She had kept swinging.
Long after Amy stopped fighting.
Long after her body went slack.
Long after any human being with a soul would have stopped.
One hundred and fifteen blows.
The guards had counted every one.
“No...” The sound that tore out of me didn’t feel like it came from my throat. It felt ripped straight from my chest, raw and animal. “Amy... no... no, no, no...”
My vision blurred, the room swimming as memory surged forward uninvited.
Her voice echoed in my skull—bright, teasing, alive.
You’ve been worried since the moment we got sent on this mission, she’d said that last night in the safe house, straddling the chair backward like she owned the place. She’d smirked at me like death was an inside joke.Yet we’ve lost so many, and I’m still here. Honestly, Rus, it’s too late for me to die now.
She’d flicked her hair back carelessly, eyes glittering with confidence.
We’ve got the blueprint. Secret tunnel. No guards. We grab the bastard—alive or dead—drag his pieces home as proof, and I’m finally free of this shit.
She had been so certain.
So impossibly alive.
Now she was the first to fall.
I had watched men die before. Good men. Brave men. Friends who’d bled out in my arms or vanished in fireballs I still dreamed about. I’d made peace with the idea that this job would eventually take me. I was ready for that.
But not her.
Never her.
I was supposed to go first. I had sworn it—to myself, to whatever gods still listened—the day we shipped out. If death came for one of us, it would take me. That was the rule. That was the promise.
I failed.
Rage and grief collided inside my chest until I couldn’t separate them. It was all one burning mass, tearing me apart from the inside. And beneath it—hotter, sharper, more focused—was a fresh hatred that eclipsed everything else.
Our father.
“Fuck you, Viktor!” I screamed, the name detonating out of me like a gunshot. I didn’t care that it wasn’t Chapo’s name. I didn’t care who heard it. I had never called him Dad. Not since the day he decided Amy was expendable. Not since he turned her into collateral damage for his empire, his enemies, his sins.
If he were standing in front of me now, I wouldn’t hesitate. I wouldn’t speak. I wouldn’t warn him.
I would empty an entire magazine into his face and keep pulling the trigger long after it clicked empty.
Tears poured down my cheeks—thick, burning, humiliating.
My body convulsed against the pole as I strained forward, muscles screaming. The zip ties bit deeper into my wrists, slicing skin until warm blood slicked my hands and dripped down my fingers.
I welcomed the pain.
It was the only thing anchoring me to reality.
Somewhere to my left, Elena sobbed—loud, broken, hysterical. I didn’t look at her. If I did, I knew I would lose what little control I had left. I would try to kill her with my bare hands, restraints or no restraints.
