Page 116 of Koroleva

The sound of a machine gun whipped him into a frenzy. My captor started badgering the other again, the rope on the second foot loosened. The moment I had been waiting for arrived. I took a breath, gave a slight side tap with the remaining shoe in front of Liú against the chair leg, and... surprise! I felt like shouting.

The retractable blade hidden in the toe of my shoe sprung out before the wide eyes.

He had no time to react, the sharp tip sliced his jugular in a movement as precise as it was lethal while I used my hands to block my opponent’s wrist, dislocating it to disarm him. It didn’t matter that he squeezed the trigger, because the bullet shot out toward the frame of one of the windows.

The bastard screamed in pain and looked at me horrified as he saw his colleague clutching his neck, blood gurgling like a fountain.

"No, no, no..." he whispered, backing away. My rib hurt, but above the pain was my thirst for revenge. "I was just following orders... I wasn’t going to kill you, I just needed to know where Xia was."

"You should have thought better before messing with the wrong men."

His gaze shifted to calculate the distance to the emergency door behind Andrey. His aim was clear. He couldn't go out the main way, as the shooting hadn’t stopped.

"Let me go and I’ll tell my boss that... that..." Whatever he was about to say hung suspended on his tongue. He didn't realize that my partner had already recovered and was too close.

The Russian grasped the chains for support and anchored himself to deliver a side kick to the head that sent him flying several meters. I smiled at the crushing crunch. This was my guy, the one who wouldn't stop even if they fried his balls.

"Shoot the ceiling anchors!" he roared. We didn’t have the key and he wanted to be released, of course, I did it without wasting time. I raised the gun and fired several shots to free him.

The Chinese crawled on the floor, disoriented. Did he really think he could get out of this? He wasn't lacking in hope.

The door to the main stairs burst open, two of our men, along with R and Koroleva, emerged brandishing their weapons.

"Don't touch him!" Andrey bellowed, closing the distance to the Oriental. "This bastard is mine," he spat, reaching him.

No one said or did anything to prevent the Russian from taking his revenge. The Chinese tried to sweep him with a kick, but it was impossible. Andrey looped the thick chains dangling from his wrists around the neck and pulled with all his might, dragging him along.

He tried to rid himself of the iron strangling him, oxygen no longer entering his lungs. The ear where he had received the kick was bleeding, probably burst his eardrum given the violence of the impact.

Our people entered the room and my boss came over to check on me. Koroleva never took her eyes off her man, clearly proud of his reaction.

The emergency door opened and four more of ours appeared, pointing their weapons. R raised a hand to stop them.

Andrey dragged his prey to place him over the puddle of water where he had been tortured and looked for my face.

"Bring it to me!" With his gaze, he pointed at the electrified rod.

I bent down to pick it up and brought it to him limping.

"Here you go, mate. Fry that son of a bitch." He nodded.

He moved the chains from the neck, turned the power up to maximum, and positioned the head to unload all its power into the groin, as had been done to him.

Unlike the Chinese, Andrey did not stop no matter how much the Chinese begged, and he didn't stop until the body went from convulsing to deadly stiffness.

I placed a hand on his shoulder and patted it.

"It's done, mate, that guy's never going to mess with us again." My partner dropped the rod and let out a roar that shook the building.

45

The hidden truth

Five days…

Five days had passed since the kidnapping that almost cost Aleksa and Andrey their lives.

Five days during which Nikita and I held meetings with my entire family, telling them that we could not stand idly by in the face of the Chinese affront.

---