SAVAGE RITES
The Bunker was a surplus store sandwiched between a tire shop and a diner on Route 9.
The bell above the door jingled cheerfully as we walked in, a jarring sound given the four of us looked like the aftermath of a riot.
The clerk, a bearded man with a “Don’t Tread On Me” hat, looked up from his newspaper. His eyes widened when he saw us. Dante, carrying a duffel bag of guns. Sloane, looking like a mercenary. Bianca, in ill-fitting thrift store clothes.
And me. Covered in mud and dried blood, wearing a dress made of gold scales that shimmered under the flickering fluorescent lights.
“We’re closed,” the clerk stammered, his hand drifting toward the counter.
Dante stepped forward. He placed a stack of hundred-dollar bills on the glass counter.
“We need fifteen minutes,” Dante said calmly. “And we need the shutters down. You go take a coffee break in the back.”
The clerk looked at the money. He looked at Dante’s cold eyes.
He grabbed the cash. “Coffee break. Got it.”
He flipped the sign to CLOSED, locked the door, and disappeared into the back room.
“Shop fast,” Dante ordered. “We’re on a clock.”
I walked down the aisles. I grabbed a pair of black tactical pants with reinforced knees. A black thermal long-sleeve shirt. A heavy utility belt.
I didn’t look at sizes. I just grabbed what looked right.
I went into the cramped changing room and locked the door.
The mirror was cracked and dirty. I looked at the gold dress.
I reached back and unzipped it.
The dress fell to the floor with a heavy, metallic shhhhk.
I stepped out of it.
I stood there in the black lace lingerie, shivering in the cold air of the store. My body was a map of the last forty-eight hours.
Bruises on my arms from the fall. A cut on my hip. The red marks on my neck.
I pulled on the shirt. It was scratchy, but warm. I pulled on the tactical pants and cinched the belt tight. I sat on the bench and laced up the heavy combat boots I had grabbed from the shelf.
I stood up and felt lighter.
I looked at the gold dress lying in a heap on the floor. It looked like the shed skin of a mythical creature.
I left it there.
I walked out of the changing room.
Sloane was waiting. She had found a black beanie and was pulling it over her platinum hair. She nodded when she saw me.
“Better,” she said. “Less disco ball, more death squad.”
Bianca was standing by the knife display case. She had found a pair of black leather gloves and was pulling them on, flexing her fingers.
“These smell like mildew,” Bianca complained, wrinkling her nose. “But they’ll do.”
She looked at me. For once, she didn’t offer a critique. She just handed me a knife.
“Here,” Bianca said. “It’s nasty. Like you.”
I took the knife and sheathed it on my belt. “Thanks, B.”
Dante was waiting by the door. He had restocked on ammunition from the shelves behind the counter—9mm rounds, shotgun shells, flashbangs.
He looked me up and down. He checked the fit of my boots. He checked the placement of the knife.
He reached into the duffel bag and pulled out the Glock 19 I had used at the farm. He handed it to me.
“Chambered,” Dante said. “Safety is on your finger. Don’t put it on the trigger until you’re ready to destroy something.”
I slid the gun into the side on my hip.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We walked out of the store and into the gray morning light. The rain had started again, washing the grime off the pavement.
We piled back into the SUV. Dante took the wheel. I sat in the front passenger seat this time.
“Queens,” Dante said, putting the car in gear. “Thirty minutes.”
I pulled up the map of the city on a burner phone Sloane had grabbed. I found the location of the old Textile Factory.
It was on the waterfront. Isolated.
“Julian will have snipers,” I said, studying the satellite image. “Here. On the water tower. And here. On the loading dock roof.”
“How do you know?” Sloane asked from the back.
“Because he’s a classicist,” I said. “He studied military history. He plays by the book. High ground. Choke points.”
I traced the line of the perimeter fence.
“But he thinks he’s fighting Nico,” I murmured. “He thinks he’s fighting a tank. He expects a frontal assault.”
“And what are we?” Bianca asked.
I looked at the factory on the screen.
“We’re the infection,” I said. “We don’t hit the front gate. We go through the intake pipes.”
Dante glanced at me. “The sewage intake? It’ll be tight.”
“It’ll be unguarded,” I said.
***
The intake pipe smelled of sulfur and century-old rot.
We crawled single file through the sludge, the freezing water soaking through the knees of my pants. Dante was in front, cutting the iron grate with bolt cutters.
The grate fell inward with a heavy splash.
“We’re in,” Dante whispered.
We climbed out into the boiler room of the Textile Factory. It was a cathedral of rusted iron and shadows. Above us, the muffled sounds of shouting and heavy boots echoed through the metal grating of the floor.
“Move,” I whispered.
We moved up the metal stairs. Dante kicked the door open.
We emerged onto the main factory floor.
It was chaos instantly.
“Contact!” a Russian shouted from the gantry.
Gunfire erupted.
But Julian had made a fatal error. He had positioned his men facing the windows and the doors. We were behind them.
“Drop them!” Sloane yelled, opening fire with her pistol.
She hit a man on the catwalk. He toppled over the railing, crashing onto a conveyor belt below.
Bianca, shaking but determined, pulled the pin on a flashbang.
“Catch!” she screamed, hurling it into a cluster of Russians near the loading bay.
BANG.
White light blinded the room. The Russians screamed, covering their eyes.
Dante and I moved forward through the confusion. We were a wedge of violence.
Dante swept the left; I took the right.
I raised the Glock. My hands were steady.
A man lunged at me from behind a crate. I didn’t think. I squeezed the trigger.
He dropped.
I stepped over him.
“Nico!” I screamed over the gunfire.
“Center!” Dante yelled, reloading. “By the loom!”
I saw him.
In the center of the vast, open floor, a single chair sat under a spotlight.
Nico was tied to it. His face was a mask of blood. His shirt was gone, revealing the purple bruising of his broken ribs and fresh cuts across his chest. His head was hanging low.
And standing over him, untouched by the chaos, was Julian.
He held his cane in one hand and a gun in the other. He was pressing the barrel of the gun against Nico’s temple.
“Stop!” Julian roared. “Or I paint the floor with his brains!”
The shooting stopped.
Dante froze. Sloane leveled her gun at Julian but didn’t fire.
I stepped out from behind a pillar.
I was twenty feet away. I raised my gun. I aimed at Julian’s head.
“Let him go,” I said.
Julian looked up.
He smiled. It was a broken, manic smile.
“Look at you,” Julian marveled. “My masterpiece. I stripped away the mouse and found the wolf.”
“I said let him go,” I repeated, stepping closer.
“I can’t do that, Elena,” Julian said. “The game has to end. The King has to die.”
He cocked the hammer of his gun.
Nico lifted his head. His eyes were swollen, one almost shut. He looked at me.
“Shoot,” Nico rasped.
“If she shoots, I pull the trigger,” Julian warned. “It’s a stalemate.”
“It’s not a stalemate,” I said. “It’s checkmate.”
I didn’t shoot Julian in the head.
I lowered my aim.
I shot him in the knee.
Julian screamed. His leg buckled instantly. He collapsed sideways, the gun flying from his hand and skittering across the concrete floor.
He hit the ground, clutching his shattered knee, writhing in agony.
“My leg! You shot my leg!”
I didn’t stop walking. I marched up to him. I kicked the cane out of his reach.
I stood over him. He looked up at me, his face pale with shock and pain. The arrogance was gone.
“I told you,” I whispered. “I chose him.”
I turned to Nico.
Dante was already there, cutting the ropes with a knife. Nico slumped forward, and Dante caught him.
“I’ve got you, Boss,” Dante grunted.
Nico pushed Dante aside. He stood up on his own. He swayed, gasping for air, clutching his broken ribs, but he stood.
He walked over to Julian.
He looked down at the boy writhing on the floor. Nico wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
He picked up Julian’s discarded gun.
“Game over,” Nico growled. He aimed the gun at the center of Julian’s forehead.
“No! Wait!”
The shout came from the catwalk above.
We all looked up.
A man was running along the gantry. He was older, wearing a tailored suit, surrounded by Secret Service agents who had their weapons drawn but weren’t firing.
It was Senator Thorne.
“Don’t shoot!” the Senator screamed, his voice cracking with desperation. “Please!”
The Senator scrambled down the metal stairs, nearly tripping in his haste. He ran onto the factory floor, his hands held up in surrender.
“Stay back,” Dante warned, leveling his weapon at the Senator.
“I’m unarmed!” Senator Thorne cried. He ran past Dante and threw himself between Nico and Julian.
He fell to his knees in the dirt and blood, shielding his son’s body with his own.
“Don’t kill him,” the Senator begged, tears streaming down his face. “Please, Nico. I know what he did. I know. But he’s my only son.”
Nico didn’t lower the gun. He looked at the powerful politician kneeling in the filth.
“He tried to kill me,” Nico said coldly. “He brought the Russians into my city. He wanted to kidnapped my… Queen.”
“I’ll fix it,” the Senator promised, speaking fast, frantic. “I’ll fix everything. I’ll make the Volkovs disappear. I’ll get the federal investigation off your father’s back. I’ll give you the ports, the contracts, everything.”
He looked up at Nico, begging for his son’s life.
“Just let him live. Please. Don’t make me bury my boy.”
Nico stared at the Senator. Then he looked at Julian, who was whimpering in pain behind his father.
Finally, Nico looked at me.
He was waiting for my vote.
I looked at Julian. I remembered everything we shared.
I walked over to Nico. I put my hand on his arm.
“Let him live,” I said softly.
Nico looked at me, surprised. “Why?”
“Because death is too easy,” I said. I looked down at the Senator. “And because a dead enemy is just a corpse. But a live enemy who owes you his life…”
I paused.
“…is an asset.”
Nico’s eyes gleamed. He understood.
He lowered the gun.
“You heard her,” Nico said to the Senator. “He lives.”
The Senator collapsed in relief, sobbing. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Nico stepped closer, leaning down until he was face-to-face with the Senator.
“But listen to me, Thorne,” Nico whispered, his voice a blade. “From this day forward, you belong to the De Lucas. Your vote is my vote.
Your power is my power. And if your son ever—ever—steps foot in my city again…”
Nico tapped the barrel of the gun against the Senator’s forehead.
“I won’t just kill him. I will skin him alive.”
Nico straightened up. He winced, clutching his ribs, but he held out his hand to me.
“Let’s go home, Elena,” he said.
I took his hand. It was bloody and warm.
We walked away from the center of the factory.
Sloane and Bianca fell in step behind us. Dante took point.
We all walked out into the morning light.
TBC
