Page 340 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

It always has been.

‘Let’s move.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

‘Roman?’

The silence that falls around them is severe.

No one speaks. No one moves.

Lachlan stares at the man on the floor.

Kade is this close to passing out, but the pain is fading.

Riley is absorbing it. Healing him.

Kade forces his eyes open.

The room comes back in pieces.

Raw concrete, exposed pipework, steel walkways overhead.

They’re in the headquarters of the Moroz Front.

They came to get the book.

Then… this.

Half the industrial lights are shot out, the rest swinging on their housings. Water spits from a ruptured line, washing blood towards a buckled drain. One wall has been opened to its framework. Twisted wire hangs through the breach, sparking weakly. More bodies lie among the wreckage than Kade remembers falling. Four or five at least, all dead except this Roman.

He lies where he fell, one arm trapped beneath his body.

Blood darkens his clothes, but his chest moves.

No one moves or speaks or breathes until a low moan breaks the silence.

Roman’s fingers curl against the concrete.

Vasily finds his voice. ‘Bind him.’

It comes out cracked, barely more than breath.

Roman shifts again.

‘Now!’ Blaire snaps, and Vasily’s people rush forward.

Three men roll Roman onto his stomach while another wrenches his arms behind him. Steel closes around his wrists. Someone strips belts from two of the dead and cinches them hard around his ankles and knees.

Roman groans.

His head lifts an inch.

‘Gag him too,’ Blaire commands. ‘Cover his eyes.’

Someone brings a length of rope. They wind it around his elbows, chest and wrists, binding the restraints together until movement in one part of his body tightens everything else. A folded strip of cloth is forced between his teeth and tied behind his head. Roman’s eyes open briefly to roll upwards into pure white like a shark before they’re covered.

‘Get him upstairs,’ Blaire tells them. ‘No one touches him.’