Page 59 of The Beast’s Broken Angel

ALL FALLS DOWN

NOAH

T he observation post was turning into a fucking death trap. Another explosion rocked the building, and this time the ceiling didn't hold. Steel beams groaned like dying whales before the whole structure came crashing down around us.

“Move!” Viktor roared, but there was nowhere to go.

Concrete and twisted metal rained down, and I threw myself under the reinforced desk as the world exploded into dust and debris. The impact knocked the wind out of me, medical kit scattering across the floor as everything went dark.

When the rumbling finally stopped, I couldn't see shit. The emergency lighting was gone, buried under God knows how many tons of building. My ears rang like church bells, and every breath tasted of pulverised concrete.

“Viktor?” I coughed, feeling around in the darkness. My hand found something warm and wet. Blood. Too much blood. “Viktor, you alive?”

A groan from somewhere to my left. “Da. But pinned. Left leg trapped under beam. ”

Fuck. I crawled toward his voice, hands searching through the rubble. The space we were in had shrunk to maybe a quarter of its original size, the rest buried under the collapsed ceiling. My fingers found Viktor's massive frame, then the steel beam crushing his leg.

“How bad?” I asked, already knowing the answer from the amount of blood pooling around him.

“Bad enough.” His voice was tight with pain he'd never admit to. “But bigger problem. Exit is blocked. We are... how you English say... properly fucked.”

He wasn't wrong. The main door was buried under enough debris to need heavy equipment to clear. The observation windows were gone, replaced by solid walls of twisted metal and concrete. We were trapped in a tomb of our own making.

“Can you reach Adrian on comms?” I asked, fumbling for my medical kit in the darkness. My phone was cracked, no signal. Of course.

“Communications down,” Viktor confirmed. “Interference from Harrison's team. Professional work.”

I found my kit by touch, pulling out the small tactical torch I'd started carrying after too many power outages at the hospital. The beam cut through the darkness, revealing our situation in harsh detail.

Viktor's leg was properly mangled, the beam having crushed it just below the knee.

He'd need surgery, maybe amputation, but right now I just needed to keep him from bleeding out.

The space we were trapped in was maybe ten feet by six, with unstable debris threatening to shift and crush us at any moment.

Through gaps in the rubble, I could hear the firefight raging on. Adrian was out there somewhere, probably doing something stupidly heroic while Harrison's extraction team closed in .

“Morphine?” Viktor asked, watching me prep a tourniquet.

“In a minute. Need you conscious for now.” I worked fast, using my belt to stem the worst of the bleeding. “Tell me about the building layout. Other ways out?”

“Service shaft on east side. But would need to clear fifteen metres of debris.” He grimaced as I tightened the tourniquet. “Would take hours we do not have.”

Through the rubble, gunfire intensified. Adrian's distinctive pistol barked repeatedly, but it was being answered by automatic weapons. Too many automatic weapons.

“Boss will not retreat,” Viktor said, reading my thoughts. “Not with Harrison so close. He has waited too long for this revenge.”

“Then he's going to die for it,” I snapped, frustrated by the stubborn bastard's death wish. “Harrison's not worth Adrian's life.”

“You do not understand.” Viktor's eyes found mine in the torchlight. “Harrison killed his parents while Adrian listened. Made him into what he is. Such betrayal demands blood payment.”

“Blood payment won't bring them back,” I argued, checking Viktor's pulse. Rapid but steady. “It'll just add Adrian to the body count.”

“Perhaps. But living with incomplete revenge would destroy him slower.” Viktor shifted, suppressing a groan. “You care for him.”

It wasn't a question. “He's my patient.”

“Nyet. Is more.” Despite his pain, Viktor managed what might have been a smile. “Is good. Adrian needs someone who sees man, not just monster.”

Another explosion, closer this time. Dust rained down through cracks in our makeshift shelter. The firefight was moving toward the centre of the warehouse where Adrian had been interrogating Harrison.

“We need to get out of here,” I said, playing the torch beam around our prison while moving toward the massive steel beam that had Viktor pinned. “Adrian needs medical backup, and you need a hospital.”

“Adrian needs Harrison dead,” Viktor corrected through gritted teeth as I began examining how the beam had fallen. “Everything else is secondary.”

“Fuck that.” I braced myself against a chunk of concrete, using it as leverage to test the beam's weight. “Help me figure out how to get you free first.”

The beam was heavy but not impossible—it had landed at an angle, most of its weight supported by debris rather than Viktor's leg. I found a piece of rebar and worked it under the steel, creating a fulcrum point.

“On three, pull your leg back,” I instructed. “One... two...”

Viktor yanked his leg free as I leveraged the beam up just enough to create space. He tried to put weight on it and immediately collapsed with a strangled curse. “Fuck. Bone is broken. Multiple fractures, I think.”

“Don't try to stand,” I said, checking the damage with my torch. The leg was badly mangled but the bleeding was under control. “You're not walking out of here.”

“Can still crawl,” he said grimly, already testing his upper body strength against the debris. “Leg is fucked, but arms work fine. Now we find way out.”

We searched in tense silence, the sounds of combat growing more desperate outside. I could track Adrian's position by his weapon's distinctive sound, and he wasn't moving. Pinned down, probably, too focused on Harrison to realise the tactical situation was completely fucked .

Then I found it. A gap in the debris, barely shoulder-width, but it led toward what might have been a maintenance shaft. The metal was twisted but not completely blocked.

“I might be able to get through,” I said, already calculating. “It's tight, but?—”

“You cannot leave wounded man,” Viktor protested. “Is against medical oath, no?”

“My oath is to preserve life,” I countered, already stripping off unnecessary gear. “Adrian's about to throw his away. That takes priority.”

Viktor studied me for a long moment. “You will drug him if necessary? Force retreat?”

The question caught me off guard. “What?”

“I know Adrian. Know his obsession. Only way to save him from Harrison may be to save him from himself.” Viktor reached into his tactical vest, pulling out an autoinjector. “Sedative. Military grade. Will drop him in seconds.”

I took the injector, weighing it in my hand. The idea of drugging Adrian, of taking away his choice in the most important moment of his life, made my stomach turn. But the alternative was watching him die for revenge.

“He'll never forgive me,” I said quietly.

“Better unforgiven and alive than dead with revenge complete,” Viktor replied. “Go. Save stubborn bastard from himself.”

I clamped the injector between my teeth, not trusting my pockets to keep it secure while crawling through twisted metal and debris.

Metal tore at my clothes, concrete scraped skin raw, but I kept moving.

The maintenance shaft was a nightmare of twisted pipes and sparking electrical cables, but it led toward the warehouse floor.

I emerged into hell.

The warehouse was a war zone. Bodies littered the concrete, smoke turned the air toxic, and automatic weapons fire came from multiple directions.

I found Dominic first, crawling toward him through the chaos. Three gunshot wounds, losing blood fast. I worked on autopilot, hands moving through familiar motions while bullets sparked off concrete inches away.

“Boss,” Dominic gasped as I got a line in. “Still with Harrison. Won't leave.”

“I know.” I stabilised him best I could, then moved on. Three more wounded operators got field treatment as I worked my way toward Adrian's position. Each one told the same story: boss won't retreat, boss won't leave Harrison.

Stubborn, stupid, magnificent bastard.

I finally spotted him through the smoke, pinned behind industrial shelving that was being systematically destroyed by automatic weapons fire. Blood soaked his shoulder, but his focus remained locked on Harrison, secured to a chair twenty feet away.

Harrison's extraction team was closing in, their movement patterns screaming military training. Maybe sixty seconds before they reached him. Maybe less.

I dropped beside Adrian, immediately pressing gauze to his shoulder wound. “We need to go. Now.”

“He doesn't leave here alive.” Adrian's voice was calm, terrifyingly calm. “I've waited twenty years for this moment.”

“And you'll be dead in twenty seconds if you don't move!” I shouted over the gunfire. “They've got superior position, superior numbers, and you're bleeding out!”

“Then I die.” Simple. Final. “But Harrison dies first.”

The fatalistic acceptance in his voice made something snap inside me. All the weeks of watching him build walls around his trauma, of seeing glimpses of the man beneath the monster, of feeling things I had no business feeling, crystallised into pure, desperate fury.

“You selfish fucking prick!” The words exploded out of me. “You think this is just about you? What about the people who depend on you? What about your grandmother? What about—” I bit off the words 'what about me?' but they hung in the air anyway.

Adrian's gaze finally shifted from Harrison to me. Pain, betrayal, and underneath it all, something soft and vulnerable that made my chest tight.

“He killed them, Noah,” he said quietly. “Burned them alive while I listened. Made me what I am. He doesn't get to walk away from that.”

“And you don't get to throw your life away for revenge!” I shot back. “You think your parents would want this? You dying in some warehouse pissing contest?”

“Don't.” His voice dropped dangerous low.

“Don't what? Tell you the truth? You're so focused on the past you can't see the future getting shot to shit around you!” Another explosion, closer. “Harrison wins if you die here. Everything you've built, everything you've survived, means nothing if you let revenge kill you!”

“Some things matter more than survival.”

“Bollocks. Nothing matters more than survival. That's the first bloody rule you taught me.”

His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”

I'd already palmed Viktor's injector, the weight of betrayal heavy in my hand. “Saving your life. Whether you like it or not.”

Understanding dawned in his eyes a second before I moved. His hand snapped up to catch my wrist, but I'd learned from watching him. Feinted left, struck right, and buried the needle in his thigh before he could stop me .

“You fucking—” he started, then his eyes rolled back as the sedative hit like a sledgehammer.

I caught him as he collapsed, his dead weight nearly taking us both down. The look in his eyes during that last conscious second would haunt me forever. Betrayal. Hurt. Rage.

But alive.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered against his ear, though he couldn't hear me anymore. “I'm so fucking sorry. But I'm not losing you to a ghost.”

Harrison's extraction team was almost through the last defensive position. I couldn't carry Adrian alone, not fast enough. Then Viktor appeared like a blood-soaked guardian angel, dragging his mangled leg but still moving.

“Exit route clear for thirty seconds,” he reported. “Move now.”

Together we hauled Adrian's unconscious form through the smoke and chaos. Every step felt like betrayal, like cowardice, like the smartest thing I'd ever done and the worst mistake possible.

Behind us, Harrison's rescuers reached him. I heard him laughing as they cut his restraints, the sound following us into the night like a curse.

“You've made an enemy tonight,” Viktor observed as we loaded Adrian into the waiting vehicle. “He does not forgive easily.”

“I know.” I checked Adrian's vitals, relieved to find them steady despite everything. “But he's alive to hate me. That's all that matters.”

Viktor studied me with those knowing eyes. “You love him.”

Not a question. No point denying it. “Yeah. God help me, but yeah.”

“Then you did right thing,” Viktor said simply. “Love makes us do terrible things to save those who matter. He will understand. Eventually.”

I looked at Adrian's unconscious face, peaceful in sedation but soon to wake to rage and betrayal. Would he understand? Would he forgive me for taking away his choice, his revenge, his parents' justice?

Time would tell.