41. Kanyan
41
KANYAN
T here’s a thundering ache in my head that feels like a freight train hit me. My skull is on fire, my vision blurry, and my ears ring with the echo of the explosion. I blink, trying to clear the haze, but it doesn't help. My body aches too, but I push that aside as I try to focus.
The heat is intense. I can feel it on my skin, even through the coldness of the stone under me. My arms tremble as I shift my weight, pushing against the debris, the smoke still swirling around me in thick, choking clouds. I cough, trying to clear my lungs.
“Kanyan.”
Brando's voice cuts through the fog, and I force myself to move, my hands slapping at the dirt and charred wood scattered across the floor. I hear footsteps, the crunch of boots on gravel, and then Brando’s face appears in my line of sight. His features are set in that calm, unflappable way of his, though his eyes are hard. There’s no time for emotion here.
“Get up. We need to move.”
I nod, grimacing as I push myself to my feet. The headache claws at me, and I stumble a bit, but I force myself to stand tall. No time to be weak.
I shake my head, trying to clear it further. My men. I need to find my men.
Brando looks me over for a moment, searching for something.
“How bad?” I ask, though I don’t expect an answer as I take a deep breath and scan the wreckage. The monastery has gone from a place of history to a place of destruction. The ceiling has caved in, parts of the stone walls shattered from the blast. I can’t even tell where the walls end and the rubble begins. The air is thick with the smell of smoke, burning metal, and something else… something that I don’t want to identify right now.
“We lost one.” Brando’s words cut through the noise, and I feel a sharp stab in my chest. One of my men. Gone.
I swallow the lump in my throat. There’s no time for grief. Not now. I’ll deal with it later.
“Seattle?”
“They’re clear. Come on.”
I look around, catching sight of the men that are still standing, a couple of them tending to the wounded. My gaze drifts back to Brando, and I nod once. We both know what we have to do.
“Kadri’s still here,” I tell him. “He didn’t bring us all this way just to kill a few of us. He’s got something else in mind.”
Brando doesn’t respond right away. His eyes narrow as he looks at the devastation around us. “He’ll want to finish what he started.”
I know the thought is shared. Kadri’s whole plan—his entire operation—has been a game of power, a twisted attempt to undermine everything we’ve built. His goal was to bring us here, lure us in with the promise of a rescue mission, only to use the chaos of the explosion to take us all down.
Kadri doesn’t make moves without a plan. And the truth is, he’s smart. He’s calculated. He wouldn’t blow up this place unless he had something else in mind, something bigger.
“We clear the building,” I tell Brando, my voice like gravel in my throat. “We find the rest of the crew, and we find Kadri.”
“I’ll take the left wing. You cover the right.” Brando offers. He doesn’t hesitate. He knows the way this goes.
I nod. He’s the strategist, the planner. I’m the muscle. But this isn’t just about muscle. This is about stopping Kadri before he gets his hands on more than just our men.
As we start moving, my body screams in protest. My legs ache, my head still feels like it’s about to split open. But I don’t stop. I push forward, the adrenaline driving me. My mind is focused only on one thing: Kadri. He’s the only thing that matters now. We need him alive to find the girls.
We move through the dark, abandoned halls of the monastery. The walls are cracked and crumbling from the explosion, and the whole place smells like fire and dust. The further we go, the more oppressive the air becomes. There’s something about this place—the way it feels like it’s watching us, waiting for us to slip up. Kadri won’t let us find him easily. But we’re not going to let him slip away either.
As we move deeper into the monastery, I can’t shake the feeling that Kadri is always one step ahead. I’ve fought men like him before—slick, manipulative, the kind who hide in the shadows and move only when it’s in their favor. But he’s underestimated us. He thinks that just because we’re hunting him, we’re blind to his game.
He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.
Brando pauses at the corner, signaling me to stop. We both listen intently. The only sound is the crackle of the comms and the distant rumble of what’s left of the explosion.
Then, faintly, we hear it—footsteps.
“Kadri.” I growl the name under my breath. He’s here. He’s in the monastery, and he’s playing his final card.
The silence is deafening, broken only by the sound of our footsteps.
My grip tightens on the gun, my finger hovering over the trigger.
The hall branches off in two directions. I go right, moving deeper into the shadows. My pulse pounds in my ears, each beat a reminder that one wrong move could end this in disaster.
The further I go, the more the monastery reveals its secrets. Empty pews. Broken candelabras. A staircase spiraling up into the darkness. I pause at the base, listening.
A faint noise.
It’s soft, almost imperceptible, but it’s there—a muffled thud from somewhere above. My heart clenches, the rage bubbling to the surface. He’s here.
I motion to the others, and we start the ascent. The stairs creak under our weight, each step a calculated risk. My body hums with tension, every muscle coiled and ready to strike.
At the top of the staircase, there’s a door. It’s slightly ajar, a thin line of light spilling through the crack. My blood runs hot, adrenaline surging as I press my back against the wall and nod to Mason.
He moves to the other side of the door, his gun raised.
I take a breath, steadying myself. And then I kick the door open.
It slams against the wall with a deafening crash, and we storm inside.
The room is stark—bare stone walls, a single table littered with papers and empty bottles. And there he is.
Kadri stands near the far wall, his back to us. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even turn around.
For a moment, the room is silent, the tension thick enough to choke on.
“Altin Kadri,” I say, my voice low and venomous.
He turns slowly, his face calm, almost amused. His hands are empty, but I don’t lower my gun. His eyes meet mine, and for a split second, I see it—the smirk he’s trying so hard to hide.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” he says, his voice dripping with false confidence.
I take a step forward, my gun trained on his chest. “You shouldn’t have touched what’s ours.”
His smirk falters, just for a second, and it’s all I need.
“Where are they?” I demand, my voice rising. The rage I’ve been holding back threatens to break free, my hands trembling with the effort it takes to stay in control.
Kadri doesn’t answer. He just stands there, his smirk sharpening like a blade meant to cut through my patience. The bastard thinks he has the upper hand, even now.
I glance at Mason, who edges closer to the wall, scanning the room for threats. Jayson’s behind me, his gun trained on Kadri, every muscle in his body locked and ready to fire.
I step forward. “Last chance, Kadri. Where are they?”
His smirk deepens. “Do you honestly think this ends with you walking out of here with them? You’ve come all this way just to leave in pieces. I’m impressed, really. But so predictable.”
Predictable.
The word burns in my ears.
Before I can move, the sound of a faint click reaches me. My body reacts faster than my brain—years of instinct pulling me into action. I grab Mason and shove him aside as the explosion rips through the far corner of the room. The force sends us sprawling, the heat of the blast licking at my face.
Dust and debris fill the air, choking the oxygen out of the room. My ears ring, my vision blurs, but my grip on the gun doesn’t waver. I scramble to my feet, coughing as I drag Mason up with me.
“Jayson!” I bark, spinning around. He’s against the wall, shaken but still standing, his gun up.
Kadri’s gone.
The son of a bitch had another trap waiting for us.
“Find him!” I roar, my voice cutting through the chaos.
The three of us fan out, but there’s no sign of Kadri in the room. My mind races as I scan the walls, the floor, the ceiling—there’s no way he slipped past us. No way he?—
And then I see it.
A sliver of movement. A section of the wall, barely noticeable in the dim light, shifts inward. A hidden passage.
“Over here!” I call out, sprinting toward it. Mason and Jayson are on my heels as we push through the narrow opening.
The air inside the passage is damp and stale, the stone walls pressing in on either side. It slopes downward, deeper into the belly of the monastery. The faint glow of a torch flickers ahead, casting Kadri’s shadow on the walls.
“Run all you want, Kadri!” I shout, my voice echoing off the stone. “There’s nowhere you can hide!”
We pick up speed, the passage twisting and turning like a snake. The walls seem to close in the deeper we go, the air growing colder, heavier.
And then we hear it.
A scream.
High-pitched, raw, and full of terror.
I freeze for half a second before the rage takes over. It’s one of them—it must be. Lula or Allegra. My heart pounds in my chest as I push forward, my legs burning with the effort. The scream comes again, louder this time, and I pick up the pace.
The passage opens into a cavernous room, dimly lit by flickering torches. Chains hang from the walls, their metal glinting in the firelight. The air smells of damp earth and iron.
And there, in the center of the room, is Kadri.
But he’s not alone.
There’s a woman slumped against a post, her wrists bound, her face hidden by a curtain of dark hair. My heart stops for a moment. Lula?
Before I can get closer, Kadri steps in front of her, holding a knife to her throat.
“Stop right there,” he snarls, his calm demeanor replaced by raw panic. “One more step, and I swear I’ll?—”
“Go ahead,” I interrupt, my voice cold as ice. “See how fast I make you regret it.”
Kadri’s eyes flicker, and for the first time, I see the cracks in his armor. He’s scared.
Good.
“I’ll kill her,” he spits, his hand shaking. “I’ll do it!”
I take another step forward, my gun trained on his head. “Do it, then. Let’s see how that works out for you when your brains are decorating this floor.”
He hesitates. That’s all I need.
With a quick nod to Mason, we split. Mason flanks left, Jayson right, while I keep Kadri’s attention on me. His eyes dart between us, his panic growing with every second.
And then, in a move I don’t see coming, he shifts. His knife slashes downward—not at the woman, but at the ropes binding her.
The moment she’s free, she bolts, and Kadri throws the knife straight at me.
I twist, the blade slicing through my coat but missing my skin. By the time I recover, Kadri’s already running toward another passage, disappearing into the shadows.
“Get him!” I roar, shoving past Mason to chase him.
But something stops me.
The woman.
She’s collapsed on the floor, trembling, her breaths coming in sharp, shallow gasps. Her face is streaked with dirt, her clothes torn. And when she looks up at me, it’s not Lula.
It’s someone else.
A stranger.
“What the hell?” Mason says, skidding to a stop beside me. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know,” I grit out, my mind racing.
Jayson catches up, glancing between us and the woman. “If she’s not Lula or Allegra, then who the hell is she?”
The woman stares at us, her eyes wide with terror. “He… he has more,” she whispers, her voice barely audible.
My stomach drops.
“What do you mean, ‘more’?” I demand, kneeling beside her.
She swallows hard, her whole body shaking. “He… he’s keeping them somewhere else. This… this isn’t the only place.”
The room seems to tilt, the weight of her words crashing down on me.
The girls could be anywhere.