"One down," I call to Conrad, who's disappeared through what looks like a maintenance door.
My radio crackles — wait, I don't have a radio. The sound is coming from the dead bodyguard back in the office. I strainmy ears; Russian voices, urgent and angry. I can't make out the words, but the tone is clear enough — they're regrouping.
I need to get to Reaper now, before they bring in reinforcements or decide to finish him rather than risk losing him to rescue. The thought sends ice through my veins. If I'm too late, if my hesitation with Volkov cost Reaper his life...
No. Focus. Move.
I sprint toward the torture chamber, keeping low and sweeping left to right with my weapon. The fluorescent lights flicker overhead, casting everything in stuttering shadows that make it hard to distinguish between debris and threats.
Reaper hasn't moved. The pool of blood beneath him seems larger now, darker. His chest rises and falls in shallow, irregular breaths that make my heart clench.
"Reaper?" I whisper, dropping to one knee beside him while keeping my gun trained on the doorways. "Can you hear me?"
His eyes flutter open, unfocused and glassy with pain. When he sees me, something shifts in his expression — surprise, maybe relief, maybe just delirium.
"Adriana," he whispers, his voice barely audible. "You came back."
"I never left," which is close enough to the truth that I feel comfortable saying it to a man who might be — no, he can’t be — dying. “I went to get drunk. Real drunk. Saw what happened on the news and decided…”
“That if anyone was going to kill me, it’d be you?”
“That maybe I made a mistake. Just like maybe you made a mistake way back when. And maybe… maybe there’s still hope.”
A crash echoes from somewhere deeper in the building. Conrad's found trouble, or trouble's found him.
Reaper slumps in his chair as whatever adrenaline is animating his bleeding body fades.
“If you two insist on whispering sweet nothings to each other while Reaper dies, fine, that’s your fucking choice and I hope he dies happy, but can you at least let me out of here so I can kill a few Russian motherfuckers before I die?” Tank growls as he tugs at the chains binding him.
“Fine. Where are the keys?”
“Volkov has them.”
“Fine. Cover your eyes and ears. I’ll use my own key,” I say, then I aim at the spot on the wall where the chains meet a steel bolt. With a pull of the trigger and five heavy recoils later, and a grumbling, grumpy Tank shakes off his chains and steps away from the wall.
“Still cuffed, but it’s better than fucking nothing. At least I won’t die like some chained-up animal…”
I’m sure there’s more to his diatribe, but a wild spray of bullets cuts him short, and I turn to see Volkov, submachine gun in his off hand, firing like a fucking windmill. Screaming, I shove over the metal chair that Reaper is chained to, sending the both of us sprawling for cover into the lake of blood.
Volkov’s voice is a vile, vicious scream. “You will not take this from me. His life is mine. His death is mine.”
He staggers and screams like a maniac, firing a cloud of bullets with indiscriminate, incoherent rage.
“You motherfucker,” Tank roars, charging. Volkov whirls and aims.
A puff of blood erupts from his shoulder — a grazing shot that a split-second earlier would’ve been through the back of Volkov’s head — and he screams like a man possessed. My eyes track the shot upwards to see Conrad, who winks at me.
Tank hits him like a freight train being driven by an enraged gorilla.
They collide in a symphony of violence that sends Volkov's submachine gun spinning across the blood-slicked floor. Tank'smomentum carries them both backward, but Volkov is wiry and desperate, twisting like a wounded snake in Tank's grip. His mangled wrist sprays blood as he claws at Tank's face with his remaining fingers.
I struggle to untangle myself from Reaper's chair, my hands slipping in his blood as I try to get a clear shot. The two men are locked together, rolling and grappling, and I can't risk hitting Tank.
“Hold on. Don’t die on me. I love you. I need you to live…” I beg Reaper as I get to my feet, steadying my grip on the rifle.
Something that might be an acknowledgement comes from him. That, or it’s a death-rattle. I pray it’s not the latter.
"This is for every fucking person you've tortured in this room," Tank snarls, his cuffed hands finding Volkov's throat. “And this is for my brother. Reaper. Ricky fucking DeMarco, you sick, soulless piece of shit.”
