. The stink of urine suddenly joins the metallic scent in the air.
I don’t hesitate, I don’t grandstand.
I raise the pistol and shoot him once, cleanly, in the head.
The sound is deafening in the enclosed space; a single, definitive crack that swallows all other sound. His body slumps forward, a sack of meat and bone now that his struggle has ended. Blood pools out quickly, filling the space around him and I take a step do he can’t ruin the leather of my boots.
A scream cuts the silence behind me. High-pitched, raw with shock. Grace.
The sound grates on my nerves, an unwelcome dissonance in my symphony of control.
I turn my head slowly and look at her over my shoulder. My expression is not one of anger, but of cold, utter finality. It is a look that has frozen the blood of men far harder than her. It is a command more potent than any shout.
You’d think she’d be more than comfortable with death after yesterday’s fun, but apparently not.
The scream dies in her throat, choked off into a sob. She clamps a hand over her mouth, her entire body shaking violently, tears streaming down her face. She understands the look immediately, hears my words even though I don’t speak them. Silence.
I turn back to my men, handing the pistol back. The lesson for Grace is administered. The cleanup begins.
“Package the women,” I order, my voice returning to its normal, dispassionate tone.
I gesture to the two kneeling figures. The aunt is catatonic, staring at the body beside her.
The younger one is weeping hysterically into her gag.
“Sedate them. Prepare them for transport. I want them in the car in five minutes.”
I don’t wait to see my orders carried out.
I am done in this damp, bloody hole. I turn on my heel and walk back to Grace.
She flinches as I approach, but she doesn’t run.
There is nowhere to run. I don’t touch her, I simply walk past her towards the stairs, expecting her to follow like the good little dog she is.
I hear her ragged breathing, the sound of her feet on the concrete as she scrambles to obey, to get away from the horror on the floor.
We ascend the stairs, leaving the basement and its consequences behind.
We walk back through the clinical kitchen, through the gallery of glass cells with their silent, watching inhabitants, through the steel door, and out into the shock of the grey afternoon light.
The cool air feels like a baptism. I inhale deeply, the scent of the countryside washing away the stench of blood, fear, and piss.
Finally, finally I have some good news for Konstantine. Finally, I can give him a little gift to sate his anger.
The SUV is waiting, its engine still running with the back door open.
“Get in,” I say, my voice flat.
She looks at me and for a fraction of a second, I see it in her eyes; a spark of something beyond fear. Defiance. A deep, fundamental horror that wants to rebel, to refuse to get back into the car with me, to somehow deny the reality of what just happened.
Her jaw tightens, and her hands clench at her sides. She looks like she is gathering the tattered remnants of her courage to say something, to do something.
I simply look back at her, because I don’t need to speak. My gaze holds the echo of the gunshot. It holds the image of the women in the cells, it holds the absolute certainty of my will.
I can pinpoint the exact moment the spark in her eyes dies. Extinguished by the overwhelming weight of her powerlessness.
Her shoulders slump. The fight, what little there was of it, drains out of her. She lowers her head, and climbs into the car without a word.
She has never looked more defeated. She has never looked more mine.
I slide in beside her, pulling the door shut. The interior is silent, tomb-like. The partition between us and the driver is up, granting us a privacy she undoubtedly wishes she didn’t have.
Then we hear it.
The heavy, solid thump from the rear of the vehicle. Then another. The sound of weight being loaded into the boot. A deadweight. And then, lighter, more careful thuds. Packages. Living, breathing packages, sedated and wrapped for transport.