Chapter 18
Sevastyan
The first thing I do is pull Victor behind the kitchen island, because if someone’s entered the house, they might shoot first, ask questions second.
My fingers find the button opening the secret compartment next to the drawer filled with bowls and cooking utensils.
I fish out the new addition, a dark blue tracksuit set, and throw it at Victor while pulling on my own clothes.
The hideout also contains a Glock, and a sharp dagger, as well as a small touchscreen connected to the security system.
Every second counts, because if there are intruders, all the traps need to be armed immediately.
I press the right button even before checking the system and camera feeds, and a croaking shout comes from deep inside the house a moment later.
The floor opens under one of the men I can finally see in the black-and-white image on the device in my hand.
His companions scatter, two progressing deeper into my home, while one stays behind, as if uncertain his buddy, skewered on several spikes of stainless steel, can survive such an ordeal .
I suppose he could. If anyone bothered to call the medics now. Which I won’t, and neither will that bastard’s so-called friends.
“Seva. What’s happening?” Victor whispers, his voice trembling as he tries to look over my shoulder, already dressed.
If it was only me, I’d already be up and on the move, to make sure the traps are enough, that no one’s hiding in a blind spot or has disabled a camera, but Victor is here with me.
I might have showed him a few self-defence moves, but that’ll hardly save him if he comes face-to-face with a trained killer.
His safety must be my priority, even if it means revealing the location of the panic room.
I’m about to drag him to the studio, but my cameras don’t lie. The bastards who’ve come after me today are progressing through the corridors fast, as if they’re familiar with the blueprint of my home, and unless I go now, I might find myself at a disadvantage.
A deep breath.
“Don’t come out before I say so,” I tell Victor, then pull on the edge of the open compartment in the kitchen island, revealing an emergency hideout in the very middle.
It’s cramped, and doesn’t provide any food or water, but it should be sufficient to keep him safe for the next thirty minutes. “Get in.”
Victor stares at me and I’m already getting frustrated by the potential defiance spurred on by our argument. There is no time for it.
“Please. Let me come with you. They won’t expect me,” he whispers and grabs my hand, but my will is steel.
“Worrying about you will put me in danger. Please, get in.”
This time, he doesn’t argue but still gives me a quick kiss before crawling into the empty space. “Stay safe,” he says right before I lock the little door behind him and pull out the handle, in case someone actually searches here. I can open it for him remotely if push comes to shove.
As long as Victor stays quiet, there’s little chance of him being discovered here any time soon, and if things go my way, I shouldn’t need that much time.
One glance at the camera feed in my hand reveals that three invaders are left standing, but if they think knowing the plans of the house can make their job easy, they have another thing coming.
I’ve had a lot of time on my hands since moving in here, and many home improvement ideas too.
It’s their loss that in my case that phrase usually refers to deadly traps like the one that’s already claimed the life of intruder number four.
They’re all upstairs, and if I’m to keep them from reaching the kitchen, I need to act fast.
My bare feet roll over the cool floor soundlessly. Each step brings my heart rate higher, awakening my senses. I’m an artist in more ways than one, and by the time I open the fake wall hiding the ladder that will take me to the hunting ground, I’m ready to create my next work in blood.
The tunnel leading upstairs can barely accommodate someone of my size, but this isn’t my first rodeo.
I flatten myself against the ladder, then dash between concrete slabs making up the skeleton of my house.
It’s dark, and I sense a spiderweb with the tips of my fingers, but I keep moving, all the way to the ledge leading to the exit.
A voice comes from beyond the wall, and a part of me wants to go after the bastards who blew up my front door. They don’t deserve quick, quiet deaths, but does my need for revenge matter right now?
The pair of assassins who chose to move together have wandered too far away from all my traps, but that’s nothing that can’t be fixed.
One swipe of my finger puts in motion a wall, which will cut off their current route and force them to return where I can dispose of them more efficiently.
As for the third invader... she appears to have just passed my current hideout.
Sweat beads over my lips as I unlatch the exit, peeking out in time to see her stop, uncertain which direction to take.
She’s a couple of paces away and would have heard me if it wasn’t for the balaclava on her head. Her loss.
She stiffens, reaching for the gun holstered at her belt as I reach for her, but it’s too late.
My dagger slices through her neck, cutting open the arteries.
She tries to fight for her life, like an animal struggling against the hold of a boa constrictor, but all she achieves is spraying her blood on the walls.
Seconds later, she lies still, and I move on, hurrying downstairs, because the two men have already descended the staircase.
I could return to the shaft and go back the way I came, but that might take too long and block me from making a move, if they unknowingly hover too close to the secret passage.
After checking their location once more, I dash for the stairs, and while I need to slow down on the steps, to keep from alerting them with the thudding, my adrenaline is spiking.
The gun feels cold in my sweaty hand. It would have been easier to bring them down with the remotely-controlled machine gun, but it might increase the mess and potentially send some bullets toward the kitchen island, so that is a no-go this time.
Breathless, I’m ready to shoot as a dark silhouette looms at the other end of the corridor, but doing so now would alert his companion, and I can’t afford losing track of them. The knife it is, then.
I breathe through my nose as I stalk my prey, but he turns to face me while I’m too far away to immediately reach him. His eyes widen, and he raises his shotgun, giving me no other option but shooting him straight in the forehead.
His body folds, and I can hear the final goon dash from my atelier. I duck behind the wall in time, because the chunk of the wall the shithead shot could have been my head.
A trap it is then.
Fuck.
“Come on out!” the bastard roars, sending bullet after bullet at my poor wall. “We only came to talk!”
Bullshit.
He’s moving, and as I access the right panel on my security screen, the assassin is already halfway to my location. I switch on the countdown to the activation of my deadliest trap, then stuff the screen down my pocket and rise just as he appears, aiming at my head.
I’ve wasted too much time.
A bullet grazes my shoulder, as if the intruder didn’t expect to find me beyond the wall, and I dash forward, grabbing his wrist so I can hold the barrel away from me. The idiot still pulls the trigger, and my guts twist when I realize he could have hit my foot, not the floor.
Even with fog in my brain, my body is the perfect killing machine, and I twist the gun out of his hand, then slam my Glock into his teeth. His eyes roll back as he stumbles into the dining area, straight into the barrage of bullets from the hidden machine gun.
His mouth opens in a scream, but he crumples next to his companion, and I’m there to deliver the final blow, putting a bullet through his temple.
There.
It’s all over.
I collapse against the wall and slide all the way down, staring at the massacred corpse. Blood and mess from collateral damage, that include my new vase, are scattered around me, but I’m whole, and nothing truly irreplaceable hasn’t been—
I carefully inhale the gunpowder-and-blood scented air, because something isn’t right. I can smell char, but it’s not the usual odor of a shootout. Something about it is both dry, and greasy as if—
My security device beeps with an alert, and I quickly grab it from my pocket.
There’s a... fire.
Despite the fatigue, and the stinging in my arm, I drag myself up, ready to deal with the fallout of the explosion at the entrance, but the picture that pops up on my screen has my stomach dropping as if I were about to fall from a cliff.
My studio.
There’s a fire in the studio. But... how?
It doesn’t matter.
Switching on the sprinklers would have solved this immediately, but I can’t do that. I just can’t! Not in the studio.
I’ve sold many of my paintings, others are exhibited all over the world, but those I hold most dear, the private works, and those that I can’t bear parting with, are in my workshop. I can’t dump water on them and lose the collection I’ve built.
My feet carry me across the kitchen, through the living room, up the flight of stairs, and once I’m in, the dense smoke hits me like a fist to the throat.
It claws its way into my lungs until every breath feels like a chore.
I don’t look away from the devastation though, I refuse to.
The swirling patterns of flames suggest the fuckers spilled something combustible.
Fire claws greedily up the walls, as if it recognizes my paintings are worth devouring.
I wish I could have left those bastards alive so they could see for themselves how it feels to burn .
I should use a mask, or keep my head low, but there’s no time for such precautions. Frantic, I grab the beautiful blue robe I portrayed Victor in and start pounding it against the fire even when the stinging in my eyes makes everything blur.
The world spins—I don’t know if it’s from the heat and stress—or if the fumes are already affecting me, but I won’t give up. I have a sketchbook with pictures of my mother. If I can save that at least—
My foot tangles in the thick fabric, and suddenly I’m losing balance.
I try grabbing the column, but my fingers slide right off, and I collide with a large canvas.
As I grab onto it, still seeking a way to stay upright, I find myself looking into my own face, surrounded by a halo of flames, and then. ..
Pain.
Am I the one who’s screaming?
My hand must have punched through the unfinished painting, because we’re tangled together, and every movement hurts. The heat presses against my skin singeing the fine hairs on my arms, crawling over my face until my sweat feels like it’s boiling.
There is no way around it. It’s either me or my paintings.
When I pry my eyes open to see the security screen, the sight of my own hand comes as a shock. It’s swollen, red, with bits of scalded flesh, but that’s all secondary to survival.
I tap the screen half-blindly, and a groan escapes my lips when the sprinklers don’t immediately activate.
I’m confused, unsure where the exit is, but I must have finally done something right, because the cold water hits me at last. It’s like needles, shocking and brutal, tearing a hoarse sound out of me as my scorched skin meets icy droplets.
My body convulses in relief and agony both when I get drenched.
The pain is so overpowering I drift off, panting and half-lucid
Something squeaks, pulling me out of my stupor. Then, tiny whiskers tickle my swelling forearm, and I open my eyes to face Ratimir. He leaps onto my leg to escape the water flooding my studio.
What is he doing here? Did the fire damage the walkways I made for him? Or was it the earlier explosion that affected his pipes?
But it’s not just him and me anymore. Victor’s still trapped in the kitchen island hideout, and he needs to be released. But then… what if he leaves?
The front door is gone and I am too weak to stop him from running.
He might be my downfall.
But I can’t move. Everything hurts. I need help before I pass out again.
It shouldn’t be such a tough choice. This is the potentially-poisoned food all over again. But if I was starving, would I really not touch food someone else prepared for me?
I would.
So this is it. I’ll be finding out if given the freedom to leave his cage, Victor abandons me, or acts against his best interest and stays.
I deactivate all the security systems, disarming traps and unlocking doors.
“Ratimir,” I whisper, struggling to stay awake. “Go to Victor.”