Chapter 76: TRIGGER

The car pulled away from the curb with a low hum. It wasn’t a normal sedan. More like a stretched van or a converted people-carrier long cabin, two rows of seats facing each other across a low center console. I didn’t know my car so, yeah. Black leather, soft lighting along the floor, tinted windows that turned the streetlights into smears of color. The kind of vehicle that said the owner didn’t particularly care about being subtle.

Mark sat opposite me, legs crossed, completely at ease. One of his men rode up front with the driver. The other two had taken a second car. The privacy partition was already raised.

Without asking, Mark opened a small compartment beside his seat, pulled out a clear bottle of vodka and two heavy crystal shot glasses, and poured. He held one out across the gap between us.

I took it. My hands were still shaking slightly from the adrenaline crash. The first swallow burned all the way down and sat in my stomach like liquid heat. I grimaced hard and exhaled through my teeth.

"Man... that’s... heavy."

Mark chuckled, knocked his own shot back without flinching, then put both the bottle and the empty glasses away again like the whole ritual had been purely practical.

"Who were those two?" he asked, almost conversationally.

I shook my head and immediately regretted it. Pain radiated from my cheekbone up into my temple. "Just a couple of no-good pieces of shit."

"Harassing you?"

"One of them is trying to get into my neighbor’s wife’s pants." I wiped the back of my hand across my split lip and checked it for fresh blood. "The other one is muscle. They’ve got history with me."

Mark nodded once, listening the way a man listens when the details themselves don’t particularly interest him, only the shape of the problem.

"Well," he said after a moment, "I don’t especially want to know the full story. But those two were bouncing on your head like you were a rental. Why didn’t you defend yourself?"

I let out a short, humorless breath. "Against two of them? I’m on my own."

Mark’s expression didn’t change, but something cooler settled behind his eyes.

"Then you go down fighting, fellah. Don’t be a pussy, boy."

My gaze dropped almost automatically. The way he was sitting had caused his jacket to shift, and the clear outline of a compact holster showed against his ribs. Not even trying to hide it particularly well.

"Easy to say when you’re carrying," I muttered.

Mark followed my eyes, then gave a small, dismissive shrug. "So take one yourself. It’s a free country."

"I wouldn’t know how to use it."

He didn’t press the point. Just leaned back deeper into the leather seat and watched me for another second, as if recalculating something.

I closed my eyes. The vodka had taken a little of the edge off the pain, but the headache underneath was only getting worse, a deep, pulsing pressure behind my left eye where Cole’s fist had landed. Every small bump in the road sent a fresh spike through my ribs. The car’s suspension was excellent; it didn’t matter. My body was cataloguing damage in real time.

The vehicle kept moving through the night, smooth and heavy, carrying me toward another table full of men who wanted their money back. Outside, the city slid past in dark streaks. Inside, the only sounds were the low hum of the engine and my own careful breathing.

Mark said nothing else for a while.

Well... he didn’t need to.

????????????

The game had gone poorly.

I sat slumped in the chair, elbows on my knees, staring at the floor. Only one hundred dollars gone. Not a disaster, but the kind of loss that stung more because I couldn’t focus. Every shift of my weight sent a dull spike through my ribs. My face still throbbed where Cole’s fist had landed. And underneath all of it, the same two names kept looping: Karim. Sarah.

The last of Mark’s guests finally stood, muttered something polite, and left. Mark walked them to the door, exchanged a few quiet words, then closed it behind them. When he turned back, the easy host expression was already gone.

He scraped a chair across the floor and sat down next to me. Without asking, he poured two more shots of vodka and pushed one toward my hand.

"Hurts, kid?"

I nodded once and drank. The burn did nothing for the ache behind my eyes.

Mark knocked his own back and set the glass down. "In Russia, I’d eat that kind of beating for breakfast."

I didn’t answer. There was nothing useful to say.

A knock came at the door.

Mark glanced over. "Входи?!"

The door opened only a few inches at first. Nothing happened. Then came the sound of scuffling, a wet, broken noise, and the door was shoved wide.

Wait... Karim? Karim stumbled into the room.

He was completely naked. Blood ran in dark lines down his right hand where his pinky finger used to be. The stump was still dripping. His face was wet with tears and snot. He took two uneven steps and collapsed onto the floor, curling around his injured hand, making small, high sounds.

I sat up straight. "What the..."

Mark looked down at the man on the floor with mild interest, like someone examining a stain.

"Your payment," he said calmly. "For entertaining me in this wretched city. I miss Russia, Chance. You have no idea."

I stared. "Wait... Karim... how..."

"He apparently followed us here." Mark’s tone was almost bored. "Poor idiot."

One of Mark’s men stepped forward. Mark held out his open palm. The man placed a handgun into it without a word.

I was on my feet before I fully realized I’d moved. "Wait. Wait, wait. Don’t."

I mean the bastard was a pervert, sure. But killing him like that? I wouldn’t shed a tear if he were to just drop dead but... right now? It felt wrong.

Karim’s head jerked up. His eyes were wild. He started babbling, pleading, the words tumbling over each other.

I shook my head. "That’s a bit much, Mark. Come on now."

Mark raised an eyebrow. "A bit much? Do you know what we found on his phone?"

The same man reached into his own pocket, pulled out a phone, and handed it over. Mark unlocked it, opened the gallery, and passed the device to me with a video already playing.

I looked down.

The first video was short and ugly. A woman bound at the wrists, trying to twist away while someone held the camera steady. She was... she was screaming for help. Karim was moving his hips back and forth while posing for the camera... winking, making funny faces. This was... messed up. I didn’t watch the rest of it. I swiped.

Second video. Different woman. This time Karim wasn’t alone, a man in a black mask was on top of her while the camera moved around the bed. The audio was mostly muffled crying and the sound of the mattress.

I swiped again.

Worse.

And again.

Then the next one started.

Dark room. Two people asleep in a bed I recognized immediately. Sarah’s hair on the pillow. Hubert’s shoulder. The camera moved closer. A hand, Karim’s, reached into the frame and closed over Sarah’s breast through her shirt, squeezing once, slow. She stirred. The hand jerked back. The camera retreated toward the door. Just before the video ended, Karim’s whisper came through the speakers, soft and almost cheerful:

"Her turn will come too. Can’t wait to rape that bitch."

Something in my chest went cold and then white-hot. The phone hit the floor. I was on him before anyone could stop me.

I straddled Karim’s chest and started punching. Right. Left. Right. Left. His already ruined hand flailed uselessly. He cried harder, trying to cover his face. I didn’t care. Every time my fist connected I saw the dark bedroom, the hand on Sarah’s chest, the casual way he had said those words.

I kept going until my shoulders burned and my knuckles split open again.

Mark finally nodded.

Two of his men stepped in, grabbed me under the arms, and hauled me backward. I struggled once, then went still, breathing hard, blood dripping from my hands onto the floor.

Mark’s voice was almost gentle. "Calm down, friend."

"Motherfucker! Goddamn maniac! Fucking maniac!"

Karim just curled tighter around his missing finger and sobbed.

The phone still lay face-up on the floor, the last frame of the video frozen on the dark shape of Sarah’s bed.

Mark walked over to where Karim still lay curled on the floor. He pressed the muzzle of the gun lightly against the center of Karim’s forehead. Karim’s pleading turned high and broken. Tears and snot mixed with the blood from his ruined hand.

I stayed where I was, breathing hard, the anger still burning under my ribs. Part of me wanted Mark to pull the trigger. Another part of me just wanted the whole thing over.

Mark’s finger settled on the trigger.

The door opened again.