Peter
The monitors in the kitchen are a grid of cold, blue light, showing the ghosts of three black Suburbans crawling up the gravel drive. They move with a professional, arrogant slow-burn—men who think they’re arriving to collect a debt from a dead man’s estate.
They have no idea they’re walking into a slaughterhouse.
I’m checking the action on my rifle, the familiar, metallic clack-slide the only sound in the room until Hook’s voice cuts through the dark.
Hook is leaning against the kitchen island, his silhouette jagged and lethal. He’s kitted out in full tactical gear, but his eyes are fixed on the doorway where Wendy just disappeared to take her position.
“She’s been off the needle for seventy-two hours,” Hook snaps, his voice a low, urgent hiss. “She’s fragile, she’s erratic, and her hand is still shaking from the withdrawal. You’re putting a gun in her hand and telling her to hold the line? You’re risking her life on a goddamn poetic whim.”
I don’t look at him. I focus on the screen, watching the first vehicle stop at the perimeter gate. “It’s not a whim, Hook. It’s a surgery.”
“It’s a suicide mission,” he growls, stepping into my space. “If one of those bastards gets a clean shot, or if she freezes when the lead starts flying, she’s gone. You didn’t burn down an empire just to watch her die in a hallway because you wanted her to feel ‘empowered.’”
I turn then, my eyes locking onto his. I feel the cold, heavy weight of the man I’ve become—the one who doesn’t just kill for her, but understands the rot she’s carrying.
“She’s already dead, Hook,” I rasp. “The girl you knew, the one I married—she stayed in that booth. If I keep her in a safe room, if I protect her like she’s a porcelain doll, she’ll spend the rest of her life looking for the next needle to numb the shame.
She needs this. She needs to see the life leave the eyes of the men who traded her like a commodity.
She needs to put a bullet in the ghosts that broke her to become whole again.
I’m not just saving her body anymore. I’m saving her soul. ”
Hook stares at me for a long beat, searching for a flicker of doubt. He doesn’t find any. He lets out a sharp, cynical exhale and taps his comms unit.
“You’re a fucking psychopath, Peter. I hope you’re right, or I’m going to have to kill you for being the one who finally finished her off.”
He turns away, his hand going to his radio, his voice dropping into that cold, professional cadence that built his reputation.
“This is Shadow One to the Perimeter. The wolves are at the door. I want the ‘Lost Boys’ on the line. Sweep and clear. No survivors. Nobody leaves this gravel except us. You see a muzzle flash that isn’t ours, you put a sun in their chest. Engage.”
On the monitors, the woods around the drive seem to breathe. Shadows detach themselves from the trees—Hook’s private crew, the ghosts he keeps on payroll for the impossible jobs. They move like ink in water, flanking the SUVs before the doors even open.
“Get to your position,” Hook says, checking the chamber of his sidearm. “I’ll handle the exterior. If anyone breaches the back, they’re mine. The front door is your theatre, Romeo. Make sure she doesn’t miss.”
I don’t say a word. I move toward the hallway, my heart a slow, heavy thud. I find Wendy standing behind the reinforced oak table we flipped in the foyer. She’s holding the semi-automatic, her knuckles white, her eyes fixed on the door.
The first flash bang detonates outside, a muffled thud followed by the frantic, staccato rhythm of suppressed gunfire. The Lost Boys have started the harvest.
“Peter?” she whispers, her voice small but sharp.
I slide in beside her, my shoulder touching hers. I can feel the vibration of her terror, but underneath it, there’s a new frequency. A hunger.
“Wait for the breach,” I tell her, my voice a ghost of a caress. “Wait until you see the whites of their eyes. Then you show them who you are.”
The front door groans under the weight of a battering ram.
The door doesn’t just open; it disintegrates.
The sound is a wet, splintering crack that vibrates through the floorboards and up into the soles of my boots. Dust and wood shrapnel cloud the air, illuminated by the strobing blue-and-red light of the vehicles outside. Through the haze, a silhouette fills the frame.
He’s a mountain of a man, draped in a tailored charcoal overcoat that looks out of place in a war zone. Viktor.
My blood turns to liquid nitrogen. I know that face. He wasn’t just Felix’s muscle; he was the keeper of the keys. He was the one who bought the “supplies.” He was the one who stood outside the booth, checking his watch while Wendy’s screams turned into whimpers.
“Peter,” Viktor rumbles, his voice a deep, cultured bass that cuts through the chaos of the gunfire outside.
He steps over the threshold with a casual arrogance, a heavy-caliber handgun hanging at his side.
He doesn’t even look at me. His eyes are locked on the table—on the top of Wendy’s head.
“You always did have a penchant for theft. My employers want their investment back. And they want the girl. She was just starting to get profitable.”
Beside me, I feel Wendy’s breath hitch—a sharp, jagged sound of pure, unadulterated terror.
The gun in her hand wavers, the muzzle dipping toward the floor.
I can feel the trauma radiating off her like a heat signature, the phantom weight of Viktor’s shadow threatening to pull her back into the cage.
“Don’t look at the coat, Wendy,” I whisper, my voice a low, lethal vibration. I don’t move to help her. I don’t raise my rifle yet. I stay rooted. “Look at the man. He’s just meat and bone. He’s just the thing standing between you and the sun.”
Viktor laughs, a dry, hollow sound. He takes another step, his boots crunching on the glass. “She’s a broken thing, Peter. You can’t fix what the white dust destroys. Give her to me, and maybe I’ll let you walk away with enough of the cash to buy a new conscience.”
“Peter…” Wendy’s voice is a broken thread. “He… he used to… the needle…”
“I know,” I say, my eyes never leaving Viktor’s chest. I reach out, not to take the gun, but to place my hand firmly on her shoulder, grounding her. “I know he did. And he’s the last one left. You kill the memory by killing the man. Do it now, or we both die in this hallway.”
Viktor’s expression shifts. The boredom vanishes, replaced by a cold, professional mask. He begins to raise his weapon, his arm moving with the practiced grace of a seasoned killer.
“Last chance, little bird,” Viktor says, his eyes narrowing on Wendy. “Back to the booth, or into the ground.”
Time slows down. I see the muscles in Viktor’s forearm tense. I see the firing pin of his weapon begin its journey. I could end it. I could put a burst into his skull before he finishes his sentence. My finger is twitching on the trigger.
But I wait. I gamble her life and mine on the hope that she can find the shard of steel I know is buried in her soul.
“Now, Wendy,” I growl.
She doesn’t scream this time. She doesn’t whimper. She rises from behind the table in one fluid, desperate motion. Her hair is a mess of sweat and ash, her eyes wide and glowing with a terrifying, righteous fury.
The first shot she fires misses his head by an inch, shattering a vase behind him. Viktor flinches, his aim spoiled, his round thudding into the oak table.
“Again!” I roar.
She leans into it. She stops fighting the recoil and starts using it. Crack. Crack. Crack.
The first bullet catches Viktor in the shoulder, spinning him halfway around. The second tears into his chest, ripping through the expensive wool of his coat. He stumbles back, his mouth hanging open in a silent O of shock, his blood spraying across the white wallpaper in a beautiful, violent arc.
He’s falling, but Wendy doesn’t stop. She steps out from behind the table, walking toward him as he hits the floor. She’s staring down the sight of the gun, her face a mask of absolute, icy calm.
“This is for the booth,” she whispers, her voice carrying over the distant rattle of the Lost Boys’ rifles.
She stands over him, the muzzle of the gun inches from his forehead. Viktor looks up at her, the predator finally realising he’s become the prey. He tries to speak, but only a crimson foam bubbles at his lips.
Wendy pulls the trigger one last time.
The silence that follows is absolute. The world outside is still burning, Hook is still calling in kills on the radio, but in this hallway, the ghosts are finally quiet.
Wendy stands there for a long moment, the gun smoking in her hand, her chest heaving. She turns to look at me, and for the first time since I found her, the hollow look is gone. There is a fire in her eyes that could burn the world down.
“He’s gone, Peter,” she says, her voice steady. “They’re all gone.”
I walk over to her, stepping over Viktor’s remains, and pull her into my arms. She tastes like iron and salt, and she feels like a queen.
“We’re just getting started, darling,” I say, looking toward the open door and the dark woods beyond.
The gun clatters to the floor.
The sound of the metal hitting the hardwood is louder than the shots were. It echoes through the foyer, a final, hollow punctuation mark on Viktor’s life. Wendy stands over the mess of him, her arms still locked in that firing position, her fingers curled around an air that’s suddenly gone cold.
Then, the tremors start.
It begins in her hands—a violent, rhythmic shaking that travels up her arms until her entire frame is vibrating with the force of a thousand shattered nerves. The fire I saw in her eyes moments ago doesn’t go out; it just drowns.
“Peter,” she chokes out. It’s not the voice of the woman who just executed a monster. It’s the voice of a girl waking up in the middle of a nightmare, realising the monster’s blood is on her skin. “Peter, I… I did it. I felt the click. I felt him… stop.”