CHAPTER 7
MARGARITA
Left alone in the wake of the dinner’s violent conclusion, I lean hard against the damp, unsealed concrete of the hallway.
The oversized black shirt Damon forced me to wear feels like a funeral shroud draped over my shoulders.
It stinks of his expensive woodsmoke cologne and the sharp metallic tang of iron from the blood he just spilled.
I can still feel the phantom heat of his massive hand resting on the top of my head, treating me like a hound that just learned a new trick.
The sheer fucking audacity of this man acting like he owns my molecular structure makes me want to scream until my throat tears open.
He beats his own lieutenant half to death over a disrespectful look, and I’m just supposed to sit at his feet and look pretty.
I aggressively wipe a smudge of expensive, bitter red wine off my bottom lip with the back of my hand, rubbing the flesh back and forth until the skin is totally raw and stinging.
I am not a thing. I am a doctor. Think, Margarita.
Think like a surgeon, not a victim. Look at him like a problem on the operating table.
The ribs. He took a massive hit there recently.
I know exactly how deep the tissue damage goes because I stitched it myself.
If I hit the intercostal space, he goes down. He drops.
I stand absolutely still, listening to the receding, rhythmic thud of Damon’s heavy boots.
The sound echoes through the brutalist halls of this fortress, a violent heartbeat that eventually fades into dead silence.
That silence is my starting gun. I know he’s occupied with the fallout of Cole’s little discipline session, but the window of opportunity is terrifyingly narrow.
If I wait here for my heart to stop hammering against my ribs, I’ll lose the chance and rot in this concrete box forever.
I tuck the hem of the oversized shirt tightly into my waistband so it doesn't snag on any of the industrial fixtures. One. Two. Three. Go. Don't look back.
I slip into a narrow service stairwell. I memorized the general direction of the armory from the layout Damon so arrogantly boasted about earlier, like I was too stupid or broken to use the information against him.
He thinks I'm broken. Let him think that. The air in the stairwell smells like damp dust, old grease, and a faint grit of salt that crunches under my boots. A dying fluorescent bulb overhead flickers, casting spastic shadows against the raw walls. I grip the cold iron railing as I descend, squeezing it so hard the surgical scars across my palms throb in rhythm with my pulse. Keycard first. Weapon second. Exit third. I’m moving exactly like the unhinged cartel thugs Damon employs—silent, efficient, lethal.
I guess you adapt to your environment or you die in it.
At the bottom of the stairwell, I find my mark.
A secondary security desk tucked into a junction, washed out in the harsh blue glare of multiple surveillance monitors.
A low-level syndicate grunt is slumped back in a high-back chair, completely dead to the world in a post-dinner stupor.
A single white earbud trails from his left ear, leaking tinny, high-pitched heavy metal music into the quiet room.
On his belt, hanging from a retractable lanyard, is a security keycard.
I stand motionless in the threshold, watching the pulse jump in the side of the guard's neck to gauge exactly how deep his sleep is.
I wonder for a split second if this guy has a wife or a kid somewhere, and then immediately discard the thought.
I don't give a fuck. He’s just an obstacle.
I edge forward, my bare feet completely silent on the cold floor.
I reach slowly over the desk, my fingers hovering mere inches from the guard’s hip.
The proximity to this piece of shit is nauseating, smelling of stale coffee and sweat.
I use the exact same micro-precision I once used to dig a hollow-point bullet out of Damon’s liver, pinching the plastic clip of the lanyard.
The guard suddenly stirs, his head lolling heavily to the side.
I freeze. My lungs burn. A single bead of sweat rolls slowly down my temple, threatening to drop right onto the back of the guard's resting hand. Steady. Just like the scalpel. Stay under. Please stay under. I notice his pupils are totally blown out even through the slits of his eyelids—he’s definitely high on something.
The plastic clip releases with a faint click.
I pull back, the sudden chill of the plastic keycard resting perfectly in my palm.
Card secured, I retreat backward into the darkness of the lower levels.
Sub-Level B. Toward the rear. He’s not coming.
He’s busy. This part of the fortress strips away any illusion of luxury.
It’s purely brutalist—raw, unpainted concrete, thick exposed pipes overhead, and harsh red emergency lighting that makes everything look soaked in blood.
The low, vibrating hum of the armory’s climate control system calls to me from the end of the hall.
I press the cool plastic of the keycard flat against my sweaty forehead just to ground myself in reality.
The distant drip of a leaky pipe echoes like a ticking clock against the hum of high-voltage cables.
It smells heavily of ozone down here. I keep doing the math in my head, calculating how many minutes I have until that junkie guard wakes up and pats his empty belt.
Footsteps. The heavy tread of tactical boots and the blinding white slash of a flashlight beam cut through the dark corridor ahead of me.
Two patrol guards. I instantly duck sideways into a shallow maintenance niche, pressing my back hard behind a thick bundle of electrical conduits.
The metallic smell of the pipes coats the back of my throat.
The guards pass so incredibly close I could reach out and unclip their tactical vests.
The space is suffocating. The thick dust coating the conduits makes my throat violently itch, and I bite down hard on my own knuckle, breaking the skin with my teeth just to suppress a sneeze as the flashlight beam sweeps directly over the pipes a foot above my head.
"Did you hear something?" one of the guards mutters, his voice thick with the heavy scent of stale cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes.
"Just the rats. Let’s get to the cafeteria."
I wait until the heavy thud of their boots completely fades out before I let my lungs expand.
I step out of the niche and move to the end of the hall, staring up at the armory door.
It’s a massive slab of reinforced steel fitted with a stark digital interface.
The red light of the card reader blinks at me like a hostile eye.
I swipe the stolen card. For one agonizing heartbeat, absolutely nothing happens.
Don't fail me now. Then the light snaps to a sharp, surgical green. Green. Thank god, green. The magnetic locks disengage with a heavy, echoing clunk that sounds so loud in the dead corridor I’m certain every thug in the building just heard it.
I wedge my fingers into the gap and use both hands to pull the heavy steel door open, my shoulder muscles straining against the immense weight.
The hydraulic hiss of the door sealing behind me gives way to absolute silence.
Inside, the armory is a masterpiece of lethal organization.
Racks of black rifles and shotguns stand in perfect rows, their stainless steel barrels catching harsh glares from the overhead LEDs.
The room reeks of heavy oil, cold steel, and the sharp chemical bite of Hoppe’s No.
9 solvent. The power radiating off these walls is intoxicating.
For the first time since I was dragged into this concrete hellhole, I feel a genuine flicker of agency.
I ignore the heavy artillery—I don't know how to handle the recoil on those anyway—and move straight toward a long metal workbench.
I trail my fingertips over a rack of tactical serrated knives, feeling the vicious bite of the edges against my skin.
Too close-quarters. I need distance. I scan the half-disassembled handguns until I find exactly what I need.
A Glock. Damon uses a Glock. Small. Easy to hide.
I pick up a fully assembled Glock 19. It’s heavier than I expect.
I check the magazine—fully loaded with hollow points.
I rack the slide. The metallic snap is incredibly satisfying, a sound I’ve heard a dozen times in the background of my ruined life but never initiated myself.
My hands are completely steady. The surgery of escape is going perfectly.
I turn to leave.
Then the air in the room suddenly drops ten degrees.
The oxygen is just gone, sucked out of the room.
I haven't heard a single footstep, I haven't heard the door open, but every nerve ending in my body is suddenly screaming at maximum volume.
The overwhelming, predatory weight of a stare locks onto the back of my neck.
My grip on the polymer frame of the Glock tightens until my knuckles turn a ghostly, bloodless white.
The sharp smell of gun oil is suddenly entirely overpowered by the heavy, rich scent of woodsmoke cologne.
Who's there? I’ll shoot. I swear to god, I'll shoot.
I spin around, instantly leveling the barrel of the Glock straight at the doorway.
Damon is leaning casually against the steel frame of the open door.
His massive arms are crossed lazily over his bare, heavily scarred chest. He stripped his suit jacket and shirt off after the dining room bloodbath.
The white medical tape strapped tightly across his ribs is stained with a fresh, bright bloom of red blood from where he undoubtedly popped a stitch beating Cole.
He isn't angry. He isn't reaching for the weapon holstered at his hip.
He is just staring at me with terrifying, silent approval, watching me the way a dark collector watches a rare, violent specimen finally hatch.
He slowly tilts his head to the side, his dead, ink-black eyes tracking the minute tremor that suddenly starts in my hands.
"You’re a quick study, Margarita," his voice is a low, rough gravel that scrapes right down my spine.
He takes a single, heavy step into the room. The reinforced steel door swings shut behind him with a final, booming CLANG that seals the magnetic locks. We are boxed in.
"Go ahead. The safety is off." Damon continues to walk slowly, deliberately toward the barrel of my gun, completely unfazed by the fact that my finger is resting on the trigger. "Did you think I wouldn't notice you leaving my shadow?"
He knew. This wasn't a lapse in his security.
This whole fucking escape was a test, and he let me run the maze just to see how fast I could navigate it.
The realization makes my stomach drop, replaced instantly by a sickening, feral jolt of biological arousal at his total lack of fear.
My body is betraying my logic. I have the power to blow a hole straight through his chest, but his sheer presence is absorbing my will to pull the trigger.
"I like the look of you with a gun," he murmurs, stopping barely an inch from the muzzle.
He doesn't try to swat the weapon away. Instead, he slowly raises his massive right hand and places his palm directly over the muzzle, pressing the freezing cold steel straight into his own flesh.
The heat radiating off his chest is intense.
"Are you going to be a surgeon today, or an executioner?" His heavy jaw clenches, a dark smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "Show me what you’ve learned."
I stare at his hand wrapped around the end of my gun. The safety is off. My finger is on the trigger. But I don't pull it, and we both know exactly why.