Page 58 of Rescuing Ally, Part 2 (CHARLIE Team: Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists #8)

FIFTY

Debt Collected

GABE

He’s softer than I imagined. Pale skin, receding hairline, jowls tucked into a bespoke suit. No armor. No weapon. No dignity. Just a twitch in one manicured hand and eyes struggling to keep up with how fast death is arriving.

A dozen rifles raise in silent chorus.

His mouth works. He tries to fix his face into calm, into control, but the tremor in his voice betrays him. He clears his throat like a man used to commanding rooms.

Not this one.

“Gabriel Martinez.” My name rolls off his tongue, wrapped in an accent and feigned serenity that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I wondered when you would find me.”

“Found you.” My rifle stays locked on his chest. Finger tightens on the trigger, tension singing through tendons.

“Your friend—Henry, yes?—he died well. Fought to the end. Very brave. You should be proud.”

The words detonate in my chest like white phosphorus, rage flooding my system with the kind of intensity that turns my vision red and makes my hands steady as surgical instruments.

He dares speak Hank’s name.

Dares reduce his death to casual conversation.

“His name,” I say, voice dropping to whisper that carries more menace than shouting, “was Hank.”

“Tell me—does his death haunt your dreams? Do you see his face when you close your eyes?” Malfor smiles. That smug, smirking kind that dares me to break.

I don’t answer. Don’t need to. The weapon in my hands speaks fluent death, and I’m about to provide simultaneous translation.

“Wait…” He lifts his hands higher, panic leaking like blood through gauze. “We can negotiate. I have resources—money—information—anything?—”

“You killed my partner.”

“Business. Nothing personal. Professional necessity.”

“Everything about this is personal.”

The first shot takes him in the shoulder. 7.62mm of truth rips him into a grotesque spin. Arterial spray spatters priceless art. He goes down hard, screaming. Hands scrambling at slick marble as if they can claw him out of his fate.

“That’s for using our women as bait.” I advance around the desk.

Thunder crashes outside reinforced windows as the storm front arrives with divine timing. Rain begins pattering against bulletproof glass, nature providing percussion for the symphony of justice about to reach its crescendo.

The second shot shatters his kneecap, bone fragments and cartilage decorating marble like grotesque confetti. His scream rises in pitch and volume, agony given voice in language that transcends cultural barriers.

“That’s for making Ally watch him die.”

Malfor writhes on expensive carpet, his thousand-dollar suit soaked with blood and other fluids, as his body processes the reality of its approaching termination. Fear replaces arrogance in eyes that no longer hold calculation, just animal terror facing a predator that won’t be negotiated with.

“Please,” he gasps, voice breaking like adolescent pleading for reprieve from inevitable consequences. “I can pay—anything you want—money, information, whatever?—”

“Give me back my friend.” I kneel beside him, press the rifle barrel against his forehead with pressure that dents the skin. “Give me back the man who died because you’re a coward who hides behind walls and weapons.”

“I can’t …”

“Then you have nothing I want.”

The third shot destroys his other knee. The joint explodes like an overripe fruit under hydraulic pressure. Blood pools around shattered bone while he screams with a voice that’s lost all pretense of dignity or control.

“That’s for every nightmare she’ll have because of you.”

I set the rifle aside and draw my knife—seven inches of steel honed to surgical sharpness. The blade catches the light streaming through reinforced windows, casting razor shadows across expensive carpet now soaked with blood and terror.

“Now we get personal,” my voice drops to a whisper that carries more menace than screaming.

His eyes widen with fresh terror as understanding dawns. This isn’t just an execution—it’s itemized retribution for every specific horror he inflicted. A reckoning measured in blood and pain; each drop earned through the suffering of innocents.

But before I can continue, Ethan steps forward.

Silent. Cold.

Controlled fury simmers behind every precise movement like a nuclear reactor operating at critical temperatures.

“My turn.” His voice carries authority that makes even Ghost step back.

Ethan lifts his combat boot and drives it down into Malfor’s ribs. Once. Twice. The sound of bone cracking echoes through the office like gunshots—sharp, final, irreversible.

“You shattered Rebel’s ribs.” Ethan’s voice never rises above a conversational level. Another calculated blow, higher this time, targeting the floating ribs that protect vital organs. “Left her gasping like a landed fish, unable to breathe without agony.”

Wet crunch. Malfor’s howl reaches frequencies that suggest something primal and animal, all pretense of civilized behavior stripped away by pain that transcends rational thought.

“You broke her arm.” Ethan seizes Malfor’s wrist—the one still functional—and slams it down against the marble desk edge.

The bone snaps like brittle wood, a compound fracture sending white fragments through the skin, already slick with blood. “Made her watch it heal wrong in that cell, knowing it would never be right again.”

The scream that follows is high and thin, almost inhuman. Malfor’s face has gone chalk white, shock and blood loss combining to shut down non-essential systems as his body prioritizes survival over consciousness.

“You sliced her face.” Ethan draws his combat knife—seven inches of blackened steel designed for killing, not surgery. “Temple to jaw. Left her beautiful face looking like a roadmap of your sadism.”

The blade traces the same path Malfor carved into Rebel, parting skin as blood runs in a straight line from temple to jawbone, mirroring exactly the scar that will mark Rebel for the rest of her life.

Ethan steps back without another word, his rage spent like ammunition from a perfectly maintained weapon. Hands steady. Eyes clear. The team leader who carried them all home, exacting justice with the same methodical precision he brings to everything else.

Jeb moves next, and something in his face makes the air itself seem colder. Rage distilled into something purer than fury, more focused than hatred. This is the wrath of a man who’s seen his woman tortured and found it unforgivable.

“My turn.” His voice cuts deeper than any blade, carrying harmonics of violence that make the storm outside sound like a lullaby.

He doesn’t reach for weapons. Instead, he lifts the heavy crystal paperweight from Malfor’s desk—three pounds of cut glass. Light refracts through its faceted surface, casting rainbow patterns across walls painted with blood and justice.

The first blow lands between Malfor’s shoulder blades. The sound—wet impact of crystal against flesh and bone echoes like hammer strikes in a cathedral of pain. Ribs crack. Vertebrae compress. Muscle tissue pulps under crystalline edges.

“You beat Stitch like she was an animal.” Jeb’s voice remains conversational, each word measured and deliberate. “Cane. Fists. Whatever was convenient when you felt like inflicting pain.”

The second blow targets the small of Malfor’s back. The crystal shatters against bone, leaving glass fragments embedded in tissue that will never heal. Malfor’s scream dies in his throat, replaced by gurgling sounds that suggest internal bleeding.

“You caned her. Whipped her. Tore her skin like you were decorating a canvas.” Jeb draws his combat knife—not the surgical precision of Ethan’s blade, but something cruder, designed for utility rather than elegance. “Left scars she’ll carry forever.”

The knife traces deliberate lines across Malfor’s back, cutting through expensive silk and flesh with equal ease. Not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to leave permanent reminders. Each line represents hours of Stitch’s suffering, payment extracted in skin and screaming.

“She still bleeds when she showers,” Jeb adds quietly, almost conversationally. “Wounds that won’t heal properly because of what you did to her.”

He straightens, knife dripping, and steps away. Professional distance is maintained even in righteous vengeance. The mountain of a man who could break Malfor in half with his bare hands, choosing instead to extract payment in precise measurements.

Rigel approaches next, loose-limbed and deceptively casual, like he’s strolling through a park rather than a slaughterhouse. His hands shake—not with fear, but with restraint. Fury held on such a tight leash that the effort makes his entire frame vibrate with barely contained violence.

“You gave Mia a concussion.” Rigel’s voice carries the lazy drawl of a man discussing weather patterns. “Threw her into a wall like she was a rag doll. Left her half-conscious on cold stone.”

He doesn’t use weapons. His rifle butt comes down like a sledgehammer, impacting Malfor’s temple with enough force to crater bone. Blood streams down the side of Malfor’s face as his head snaps sideways, eyes rolling back to show white.

“She still wakes up dizzy. Can’t look at bright lights without feeling sick.” The second blow targets the opposite temple. “You used the love of my life as target practice.”

The third blow isn’t to the head. Rigel drives the rifle butt into Malfor’s solar plexus, right where nerves cluster like electrical junction boxes. The impact steals breath and consciousness, leaving Malfor gasping like a fish drowning in air.

Rigel steps back, weapon still steady, eyes never leaving his target. The sniper who can kill at impossible distances, delivering justice at point-blank range with the same methodical precision that made him a legend.

Walt moves forward next, and there’s something different about his approach: less fury, more grief. The medic, who has spent his career saving lives, finally faces one that doesn’t deserve saving.