Page 114 of Reaper
I slide the window open as quietly as possible and slip inside, landing in a crouch on the floor. The room smells of cigarettes and fear-sweat. I can hear voices now, muffled by walls but close enough that I can make out the cadence if not the words. Russian, mostly. But underneath it, something else.
Heavy breathing. Rasping gasps of the purest pain.
My heart twists in agony inside my chest. I creep to the open doorway of this little office and peer through it. My eyes take in a scene of a nightmare illuminated by the dim light of a few bare overhead bulbs — concrete floors spattered with blood, Tank, tied to a chair, his body bruised and beaten, and in the center of the room, a gaunt, well-dressed figure flanked by several guards and holding something that glints sinister and steely in the light, revealing sick streaks of scarlet across its sharp blade.
He raises the blade high and shifts his position, giving me a glimpse of a bloody body that used to be the man I love. The blade rises, then descends in a careful stroke that parts skin like air and draws a harrowing cry from the remnants of Reaper.
That scream of his hits me just as deep as any knife.
Screw waiting for backup — I’m going in.
Chapter Fifty
Reaper
There’s a part of me that relishes this — the searing pain, the blood, the incomparable agony that cuts deep into my bones and is so overwhelming that there are moments I don’t think about Vanessa, about Adriana, about the blood on my hands except for the blood that’s literally dripping down my arms and coating my hands before it spills into little puddles on the floor.
There’s a part of me that hates this — I’m going to die looking up at Ruslan Volkov’s ghastly face, with his crooked, dirty smile, his shitty breath, and his annoying-as-fuck voice.
But that suffering, too, will pass, and it’ll pass when I do.
“It cost me so much to get you, DeMarco… so very much… lives and bullets and money…” A cut; a grin; a laugh — I scream. “But it is so very worth it.”
“You fucking psychopath.” Tank is roaring like a bear in chains, his cuffs and bindings clanking like he’s the fucking ghost of Jacob Marley. “I will get out of here. I will get out of here, and I will fucking make you suffer, rip you joint from joint, slice the skin off your bones, and cut your fucking head off you piece of fucking shit.”
Volkov laughs, slips the tip of the knife beneath my skin, and twirls it like a child’s toy. “Please keep yelling. I like it.” He pauses, looks down unselfconsciously, then cackles like a boy on Christmas morning. “Why, I believe all your struggling has given me an erection. What a day it is. What a wonderful day indeed.”
"You know what the best part is?" I gasp, tasting copper and salt. "When Tank gets loose — and he will get loose — he's going to tear you apart. And I'm going to watch from whatever hell I end up in and laugh my ass off."
The Russian's grip tightens on the blade. "You think your friend frightens me? I have broken men twice his size."
"Yeah?" I meet his eyes, let him see the truth burning there. "But you never broke an Army Ranger who watched his best friend get carved up. Tank's not just angry, you piece of shit. He's motivated."
Behind me, Tank's struggling intensifies, metal grinding against metal. The sound sends a chill through the room that even Volkov notices. A couple of his bodyguards shift nervously and cast questioning looks at Volkov. The old, wretched-faced Russian simply laughs and shrugs, but in his sunken eyes there’s a flash of fear.
"Besides," I continue, my voice dropping to a whisper, "you made one mistake, Ruslan. A big fucking mistake."
His eyebrows furrow. "What mistake?"
I smile, blood coating my teeth. "You kept us both alive."
“Not for long.”
The knife slips into me with practiced ease; it’s simple with a sharp blade like that, and throw in the fact that I’m fucking lubricated with my own blood, my skin offers about as much resistance as room temperature butter. I scream again — can’t fucking help it — and hope this Russian piece of shit will tire of jacking himself off by torturing me and just do the damn job. I want to die, and I’m tired of his fucking tease job.
The room fades. Black intrudes at the edges of my vision, and a strange sense of calm settles over me. I’m lighter. Freer. And when I feel myself look down at my broken, bloody, partly flayed body, love — for me, for Vanessa, for Adriana, for Tank, for everyperson in my life who I’ve come across that I’ve ever considered a friend, a family member, a lover — swells inside me.
This is it.
Finally.
Peace.
Chapter Fifty-One
Adriana
One exhale.
