20. DANTE #3
Two are posted like statues, flanking the reinforced metal door in the middle of the hall.
Impossible to get behind them. Further ahead, at the end of the dead-end corridor, a third guard watches the entire hall.
The fourth, and most dangerous, is a patrolman who paces back and forth too close to our position, impatient, breaking discipline.
My blood boils. They are protecting the man who's in there so they can hurt him.
Their formation is defensive. Suicidal for a frontal assault. Attacking one alerts the others.
I turn to Sal. I grab the front of his shirt and pull him close, far enough from the corridor that the guards won't hear the communication.
"You're going to walk to that intersection," I order Sal. "Does the patrolling guard know you?"
"Y-yes, that's Misha..." he stammers.
"Good," I cut him off. "You're going to call Misha over.
Discreetly. You'll go with him down the north corridor.
You'll say you have something urgent to show him, away from the main door.
" I squeeze tighter. "If he doesn't follow you, you die here.
If you scream, you die. If they suspect something and shoot you, we'll use you as a shield. Do you understand your options?"
He nods frantically with tears in his eyes.
I let him go. "Go."
Sal stumbles forward, straightening his rumpled clothes, trying to look minimally normal. He hides his broken finger in his sleeve and walks. He reaches the intersection, stops, and looks at the patrolman.
"Misha," he calls out. "I need to talk to you."
The patrolman stops. He sees Sal and frowns. Sal gestures with his head toward the north corridor.
"It's important. About the Volkovs."
It works. The curiosity and urgency of the name Volkov is the perfect bait, paired with the obvious, latent fear on Sal's face.
It looks like he's about to report an invasion.
Misha starts walking towards Sal. The guard on the right of the door hesitates for a second, looks at his partner, and then decides to follow Misha to see what's happening.
Perfect. Their formation is broken. Sal turns north, with two guards now having their backs to us, who have taken cover behind stacked crates. The other two remain at their posts, but their attention is divided, looking to where their partners have gone.
It's the window of opportunity.
I give the signal.
Yury and Abram have a clean line of sight to the backs of the two guards who followed Sal. Two silenced pistols fire as one. The two men fall forward, dead before they hit the ground.
At the exact instant of the shots, Luca and I run the meters that separate us from the main door.
I reach the guard on the left before he can properly aim his weapon.
I push the muzzle upwards and slice his throat.
He doesn't have time to process. Beside me, Luca reaches his target and neutralizes him with the same efficiency.
The corridor is clear. Four bodies on the ground. And our rat, terrified, is being dragged back to us by Abram, his face pale and covered in a cold sweat.
Finally. No more games. No more tactics.
I walk down the corridor. I stop in front of the reinforced metal door. I signal to Yury and Abram to hold their position at the end of the hall, while Luca and I deal with the door locks.
A murmur leaks from inside. Muffled voices talking, one of them coarse and angry. Impossible to know how many are in there if someone is silent. Going in blind is suicide. Nyx could be used as a shield.
I signal to Luca. He understands immediately. From his tactical leg bag, he pulls out a thin, flexible cable with a micro-lens at the tip, connected to a small handheld monitor. A fiber-optic camera.
Luca carefully slides the tip of the camera through the minimal gap under the door. He hands me the monitor.
The image appears, grainy in a night-vision green hue. And my stomach clenches.
Nyx is there. Tied to a metal chair in the center of the room. His face is swollen, with dried blood at the corner of his mouth. But he's sitting up straight, his chin lifted in a silent challenge I know all too well.
There are two guards in the room with him. One is sitting on a crate, cleaning a pistol, bored. The other is a restless brute. He looks furious. He's letting himself be provoked by Nyx—it's obvious from Nyx's victorious, crooked smile.
The brute stops in front of Nyx, leaning in until their faces are inches apart. Luca positions himself to, in the worst-case scenario, blow this fucking door off its hinges.
I press my ear against the metal.
"... that arrogant little whore face of yours... before Ivan breaks you in half, you're fucked with me. Every hole serves the same purpose ."
Hole . The word reverberates in my head.
Then, I hear the other guard's voice. Laughing.
"... everyone's gonna get a chance with that one. We'll form a line ."
I step back from the door. When Luca sees my face, his professional expression turns to alarm.
"Sir?" he whispers.
I give the signal. Me first.
He nods, his jaw tight.
Luca kneels and pulls a short-barreled shotgun from its holster, a breaching tool. He gets in position, rests the muzzle of the gun over the metal lock. I nod. He fires.
Two dry cracks—metal breaking. The lock and hinges fly into the room, shattered.
Before the dust settles, I kick what's left of the door. It swings open with a bang.
The two guards, stunned by the sudden, violent noise, barely have time to raise their weapons. The one sitting on the crate is hit by two bullets to the chest—he falls backward, dead before he can raise his gun.
But I don't care about him. My target is the other one.
The brute, stepping away from Nyx, faces me. Everything else is wiped from my vision. A blur.
I don't register much. His gun flies from his hand, and a breaking noise cracks against the wall.
Some bone, from the impact. It was me who pushed him.
I punch him. It's not a lucid choice. His voice echoes in the corners of my mind.
Arrogant little whore . I don't know what they did to Nyx while I wasn't here.
I haven't examined him. I haven't seen the state of his clothes, his injuries.
He was smiling. But that means nothing with him.
He's not afraid of a fucking thing. I punch.
Once, twice, three times. The bone in his nose gives way under my knuckles.
His sclera turn red with blood. Did he touch Nyx?
With that filthy mouth ? Reducing him to a hole .
I grab his throat. I force his head against the wall.
I hear a high-pitched ringing. Is it him?
Screaming? He should be. I squeeze. I want him to suffer.
I want him to regret every second of his miserable existence.
My knife. I don't know when I unsheathed it. I grab it. This blade is powder-forged with a convex edge. Always a clean entry. It sinks in. I pull my arm up. Squeeze. The blade rises.
His red-sclera eyes stare at me. Filthy eyes.
Every hole serves the same purpose . He said that.
The blade comes out. I use it again. I'm still squeezing his neck.
Something pops. I stab him. Again, again, again.
His eyes distort. I didn't follow. I didn't see everything they did to him. But they were going to hurt him. More .
I can't tell when the knife stops cutting. Everything is covered in red. The ringing that blocked out all the sounds around me slowly fades. I hear noises.
I let his body go. It slides down the wall to the floor. I can see his intestines. But I can't see a face.
There are more sounds. I blink and my vision clears. I see a room. A chair.
And him.
Yes . He's alive. His hands and feet are tied, but he's alive .
I approach. Nyx .
He saw this. He saw this fucking loss of control.
Fuck it. The thought is automatic. It means nothing . I'm still holding the knife, the blade covered in blood. My hands are soaked, viscous. The ebony handle has turned red. Fuck it.
I ignore the heat rising up my neck. I approach him, kneel before his chair.
I reach my hands behind him. The same bloody blade frees the cords on his wrists.
I untie his feet. I hesitate before looking at him.
This ugly, animalistic carnage doesn't align with the control I project for him.
I shouldn't have let him see this, the opened remains of a thug for talking shit.
His face. I avoid his eyes. I see bruises. The bridge of his nose, crooked. His lips are cut, his temple swollen. One of his sclera has a red blotch. He was beaten. The bastards put their hands on him.
I touch his face. I try to wipe away the dried blood from the corner of his lips, but my thumb only leaves a smear of fresh blood.
"They hurt you," I say. My voice comes out harsher than I wanted, and I'm holding his face too tightly. An automatic impulse.
I feel his hands on my chest. Light. One of them slides up, up to my neck, his thumb brushing my jaw.
Fuck it. I meet his eyes.
There's no disgust there. No disinterest, no disappointment. There's reverence . Something feverish that looks far too much like idolatry. He looks at me like a lover.
He pushes himself forward. Devoted , he grabs my shirt and kisses me like he can't wait, like there's no one else in the room.
For an instant, I allow there to be no one else.
I hold his waist. I bring him close to me, fitting myself between his legs.
His body is a perfect fit against mine. I let the knife fall to hold him properly.
I'm still shaking, still holding him too tightly, and he melts, tangling his fingers in my hair, rolling his tongue against mine.
He touches all this blood. He gets dirty with me.
"They don't punch hard enough, mister," he whispers against my mouth.
It's almost a relief to hear that voice. I have the urge to laugh. I hadn't dared to think about never hearing it again, hadn't dared to think what that would be like.