Chapter 11
Louhi
My body’s warm despite the snow on the ground as I huddle against the brick wall of the building. Glancing at my watch, I adjust the hood of my jacket lower over my face with my gloved hand, my lips curling into a faint smile.
It was too easy to remotely hack Lenny Johnson’s bank records to find that he pays for a monthly membership at the gym a block away.
From there, it was child’s play to access the CCTV at the stoplight half a block from where I stand to find that he walks there every morning at five thirty-five, which is three minutes from now.
I’m practically bouncing on my toes with adrenaline—or maybe that’s the copious amounts of caffeine I guzzled at the twenty-four-hour coffee shop for the last few hours—when his shoes come into view. Like clockwork.
My arm darts out, and I yank him into the alley with me. He stumbles, but I have him shoved against the wall before he realizes what’s happening. Once his sleep-addled brain kicks on, he thrashes against me, but the cold edge of my knife pressed to his jugular vein has him going utterly still.
Lenny’s simply the last in a long line of targets I’ve eliminated over the last forty-eight hours.
He’s an unremarkable, rubbish mark, but he’ll serve his purpose just fine.
Honestly, I’d rather inflict a bit more violence, but this will suffice since I don’t have the time or space to draw things out the way I’d like right now.
This murder spree was only meant to take the edge off and clear my mind.
“P-Please,” he begins to beg, his skin ashen even in the nearly nil light. “I have m-money.”
Why do they always offer to pay before they die? I sigh. “I don’t want your money.” I don’t know why Conall wants him dead, nor do I care. It’s irrelevant.
I drag the edge of my knife across his neck, and his blood seeps out as though I’ve knocked over a can of crimson paint.
As he slumps to the dirty pile of snow on the ground, I grin broadly, and calm trickles back into my veins as though I’ve been hooked up to an intravenous drip.
This kill was messy. I’m drenched in blood, and I have to wipe my face on the inside of my black hood, but it was entirely worth the hassle.
Luckily, my black clothing hides the evidence.
I snap a picture of the sod on my burner phone. Later, I’ll upload it to the job posting for kuoleman jumalatar as proof for Conall. He’d take me at my word, but this is how I run my business.
Abandoning the man, I stride out of the alley, ducking onto the street at the other end, ensuring that the hood is still pulled low over my smiling face.
My black combat boots are silent as I stalk through the subterranean corridor that’s made entirely of too much bloody concrete. I never wanted to see this much cement again. Alas, I’m not that lucky.
I’m feeling more like myself now that I have a handful of showers and a half-dozen murders behind me.
The fact that we leave for Hawai’i tomorrow morning helps, too.
It’s been five full days without Sean, and it’ll be another day and a half before I can lay eyes on him again.
While I’m not happy about how long we’ve been apart, it was necessary to arrange things.
According to Viktor, the world-renowned arms dealer, it apparently takes time to gather everything needed for us to feed the mythological sea monster, Iku-Turso, a snack.
Surely, offering nearly a remote island’s worth of inhabitants would satisfy both him and N?kki, the malevolent water goddess, so they won’t be tempted to damage our boats.
I’m humming the tune to a song by Swallow The Sun, one of my favorite Finnish metal bands, as I flounce into the armory.
“What’re you singing?” Sasha asks, at the same time Viktor snaps, “Where the fuck have you been?”
I answer the better question. “‘Moonflowers Bloom in Misery.’ Do you know how much music I have to catch up on now that I’m out of prison?”
“Where have you been, Louhi?” Viktor repeats sternly, interrupting the more interesting conversation.
With the door to the hallway open, there’s a faint popping sound that echoes through the thick concrete corridor, presumably coming from Conall’s indoor gun range.
“Mellowing out.” It worked, too. Mostly.
He narrows his blue eyes. “For two days?”
I shrug. “It took me a bit to…compose myself.”
“When’s the last time you slept?” Viktor asks.
“Who says I haven’t?” I deflect, stepping over to one of the metal shelves containing various grenades. I’ve snagged a few hours of sleep here and there, but every time I close my eyes, I see Sean being hauled away from me. “I’ll sleep on the plane. It’s a twelve-hour flight, anyway.”
I pick up a golf ball grenade and snort. This one looks more like an actual golf ball than the others I’ve seen. It must have come from Viktor; although, it’s clearly Conall’s now.
Viktor’s been arming me for years. His goods are the best, which is the only reason I’ve been exercising as much patience as I possess while I wait for him to get all our weaponry in order this week.
“How do you sleep before a fight?” Viktor asks.
“The same way I slept through death metal blasting through a cell block.” I crane my neck in his direction and wink. “Grit.”
One of Viktor’s wolfdogs nudges its head against my thigh, and I reach down and scratch her behind the ear. I’d love to see these beasts rip apart the flesh of the men that have Sean in their clutches, but they’ll be safer on the plane.
“Let’s go over the plan now that we’re all together,” Sasha suggests.
I hop onto the metal counter. “There’s nothing to discuss. I get in, grab the boys, get out. Then, we watch the island blow up from a safe distance like the best fireworks display to ever go off.”
Sasha frowns. Vik inclines his head and replies, “You do realize that we can’t explode the island, right?”
“Why not?” I sit up straighter, my eyes going wide with horror. “Don’t tell me you didn’t bring C-4.”
“Louhi, destroying an entire island would require an incredible number of explosives. More than we could realistically smuggle into that place.”
I huff, pursing my lips. “That’s lame. At least let me blow up something.”
“And here I thought you were into poisons these days.”
I grin. “I’m into everything, Viktor.”
Sasha rolls out the map I helped Viktor draw of Exile Island—at least the parts I saw. “Can we get back on topic now?”
Sasha starts pointing out the drop sites and logistical blind spots.
“There’s a chance they’ve brought in more soldiers after we escaped,” I mention once we solidify the first part of the plan.
“It’s a risk, but it’s hardly the only one.” That’s comforting, Vik. “I think the most dangerous part of this is what happens after the three of you leave the walls of the prison.”
I think for a moment, considering the various options and vulnerabilities. “What about a bazooka? That could help mitigate the potential firefight.”
“Christ, Louhi,” Sasha mutters. “Are you thinking you’re going to bring a rocket launcher with you?”
“I see no flaws with that.”
Viktor quirks an eyebrow. “How many weapons are you planning to transport? And what if Kazi or Digs are in bad shape and you have to carry them?”
Perkele. If I had to toss Sean over my shoulder, that’d be incredibly unfortunate, but I think it’s possible. Maybe. Okay, probably not. Kazi, on the other hand… Impossible.
I sigh. “Fine, then you bring the bazooka.”
Viktor pinches the bridge of his nose. “We don’t have a goddamn bazooka with us. We won’t need one if we go about this the right way.”
We spend nearly an hour fine-tuning the plan. When we finish, I pick up a modified Taurus G2C that Sasha brought. If I was going to carry a fucking Taurus—and I wouldn’t—I’d choose a G3C.
Mercer didn’t come for me; abandoned me after throwing me into the pits of Hell. Why? I was rotting in prison, suffering every bloody day, while he was what: reclining on a beach, sipping strawberry daiquiris while exotic women slather him in tanning oil? Surely not.
He never would have left me to die there without a good bloody reason.