Page 18 of Blood, Bones, and the Bratva Bogeyman
The hum of the underground generators thrums low and steady beneath my boots as I make my way to Sanctum. They’re a mechanical heartbeat, constant and controlled like the pulse of this thing we’ve built.
The corridor stretches ahead in the darkness, interrupted only by the flicker of red lights embedded in the walls. Sensors, security, and fail-safes, all in place to watch for those who don’t belong.
Our Sanctum isn’t a place that welcomes the unwanted.
The others wait for me in front of the stone wall and together we go through the routine of confirming our identities.
Once we’re cleared, a whisper of steam curls into the air as the stone slides open with a hiss and a groan. The mountain itself voices its resentment at our entrance. We’ve stained its roots with too much blood.
Inside the sealed titanium door, the Sanctum waits.
It’s a cathedral of shadows and secrets carved deep into the earth. The ceiling rises high above, lost in gloom, and the air is thick with damp stone and old smoke. Along the curved walls, alcoves glow faintly, lit by open flames that burn cold blue, casting skeletal shadows across the room. It smells of wax, gunmetal, and the ghost of spilled blood.
At the center, a round obsidian table gleams like a black mirror.
The others file in behind me and spread throughout the room. There are no chairs, no thrones in here. We stand around it, equals in the dark. Murderers in robes.
Battista leans against a pillar, his hood down, mask already off and a cigarette smoldering between his fingers. He wears the calm of a man who has slit a thousand throats and forgotten every face.
Tiernan paces, that Irish fury snapping at his heels. His ring flicks against his palm. The movement sharp and rhythmic as if he’s counting the time between now and his next kill.
Ignacio adjusts his cuffs. More polished than the rest of us but no less vicious, he’s a predator in silk and shadows. A chameleon who can blend in with anyone. He can be your charming best friend one day and slit your throat in your sleep the next.
And Kingston leans against the wall, quiet and unreadable, his body coiled and ready for whatever fight comes his way.
“You were late,” Battista mutters, taking another draw from his cigarette and blowing a ring of circles past his lips as he watches me with blank eyes.
“I was busy,” I growl. “I needed to have a chat with my bonded.”
That gets Tiernan to still. “How is she?”
They know who Giselda was to Cressida.
“Doing her best not to show her hurt.” Barely. “The bond hides very little from me.”
And her hurt is as sharp as a blade between my ribs. She tries to hide the pain from me. Tries to soften the bitter edges from her friend’s betrayal, but it seeps through the cracks.
She told me earlier she dreams of the fiery crash, and a ghost who once braided her hair.
I clench my fists.
“The Reaper’s no longer a ghost,” Kingston says. “She’s now wearing Giselda’s face and that was unexpected.”
“That ghost is spreading an unsanctioned drug in my territory,” I snap. “Without my fucking permission. Flooding the streets with a bastardized formula of something we don’t yet understand. It’s purer. Meaner than anything we’ve come across. It’s untraceable and it’s fucking killing people. My people.Ourpeople. She’s building something, and I don’t like the shape of it.”
“Bodies are stacking up,” Ignacio says coolly. “Two of my safehouses hit. Three men dead. Blood drained. Throats cut with surgical precision. She’s not just targeting you, she’s coming after all of us. Trying to play a big boy game when she has no clue who she’s up against.”
“Same in my territory,” Tiernan adds. “She’s not just selling. She’s cleansing. They’re targeted hits. My people. Your people. She’s brave and doesn’t give a shit who she goes after. This is a power grab. It’s too calculated not to be.”
Battista drops his cigarette onto the floor and grinds it under his boot. “She’s not brave, she’s stupid.”
“So, we find her,” I say. “We cut the head off the snake before it wraps itself around our throats.”
Kingston tilts his head. “You plan to go knocking on hell’s doors, Bogeyman?”
I step up to the table. “I plan to burn them down.”
A heavy and loaded silence settles around us.
