Beauty and the Devil

chapter 28

Clyde’s POV

She stood in my office, rain still in her hair, a bullet in her hand.

Her voice didn’t shake. She didn’t cry. She told me what happened — the blood-soaked hoodie left at her door, the bullet tucked into the pocket, the texts, the threats, the silence. She gave me every detail without emotion, but her fingers wouldn’t stop moving.

Something locked into place in me.

I didn’t ask her to sit down. I didn’t ask her to say it again. I took the bullet, turned away from her, and started making calls.

The first went to Rafa. “Get Aronoff here tonight. No customs. No delays. Use the Meir route if you have to.” The second was Novak — owed me a favor, the kind you don’t delay on. I didn’t say please.

Within three hours, the crew was back together. My old guys, two ex-FSB freelancers I hadn’t called in years, and Aronoff — former Mossad, the type who worked without questions. They showed up fast, quiet, and ready to kill.

Samantha didn’t leave the room. She sat on the edge of the couch, eyes following every movement. She watched me lay out the floor plans, load magazines, flip between burner phones. She didn’t look away. Not even when the first weapons hit the table. I handed her a knife. She took it.

No questions. No fear. She was past that now.

The lead came in close to midnight.

Warehouse, down at the docks. Concrete walls, metal roof. The Vasilek crew’s shipment point. I knew the place. We’d tagged it years ago but never needed to use it. According to Novak’s man, they were using it again — but not just for drugs. They were keeping someone there. A boy. Seventeen. Alive, barely.

Michael.

I turned to Samantha and said one thing. “You stay behind me.”

She nodded. Once. That was all I needed.

***

We rolled out at 00:40.

The rain was relentless — thick, cold, cutting through everything. I sat in the front of the lead SUV. Samantha was behind me, dressed in black, silent, focused. I handed her a comm and a knife. She slid both into her jacket without a word.

We approached the warehouse from three angles. I took the front. Aronoff and two others circled wide around the back. Another team covered the roof.

The moment we got eyes on the structure, I knew something was wrong. The perimeter was too quiet. Lights off, but not dark. Doors locked, but the ground near them was too clean — like someone had just swept.

Then I saw it — my point man stiffen as he reached for the latch.

He’d been made.

I raised my hand to signal fallback. Gunfire erupted before it was all the way up.

Floodlights snapped on. The front doors flew open.

It was a trap.

I yanked Samantha back behind the nearest crate stack. Wood cracked above us as the first rounds hit. She crouched low, blade in one hand, comm pressed to her ear with the other.

I grabbed her arm, leaned in close.

“If you hear my name, don’t move,” I said. “If I drop, don’t scream. You run.”

She nodded. Her jaw was tight. I didn’t waste another second.

I moved.

First shot dropped the man on the catwalk. The second found the guy behind the forklift. Two more on the left, close-range, quick. No hesitation. I wasn’t angry. This wasn’t rage. It was calculation. They took her brother, so I was taking their entire operation apart.

I moved room to room, body low, vision clear. The knife found two more men before they ever saw me coming. I didn’t miss. I didn’t speak. They didn’t scream.

By the time we reached the hallway at the back, I’d already taken out five.

The door was locked. Aronoff’s charge blew it off the hinges in seconds.

Inside, blood, mildew, and the sharp sting of piss. The kind of place no one walks out of clean. One bulb swung from a chain overhead. Beneath it, Michael was tied to a pipe. Barely conscious. His lips were split. One of his eyes was swollen shut.

“Samantha?” he mumbled when he saw her step in behind me.

She dropped to her knees, already pulling at the ties on his wrists. Her voice cracked as she spoke to him. I didn’t listen to what she said. I was already scanning for the next threat.

I moved toward him to cut the zip ties.

That’s when the shot landed.

Close range, right side, just under the ribs. The heat hit before the pain. The sound was louder than I expected in such a small room.

I didn’t stop moving.

The shooter stepped out from behind the shelf near the door, but he didn’t get off a second shot. I turned, fired twice — clean, center mass. He dropped like dead weight.

Samantha looked up. She saw the blood before I did.

“Clyde—” she said, voice shaking.

“I’m fine,” I said, grabbing Michael under one arm. “Get the door.”

She hesitated. “You’re bleeding.”

“Ask me about it when we’re out of here.”

She didn’t argue.

We moved fast. The hallway behind us was filling with smoke. The fire had reached the west side. Someone had hit a fuel line or worse.

Michael was barely standing. I kept him upright with one arm. My other hand stayed on the gun. Samantha stuck close, silent, eyes wide but sharp.

I never let her out of my sight.

Not for a second.

We broke through the rear exit just before the roof started to go. The rain slammed down harder. The warehouse behind us was glowing with flame now, black smoke rising into the night sky. I didn’t turn back to look.

My side was soaked in blood. My hands were raw. I couldn’t feel my shoulder anymore.

Didn’t matter.

I had her.

I had him.

And no one was touching either of them again.