Page 59 of Blood, Bones, and the Bratva Bogeyman

“Wrong answer.”

My knife goes deep into his stomach, then up, higher, until it notches bone and drop him like garbage. “You chose the wrong person to worship.”

More of her soldiers come at us and Battista meets them in the center. His hands flash, three bodies dropping in quick succession. Kingston takes out the others, showing them no mercy.

When we’re done, the warehouse looks like a painting gone wrong. Red smeared and pooling and bodies folded where their spines failed.

Then the space fills with silence except for the low humming from the back.

Tucked into the back like some goddamn altar to addiction is at least a dozen unmarked crates. Kingston cracks one open, and inside, black vials glow faintly, like venom with a soul.

Whatever this new blend is, it’s angrier. It clings to the glass like it’s alive.

Kingston hisses. “She changed it again.”

“How do you know?” I ask, stepping closer.

He touches the vial, and it pulses once as if it’s greeting the blood that runs through his veins. “Because it’s reacting to bloodline markers.”

“She’s evolving it. Trying to adapt to us,” Battista muses.

“To mimic us.”

My grip tightens around my blade. She’s trying to recreate the power that runs through us. Trying to make herself as strong as we are. That won’t happen. She’ll never truly be able to replicate our blood no matter how much she tries. She’s not the first who has tried, and they’ve all failed before.

“Twenty down,” Battista says, his eyes roaming around the space we’re in.

“Twenty wasted,” Ignacio corrects. “Addicts desperate enough to not care what they’re shooting into their veins as long as they get the high they’re seeking. They’ll do whatever she asks of them for it.”

Kingston shakes his head. “She’s not building an army. She’s building chaos, and chaos eventually eats itself.”

“She thinks she’s clever,” I say, wiping my knife on a dead man’s shirt. “But chaos doesn’t last.”

We stand in the ruin like five monsters who were supposed to rip each other apart, looking at what we made. Blood pools at our boots, thick enough to stick.

“She feels us,” I murmur. “Every body we cut down, she feels it. She knows we’re coming.”

“Good,” Tiernan says.

“Let her feel it,” Battista adds.

Ignacio spits on the floor. “Let her choke on it.”

Kingston sighs. “You’re all bloody lunatics.”

“Yes,” I agree.

The smile I wear behind the mask is sharp enough to bleed.

We torch it all before we leave. Every crate, every vial. We crack open abandoned fuel barrels and drench the drugs before striking the match. We don’t leave anything that can be scavenged. No remnants, no fucking hope to build again from this. The fire races like its starving, eager to eat anything that will fuel it and satiate its hunger.

We walk out together like a funeral procession of demons then turn to watch the fire.

A dealer crawls out of the flames, half his face melting, coughing for mercy. Without hesitation, Kingston walks over and snaps his neck with his boot.

This isn’t justice.

This is fucking wrath.