Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
THE VILLA
The metal chair screeched across the stone floor as Dante’s body jolted under the sound. Krueger stood over him, a length of rebar in hand, its rust-dark surface already smeared with someone else’s dried blood.
“Still breathing?” He tilted his head like he was studying a specimen. “Olivetti, you people always think pain is a test. Something to out-stare.” His smile sharpened. “It isn’t.”
A guard twisted Dante’s arms tighter against the restraints. Another hauled his head back by his hair. Dante spat blood to the side, refusing to give Krueger the satisfaction of seeing him choke on it.
Krueger stepped in close, his breath hot against Dante’s cheek. “You know what I love about you? You walked into my desert thinking you could change the ending.”
The rebar came down again hard into Dante’s right side. Stars burst behind his eyes, but he didn’t make a sound. His breaths came shallow and controlled.
Krueger’s lip curled. “Nothing? Not even a grunt? Cute.” He took the rebar back, resting it on his shoulder. “You know, I’ve spent four years thinking about your little girlfriend,” he said conversationally.
Dante’s jaw locked. Every muscle in his body went taut.
Krueger saw it and smiled like he’d been waiting for exactly that. “There it is. The nerve.”
He motioned to a guard. The man stepped forward with a heated rod, its tip glowing faint orange.
Dante tensed. He couldn’t stop it, but he didn’t look away. He didn’t plead. He didn’t give Krueger the slightest crack.
The guard pressed the rod against the edge of Dante’s ribs. A hiss, a guttural breath punched out of him, more animal than human, but still not a scream.
Krueger crouched beside him, voice poisonous. “See, that’s what I find delightful. You’re trying so hard to stay whole.” He tapped Dante’s cheek with the rebar. “But everybody breaks. Even you.”
Dante’s vision blurred at the edges. Sweat stung his eyes. His pulse thundered against the restraints. He forced his focus somewhere else.
It was inside the executive suite, long eyelashes in the glow of the morning light, Shannon’s hand gripping his shirt and her soft lips against his. The sound of her quiet laugh. Her breath on his shoulder. Hold. Hold. Don’t give him a damn thing.
Krueger rose, satisfied with the pain he’d carved into the room. “Not invincible anymore, are we?” He stepped away. “Don’t worry. We’re just getting started.”
SCRUBLAND
Night bled across the dunes as Bravo Team moved in staggered formation through the ravine, NVGs glowing faint green. Dust still hung in the air from the earlier blast, drifting in slow spirals through the twisted rocks.
Ford was out front with Sean Paulsen, breathing hard, every step a fight not to break formation and sprint blindly ahead. They were heading toward a villa in the distance.
“Heat signatures?” Paulsen asked.
“None,” Sabra answered over comms. “But we’ve got tracks.”
They came to the narrow choke point where the pass had collapsed. And stopped dead. The ground told the story.
There was scattered blood, boot prints from multiple fighters, and scuff marks from someone being dragged forcibly across stone. And on the ledge, Ford saw it: a stark handprint. A scar in the palm. Dante’s.
“Jesus,” Buck whispered behind him. “They dragged him out of here.”
Sean crouched. “Direction?”
Friend swept a light, scanning the disturbed sand. “North. Toward the wadis. That’s a Krueger corridor.”
Ford’s chest tightened, pressure rising like a vise. His head pounded from the RPG blast.
Sabra said it, her voice low, sickened, “Ford… you need to see this.”
He moved before she finished speaking, boots slipping on loose rock. She reached into a crevice and pulled out a half-buried glob of yellow tape, a hazard symbol etched on it. A radiation warning label.
Ford stared at it. He knew exactly what it meant. “There’s another device.”
Sean swore under his breath. “Dante was trying to signal us before they moved it.”
Ford swallowed hard, fighting the punch of guilt.
“If they moved another nuke through here…” Buck started.
“Then Krueger isn’t running one deal,” Ford finished. “He’s running multiple.”
Sean stepped back from the prints, jaw clenched. “We’ve got a location. Villa complex north ridge. Five klicks out. Too fortified for Bravo to take alone.”
“That villa is part of Khalil’s wife’s dowry,” Ford panted.
“That’s where we head. Everyone drink some water and eat a protein bar,” Sabra said.
Ford spun toward her. “We need to go. Now.”
Paulsen caught his arm. “No. We wait for Crescent 1. Nine operators can’t take that villa alone.”
Ford tried to yank free, but Sean didn’t let him. “We charge that villa alone, we die, you die. Dante dies. We lose another nuke. We lose everything.”
Ford’s breathing fractured. “He bought us time. He saved us. And they’re likely beating him to death right now.”
Sean lowered his voice, steady but heavy. “I know. I know, Ford. But we don’t lose him by impatience.”
Ford’s hands shook as Red scanned the perimeter. “Crescent 1 is four hours out. We dig in. Watch the villa. No one leaves without us knowing.”
Ford stared northward, the direction Dante was dragged, until his vision blurred around the edges. He whispered, more promise than prayer, “Hold on, brother. Just hold on.”
Behind him, Bravo fanned out into defensive positions and moved toward the villa.
THE VILLA
The chains were unhooked from the overhead beam, and for a moment, Dante thought he might fall.
But the guards were there, their grips like iron clamps on his biceps, holding him upright.
His legs, useless and trembling, buckled beneath him.
They didn't let him fall. They dragged him, his boots scraping a pathetic trail in the sand and grime toward the center of the room.
A heavy wooden table had been brought in, stained dark with things Dante didn't want to imagine.
They forced him down onto his back, the impact sending a fresh starburst of pain through his broken ribs.
One guard pressed a knee into his sternum, driving the air from his lungs while the other strapped his wrists to the table legs.
They then lifted his legs, folding them back and securing his ankles to the same restraints, leaving him arched and helpless.
Krueger watched it all with the detached interest of a scientist observing an insect. He held something in his hand. A towel. It was coarse, military-issue, and clean. That was somehow the most terrifying part.
"You know, Dante," Krueger said, his tone chatty as he unfolded the towel, "the body is a remarkable thing. It will do anything to breathe. It will betray the mind, the heart, the soul. All for a single, desperate gasp of air."
He moved to Dante's head, his shadow falling over his face. Dante’s breathing was already coming in ragged, shallow pants, his heart fluttering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
Krueger draped the towel over Dante’s face. It was rough against his skin and smelled of bleach. It blocked out the meager light, plunging him into a suffocating, fabric-lined darkness. Panic began to coil in his gut.
"This isn't about pain," Krueger's voice continued, muffled now. "Pain, you can fight. This is about instinct. This is about drowning on dry land."
Dante heard the metallic scrape of a bucket being picked up. He braced himself, tensing every muscle, but nothing could have prepared him for the reality.
The water didn't just hit. It poured. A steady, relentless stream cascaded onto the towel, and instantly, the fabric became a seal.
The water soaked through, cold and shocking, and then it was in his nose, his mouth, pouring down his throat.
His body seized, a violent, convulsive rejection.
His lungs screamed, burning for air that wasn't there. He was drowning.
The instinct to survive was overwhelming. His back arched off the table, straining against the straps with a force that threatened to tear his muscles from their bones. His head thrashed from side to side, but a guard's hand clamped on his forehead, holding him immobile.
Bubbles erupted from his lips, frantic, useless pleas for mercy that wasn't coming. His mind, a fortress of discipline and training, shattered. There was only the water, the pressure in his chest, and the blackness pressing in from all sides.
Just as his consciousness began to fray, the flow stopped. The towel was ripped away.
Air.
He sucked in a huge, shuddering, desperate breath, followed by another and another, each one a searing agony as his broken ribs protested. He coughed, a violent, hacking spasm that expelled water and bile down his chin. He was gasping, sobbing, and utterly broken.
Krueger’s face swam into view, hovering over him, his expression one of mild curiosity. "See? Your body wants to live. It wants to tell me everything. Just let it."
Dante could only shake his head, his body racked with tremors.
"Where is Ford? Where did he take my nuke?" Krueger asked, his voice still gentle.
Dante tried to form the words, to spit in defiance, but only a choked, gurgling sound came out.
Krueger sighed. "A shame."
The towel came down again.
This time, the panic was instant. The moment the towel hit, his body was already fighting, already convulsing.
It was worse. He knew what was coming. He knew the depth of the terror and the absolute helplessness.
His consciousness flickered. He was going to die here.
Like this. Choking on a table in a dark hole.
And then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped. The towel was gone. Air flooded his lungs, so sweet and pure—a form of torture in itself. He lay there, shivering—a pathetic, drowned thing, his mind a blank slate of terror.
Krueger crouched beside him again, patting Dante's wet cheek with an almost paternal gesture. "I can do this all day, but I think we've made our point. You understand the stakes now."