Page 161 of 10 Days to Ruin

Dragan’s face screws up and he kicks me again, this time in the torso. Ribs crack. Two? Three? It’s hard to tell. All the pain is blending into a single inferno burning me alive.

“It’s best that it ends this way,” he decides. “I’ve never been much of one for speeches, so I’ll leave it there, I think. Live like a dog, die like a dog. Gentlemen… hurt him.”

I try to struggle up, but it’s no use. They’re on top of me before I can even draw a breath.

Boots. So many boots. They kick the ribs Dragan already broke. They stomp the bullet wounds until I’m screaming through clenched teeth. Onemudakgrinds his heel into my scar—the one around my neck—and suddenly, I’m twelve again, Dad’s wire biting into my throat as he snarls,Weak, weak, weak.

So this is how it ends. Like my mother—dying in a broken mass of limbs on cold, hard ground. I give up the fight and wait for the city to swallow me, too.

Then, to my surprise:

“Enough.” Dragan’s voice cuts through the haze. “Put him against the wall.”

They stop the beating to drag me upright and prop me against the alley bricks. Blood drips into my eyes, hot to the touch, but the rest of me is as cold as the grave.

Dragan squats down and lifts my sagging chin off my chest with one gloved hand so I have no choice but to look him in the eye. “You took everything from me. My reputation. My bride. Myempire.” He pulls a knife from his coat—antique, curved. Ottoman steel. “Now, I take your heart.”

He raises the blade.

But before he can bring it down—lights arc down the alley. Red and blue.

“Boss!” One of the Serbian goons nods toward the alley entrance. Headlights sweep across brick walls. “Five-O.”

Dragan stands, wiping my blood on his slacks. “Bah! Give me your gun! I’ll finish him before we go.”

Police are shouting at the end of the alley as Dragan swipes a gun from one of his goons. The rest of the Serbians fire their weapons toward the cops to hold them at bay. Meanwhile, Dragan kisses the tip of the pistol to my forehead.

I can only laugh. Saved and condemned, saved and condemned, again and again… I’m sick of the carousel.Just end it,I think.A man can only take so many rolls of the dice.

Dragan’s sneer deepens. His finger slides to the trigger. And…

Click.

Empty chamber.

I don’t think; I just move. My hand finds the knife Dragan dropped and slashes blindly upward. The blade sinks into Dragan’s groin. He screams. I yank it sideways, severing arteries, and roll as his goons open fire. Bullets stitch the wall where my head was.

Chaos.

Dragan shouts in Serbian. Tires screech. Cops descend.

Amidst it all, I crawl behind the dumpster, that knife still clutched in my bloody, shaking fingers. Dragan and his crew go sprinting to the far end of the alley and disappear from sight.

Snow falls.

Blood pools beneath me, steaming.

Get up.

My arms buckle.

Get up,ssyklo.

I claw at the dumpster, leaving red smears. Vertigo hits hard. The alley blurs—two dumpsters, four, eight.

Teeth chattering, I fumble for my phone. The screen is cracked. Blood makes the touchscreen glitch, but eventually, I get it to obey.

Feliks’s number. Ringing. Ringing.

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