We had him zip-tied to a metal chair in the back room of an abandoned garage three blocks from Luka's safe house. The space smelled like oil and rust and fear, all of it mixing with the copper scent of blood that kept dripping onto the concrete floor in a steady rhythm. Dmitri stood near the door with his arms crossed, watching.
Luka circled the man like a predator deciding where to bite first.
I stood in the corner trying to reconcile what I was about to watch with the man I'd thought I was two weeks ago. The man who ran a gym and trained fighters and went home alone to an empty house. That version of me felt like a stranger now. A ghostof someone who'd never had to choose between his principles and the person he loved bleeding out in some warehouse while the clock kept running.
“I'll ask again,” Luka said quietly. “Where is Rafael keeping Troy?”
The man spat blood onto the floor. “Fuck you.”
Dmitri shifted his weight. “That's a bad answer.”
“I don't know anything,” the man said. His voice shook despite the defiance. “I'm just hired muscle. They don't tell me shit.”
“That's a lie.” Luka crouched down in front of him. Eye level. Close enough that the man flinched back even though the chair kept him pinned in place. “You were at the arena. You helped coordinate the extraction after the explosion. You know exactly where they took him.”
“I swear I don't?—”
Luka's fist connected with his jaw before he could finish the sentence. The man's head snapped to the side hard enough that I heard teeth crack. Blood sprayed across the floor in a wide arc.
I wanted to look away. But every second we wasted asking nicely was another second Troy spent wherever Rafael had taken him. Another second he could be hurt or scared or dying while we stood here pretending civility still mattered.
So I didn't look away.
Luka worked him over with a methodical brutality that turned my stomach even as I understood why it was necessary. He broke the man's fingers one by one, the same question asked after each snap while the screams bounced off the concrete walls, and I stood there and watched until the man stopped begging and just answered.
“Warehouse,” he gasped. “South industrial district. Near the old meatpacking plants. Building seven. Basement level.”
Luka stood and wiped the blood off his knuckles with a handkerchief like he'd just finished a business meeting instead of torture. “Was that so difficult?”
The man whimpered.
Dmitri moved forward and checked the information against the maps he pulled up on his phone. Cross-referencing the location with known Rafael properties and shell companies.
“It's legitimate,” Dmitri confirmed. “Matches the pattern of his holdings. Isolated. Good security sightlines. Perfect for holding someone you don't want found.”
“Then we move.” Luka looked at me. “Can you still fight?”
I was barely standing. The concussion from the explosion still made the world tilt at odd angles. My ribs screamed every time I took a full breath. The stitches across my temple pulled tight enough that I could feel them threatening to tear.
But none of that mattered.
“I'll fight until I drop if it gets Troy back.”
“Good.” Luka headed for the door. “We leave in five minutes. Dmitri, call in the backup team. Ash, check the weapons. Declan, get anything you need from the armory.”
We gathered our gear and loaded into the SUV within minutes.
The drive across Chicago felt like the longest thirty minutes of my life. Dmitri drove while Luka coordinated with the backup team over the encrypted channels. Laying out the approach vectors and contingencies in calm, measured tones that should have been reassuring but only made the whole thing feel more surreal.
I sat in the back next to Ash and checked the magazine on the handgun Luka had given me from the safe house armory. I'd fired guns before. Had gone to the range a few times over the years when the paranoia about gym security got loud enough to justify learning. But I'd never expected to use one like this. Hadnever imagined sitting in the back of an SUV heading toward a firefight because the man I loved had been kidnapped by a psychopath with a grudge.
My phone buzzed.
Mara's name flashed across the screen.
I almost didn't answer. Almost let it go to voicemail because I didn't know what to say to her right now. Didn't know how to explain where I was or what I was doing or why everything in my life had gone to hell in the span of two weeks.
But the silence from me had clearly started bothering her. And Mara had instincts about when people were lying. If I ignored this call, she'd know it meant trouble.
