Page 93 of Freedom’s Inferno

Behind him, Lana shook her head, mouthing something I couldn’t read, but I knew what it meant: You shouldn’t have come.

I forced my eyes back to Costa, trying to find an angle, any opening. “You don’t have to do this. You’ll get your money. You’ll get your clean transfer. We disappear, and no one ever connects this to you. That’s smarter than blood on the floor.”

Costa tilted his head, considering me like a man watching an animal try to reason its way out of a trap. “You mistake me for a reasonable man, Mr. Sterling.” Costa’s voice was quiet, dangerously so.

Before I could register what he meant, he had a gun in his hand. The movement was fluid, casual, like reaching for a pen.

He lifted it, aimed without hesitation, and fired. The gunshot was obscene in that small room. A single, brutal crack that stole the air from my lungs.

Mike’s head snapped back; he collapsed without a word, hitting the concrete with a heavy, final thud. He didn’t move.

Lana screamed, a raw, animal cry that ripped through me, tearing everything inside wide open.

My mouth went dry, my knees forgot how to hold me up. The room narrowed to the smell of gunpowder and the flat, impossible stillness of a man who was no longer there.

For a split second, my mind couldn’t catch up.

He’d shot his own man.

I stood there staring, stunned, trying to make sense of the kind of logic that turned inward like that, eating its own.

Costa watched it unfold with the same detached patience he might’ve used in a boardroom, eyes half-lidded, unbothered. He gave the gun a lazy flick, the slide snapping back into place with a metallic click, then kept it leveled on me. His posture was relaxed, but the barrel didn’t waver. He shrugged, as if killing his own man was nothing more than a punctuation mark in the conversation.

“He went off script,” he said, as if imparting gossip. “I don’t tolerate people who can’t follow simple directions.”

Lana’s cry got strangled into a sob.

My hands balled into fists until my nails bit skin. Everything inside me twisted, rage, horror, a cold that wasn’t from the concrete under my boots. Costa’s casual cruelty sent a clear message: this was a demonstration, not business.

He leaned forward on the desk, eyes boring into mine, and the smile on his face made my stomach twist. “Now,” he said, “where were we?”

Chapter 37

Lana

The gunshot still reverberated in my head, the metallic tang of it clinging to the back of my throat. Mike’s body lay crumpled on the floor, eyes glassy and unseeing, a thin halo of blood spreading beneath his skull. I couldn’t stop staring. My heart wouldn’t slow down, my pulse hammered against the inside of my ribs so hard it hurt.

Tony’s grip on me loosened. His breath came short and sharp behind me, and for the first time since Costa had dragged me into this nightmare, his confidence wavered. He took a step forward, eyes darting toward the body at his feet.

Costa still had the gun trained on Charlie. “Let’s not waste any more time,” he said, his voice smooth and steady, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Go on. Sign.” He gestured with the weapon toward the desk. The blue folder still lay open, a pen gleaming beside it.

Charlie’s shoulders rose and fell with a single slow breath. He lifted his hands, palms visible, and started forward one cautious step at a time. Eyes never leaving Costa’s, his voice was steady when he spoke. “All right. I’m signing. Just… don’t hurt her.”

Costa gave a small smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re not in the position to be making demands.”

The rosary pressed against my palm through the fabric of my jacket pocket. My fingers curled around it, the metal digging into my skin. Every nerve in my body screamed to act, to do something. Every instinct in me was begging to survive, but reason said there was no way out.

Costa still had the gun on Charlie.

Tony’s hand was loose on my arm, his attention flicking toward the corpse on the floor.

For one breath, one heartbeat, I saw everything at once: the blood pooling beneath Mike, the rosary pressing into my palm, Charlie standing helpless in front of a man who could kill him with a flick of his finger.

Something inside me hardened then. The fear burned off, leaving only a cold, desperate clarity. I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. I moved.

I spun on him fast, the rosary already in my hand, the metal beads cutting into my fingers. Tony was shorter than me, stocky, solid, but his height worked against him. It gave me leverage. I looped the chain around his neck and yanked back with everything I had. The movement tore a hoarse sound from my throat.

His hands flew up, clawing at the chain, at my wrists, his breath coming in ragged bursts that turned into gasps.