AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Fucking hell,” Dima breathes. “It’s a shithole.”
Not a shithole, exactly, but seedy enough that you wouldn’t think of finding anyone half-decent on the inside. The walls are made of a mottled concrete that gives the hotel the look of an old Cold War prison. The barbed wire coiled on top doesn’t do much to dispel the notion.
Dima and I have been sitting outside the walls for hours now, on the back end of our second surveillance shift. Only one noteworthy vehicle has approached the hotel in the last twenty-four hours: a beat-up old Chevy with a busted grill, a broken taillight, and a license plate from out of town.
But the tinted windows gave it away.
“Can you seriously imagine Benedict Bellasio in a place like this?” Dima muses.
“It’s not like I gave him much of a choice. I burned his empire to the ground. He had to be hiding in plain sight, somewhere we’d never suspect. Ratholes don’t usually have room service.”
“Then job well done. ‘Cause this place is fuckingdepressing.”
He isn’t wrong. Even the earth seems sad and wilted. It doesn’t want to be here anymore than we do.
“How long do we wait?” Dima asks, shifting impatiently in his seat.
“As long as it takes to be certain that it’s him in there.”
“You saying you don’t trust the intel? Or do you just not trust the rat who gave it to us? I mean, I wouldn’t blame you; Archie could be full of shit. For all we know, this dump has nothing to do with Benedict.”
I shake my head. “You’re wrong there. I can smell him all over this place.”
Dima brightens up at once. “So does that mean—?”
“Yeah,” I say, killing the engine. “Fuck waiting. Let’s go kill this motherfucker.”
We step out of the car and sneak around, dodging camera fields en route to our starting position. All around us, the shadows bristle and teem with snapping sticks, shifting rocks, the crunch of sand under boots.
The full might of the Zakharov Bratva is waiting in the darkness.
“Tell the men to wait for my signal,” I say to Dima. “Then we strike.”
Dima nods, practically foaming at the mouth, as he whispers into the walkie-talkie clipped to his chest.
When the orders are relayed, I go to the side door, pull it open, and slip in.
The interior of the motel is lined with decades-old carpet the color of blood, stained with cigarette ash and God only knows what else. It smells like perfumed rot. Potted plants dot the corners, pathetically dusty. Everything is eerily quiet.
A counter sits at the end of the foyer space. I walk toward it. At the sound of my footsteps, a woman pokes her head out of the back office.
“Oh!” she gasps, way too surprised for someone who in theory is supposed to be here to welcome guests. “Hi—uh, who are you?”
The question is pierced with panic. I see her hand moving towards something under the counter. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Her eyes go wide as she freezes in place. She knows why we’re here; she doesn’t even need to ask. “P-please, I just work here.”
“It’ll be okay,” I say as I inch towards her. “If you stay quiet, then everything’s going to be just fine.”
From the furrow on her brow and the panic on her lips, I’m guessing she doesn’t believe me. She starts backing away as I approach.
Just before she opens her mouth to scream, I vault over the counter and grab her, clamping my hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. I have no desire to kill her, but I need her to stay quiet. So, with one focused headbutt, her body goes limp in my arms. I fold her into a fetal position under the counter of her desk.
When I straighten up, Dima is standing by the mouth of the hallway. “I’m hearing footsteps,” he whispers. “We’ve got to hurry.”
The two of us head through the door that leads to an interior courtyard of sorts. There’s a dead tree in the very center, surrounded by a dried-up pond and brown grass. We trek past it to a series of doors, most as dusty as the rest of this hellhole.
“Should we go one by one?” asks Dima.
