Chapter Forty-Four
Stefano
ONE WEEK LATER
A HAND TAPS MY shoulder.
My cue.
I remove the VR headset, blinking as my eyes adjust to actual reality. It takes a minute.
This headset’s been my forced companion these last few days. Pavlov’s idea of “transport protocol” as he hauls me around like goddamn luggage from one place to the next. By car. By jet. By helicopter. By speedboat.
A shit ton of traveling, headset clamped on between transits. God forbid I see where I’m being taken.
This time, we’re parked in what appears to be a tunnel, lit only by the car’s headlights.
“An ominous dark tunnel today. Nice,” I mutter to Pavlov. “How long is this campaign to scare me off your daughter supposed to last? It’s getting tedious.”
He’s been going all-in. Dragging me from place to place and forcing me to witness disturbing shit, feeding me all kinds of sordid details to turn me off. Doing his damnedest to wear me down, waiting for me to tap out. Or maybe just hoping I’ll snap, give him just cause to off me.
But I’m not a fucking ball sac. When I’m not the most powerful man in the room, smarts, humility, and patience wins the game.
“The ‘campaign’ is over,” Pavlov replies, resigned. “You’re either smarter and tougher than we thought…or just willfully stubborn as fuck.” He nods toward the end of the tunnel. “That’s the entrance to ThreeFours.”
“ThreeFours?” A frown pulls at my brows. “What’s that?”
“Soraya’s village.”
Every nerve in my body snaps to life. “No shit? She’s really here?”
Pavlov exhales. Long, tired, maybe a little annoyed. “Just can’t wrap my head around you and her. Don’t know what she sees. It’s baffling.”
I flash him a grin. “Stop being a hater, Pops.”
He shakes his head. “Get the fuck out of my car.”
Doesn’t have to tell me twice. This is the stop I’ve been waiting for.
Once I’m out, he powers down the window and shoves a duffel at me. “All your shit.”
I raise a brow. “You’re not coming?”
“This is where we part ways. For now. One less ‘hater’ for you to worry about. You’ll have plenty enough in there,” he replies. “Remember our agreement. No exceptions. She’ll want to fight it. See to it that she doesn’t.”
“Yeah, understood.” I turn to leave, then pivot. “Hey, does your son have a thick raised scar across his left arm?”
He frowns. “How do you know that?”
“I don’t. I’m asking.”
“Why?”
“Only a few know this, but…” I glance toward the entrance of the tunnel then back. “I get dreams.”
He’s a picture of confusion. “What?”
“If your son’s in a wheelchair and has a scar across his left arm, he’s going to die soon,” I say. “Prepare for it.”
“The fuck? Are you supposed to be Nostradamus or something?”
“Only about death.”
He stares me down, dubious. “And, say I buy into this bullshit… How does he die?”
“Well, his eyeballs were being picked out by a flock of jaybirds.” I shrug. “Do with that what you will.”
Gripping the bag straps, I turn and follow the path lit by the headlights until I get to the end, where a thick iron gate is built formidably into a moss-covered stone wall. There’s no monitor, no buzzer, no lever. No visible hint of how to get this thing open.
Am I supposed to knock? Shatter my knuckles on cold iron?
At the sound of Pavlov’s engine revving, I glance over my shoulder. Son of a bitch is speed-reversing out of the tunnel, leaving me in complete darkness. Spiteful asshole.
I unzip the duffel and fumble around until my fingers find my phone. Power it on and switch on the flashlight. Then spend the next few minutes scanning the gate, the wall, the ground… Nothing.
Shatter my wrist it is, then. But before I can, a beep echoes in the tunnel, and the gate slowly creaks open. Blinding daylight slices through the dark.
I squint, blinking hard as I walk through. Going from a VR headset, to pitch darkness, to bright daylight is a hell of a ride for a man’s eyeballs.
Fuck’s sake.
There’s no one on the other side, just a narrow path framed by jagged rocks. As the gate clangs shut behind me, I follow the rocky path that winds forward until it spreads open into what resembles a rural pasture.
Rolling green hills stretch wide across the landscape. Various buildings scattered far and in between, surrounded on all sides by towering, jagged mountains, looming as far back as the eyes can see.
From some of those peaks, thin slashes of waterfalls stream down from rocky heights. The soothing rush of the streams blends with the obnoxiously cheerful birdsongs and the jingling of the bells around the necks of meandering cows.
What is this place?
Several people walk right by me, averting their gazes and quickening their steps when I attempt to stop them to ask questions. Unmannerly little shits.
Eventually, I come across what looks like a semi-enclosed bar. Or food court. Or whatever the hell this blue obsession is. The ground’s paved and painted blue. Blue benches, blue stools, blue high tables. Everything’s blue.
On one end, a bar. On the other end, a kitchen with a food station. Off to the side, a row of vending machines.
By the bar is a group of men just chilling in tactical gear.
Some pause to watch me approach. Others ignore me.
“Damn, Castello,” one says. “You really are a pussy with nine lives.”
Ah. So that’s what the “Nine” nickname is about.
“Nah, even a cat would be dead by now,” another counters. “Wanna be you when I grow up, Castello. Fucking legend.”
I’m not interested in whatever this is. “Where’s Soraya?”
“It’s Ray,” one of them corrects.
“What?”
“Here, she’s Ray.”
Would’ve been nice if Pavlov mentioned that instead of all the other shit. “Apologies. Where can I find Ray?”
“Can you rock climb?”
Jesus, I’m tired of being confused. It’s a frustrating place to be. “What?”
A chorus of chuckles follow.
One of them points toward the southward mountains. “Ray’s sparring on top of that grumpy-looking rock over there. Grumpaa.”
“Sparring?”
“Yup. That’s what she does when she’s...” He frowns, takes a swig of beer, then continues, “Wish we’d gotten a heads-up you were coming. Today would’ve been a…less intense day for everyone. A couple of ribs would’ve been spared. She would’ve been waiting for you at the gate, not up there.”
Yeah, I didn’t know I was coming either, big man. “And climbing that ugly-ass mountain’s the only way to get up there to her?”
“You can’t climb it. Half of us here can’t.”
“How about calling her?” I suggest. Because, what the fuck?
“Phones aren’t allowed up there.” He shrugs and swigs his beer again. “Ray doesn’t like to be interrupted when she’s sparring.”
Straightening my stance, I take them all in. Several still refuse to acknowledge me. “You guys just fucking with me because you hate me, or what?”
“Hate? Nah. No one hates you here,” another responds. “Some of us just don’t think you deserve her.”
“Well, tough shit,” I bite out. “That woman is mine. I didn’t hunt her down and got my ass kicked for shits and giggles. So quit fucking with me and tell me where she is.”
“No one’s fucking with you, Castello.” A hulking Black man, who’d been ignoring my presence, stands from his stool, flexing every inch of his towering frame and mountainous build.
“Ray is up there sparring and she does not like to be disturbed. You know ‘Raya.’ We know and work for Ray. You’re gonna have a hard fucking time convincing anyone here to risk going up there for you.
Because Ray has her rules. And we’ve learned the hard fucking way to respect those rules. ”
He lifts his chin. Not hostile, just final.
“You might run things in the desert, but here, we all answer to her. You can either chill here with us until she comes down, or go get familiar with ThreeFours. Everyone here knows who you are, and most will avoid you until they know what’s up.
I’m sure after spending time with Pavlov, you’re desperate for some real fresh air. ”
Yeah. I think I’ll take this big motherfucker’s word for it.
Damn, Pavlov really is an asshole. Why wouldn’t he tell her he was bringing me here?
“No shit,” I say, agreeing with his last line. “What’s with all the white rooms and masks and fake outdoors nonsense? For a minute I thought I was either kidnapped into outer space or tripping on acid.”
The men laugh. All this time.
“Welcome to within The O, Castello,” one says, raising his beer. “It only gets crazier.”
~
INSTEAD OF ADDING to the sea of testosterone at the blue bar, I opt to roam ThreeFours.
This place is like an oasis. Nature in all its glory.
Random skinny brooks slice jaggedly across the endless green. One wrong step and you’re ankle-deep in a stream.
To the far east is a fenced-off area marked “Training Grounds,”
rigged up with every kind of military training setup imaginable. Further along the stretch are various red-signed buildings: Tech, Weaponry, Admin, Medical.
The west is more residential—aged chalets scattered loosely across the hills, each framed by wildflowers. Fucking beautiful.
Realizing there’s too much to explore on foot, I stop and turn toward the mountain that Soraya’s on. No amount of squinting helps me see what’s happening on top of that monster rock. But something catches my eye. A line, thin and taut, running from the mountain top all the way west.
Is that a zipline?
Head tilted up, I follow the run of the line, moving westward, until my feet trip against something.
“Ow!” someone grunts.
I glance down.
Some dude’s just lying there in the grass, chewing on a stick or some shit. Hand shielding his eyes, he squints up at me. “Oh, shit,” he laughs out, a thick Spanish accent cutting through. “JB didn’t whack you?”
“She did. I’m a ghost.” I nod toward the mountain. “Tell me, where does that zipline run to?”
“What, you trying to get up on Grumpaa to Ray?”
“Yeah. To haunt her.”
“Nah, hombre.” He laughs at me again, loud and amused. “Hell nah. You better wait it out. No one is taking that risk.”
“What happens if you interrupt her while she’s sparring?”