Keep running.
Don’t fucking stop.
I’m not going out like this…
Dusk bled across the forest like spilled ink. The trees were black silhouettes against a sky the color of bruised fruit, and the air was cold.
My boots slammed into the leaf litter, each step kicking up damp earth and the sharp scent of decay. My lungs burned. My left arm throbbed where a bullet had grazed it earlier—hot, sticky blood soaking through the sleeve of my jacket—but I didn’t stop.
I couldn’t stop.
Behind me the baying of police dogs grew louder, more frenzied. The sensed blood. My blood.
The dog handlers shouted commands in clipped, urgent bursts. Flashlight beams sliced through the branches, swinging wildly, searching.
Closer. Always closer.
I clutched the pistol in my right hand—Glock 19, half the magazine gone—and the duffel bag slung over my shoulder bounced against my hip with every stride. Inside: stacks of cash, still banded, still smelling faintly of ink and old paper.
The heist had been clean until the very end.
Two wingmen—good men, brothers in every way that mattered—cut down in the bank lobby by SWAT fire. One took three rounds to the chest, the other caught a shotgun blast that turned his face into something unrecognizable.
I’d dragged their bodies behind the teller counter long enough to grab the bags and vanish through the service exit.
But the cops were already there. Waiting.
No peaceful surrender now. Not after what they’d seen. Not after I’d fired back. They’d shoot on sight. I knew it the same way I knew the sun would rise tomorrow… if I lived that long.
The bank was a small branch in a quiet town. IT was supposed to be a straightforward job. But instinct told me from the jump that something was not quite right. It was like the cops expected us to be there. I don’t know how. Maybe a rat. Maybe even a tip off from a rival family. Whatever. It was done now.
All I needed to consider was how the hell I was going to lose the cops and get the money back to my pakhan.
The ground began to slope sharply downward. I could hear water now—rushing, angry, growing louder with every step.
A river.
Maybe salvation.
Maybe a grave.
I didn’t care which. I just needed distance between me and the rabid dogs and the cops with their trigger happy fingers.
The dogs were close enough that I could make out individual barks—deep, guttural, excited. A flashlight beam swept across the trees to my left, too close. A voice shouted: “There! Movement at eleven o’clock!”
I broke into a full sprint, ignoring the fire in my lungs, the wet slap of blood against my ribs. Branches clawed at my face, my arms. I burst through the last line of trees and skidded to a halt.
The cliff edge dropped away in front of me… twenty, maybe thirty feet straight down to black water churning white against jagged rocks. No gentle slope. No path. Just a sheer drop.
Behind me the dogs exploded through the underbrush. Flashlight beams converged. A rifle cracked—once, twice. Bullets snapped past my ear, splintering bark.
No time.
No choice.
I took one last look at the sky, dark purple bleeding into black, then stepped off the edge…
The fall was instant and endless. Wind roared in my ears. My stomach lurched into my throat. The river rushed up to meet me, dark and merciless.
