The Price For Blood

Every bump in the road, every faint shift in speed felt like its own lifetime. He knew the field was only twenty miles from the house. In the trunk, it felt like hours of being slowly delivered to his own grave.

Luka felt the shift in the car’s speed in his body first, the drag of momentum, the subtle lean of the turn. Then the muted thunder of tires rolling over railroad tracks rattled through the frame and up his spine.

A shiver ran through him and wouldn’t stop.

Alonzo’s field sat just past those tracks. Half a mile, maybe less. His pulse pounded in his ears, counting down what little time he had left.

The car eased to a stop, and silence pressed in before it shattered.

One door opened, followed by another, then another. Muffled thuds of shoes on dirt. Voices, low. How many men did it take to kill another? Apparently several. Great, an audience to watch him disappear.

Had Alonzo come after all? To make sure the job got done? For entertainment?

His mouth went dry. He licked at the adhesive backing of the tape without thinking.

The trunk latch clicked, and the lid cracked open an inch, a blade of evening light slicing into the darkness. Luka squinted, then went still, his breath cut off in his throat.

Then the lid lifted all the way.

Rico stared down at him, his jaw locked and his eyes hard. Luka thought he saw something else there, a flicker of recognition, apology, a silent don’t panic, but it vanished before he could trust it. Hope was the worst kind of trap. It’d pull him under before the bullet even got the chance.

Rico’s gloved hand clamped around his arm and pulled him out of the trunk. Luka’s feet hit the dirt, his legs unsteady. As much as he’d hated the dark, the bleach, and the cramped metal walls, he suddenly wanted it back. At least in there, the end was hypothetical. Out here, it had a horizon.

His heart slammed hard enough to make his vision pulse. Evening wind passed over his sweat-slick skin, leaving him clammy. Dusk had settled over the place. The abandoned warehouse was tucked into the darkness to his left. It had broken windows and rusted sheet-metal siding. Behind it, the field stretched out in knee-high grass, the blades whispering in the breeze like they were already spreading news of his death. Alonzo’s forgotten land. Too far from anyone to hear him scream, even if the tape across his mouth would’ve let him try.

Footsteps closed in behind him.

He turned his head enough to see Dante approaching.

“Nice work, Luka,” Dante muttered, giving him a shove toward the field.

On the surface, it sounded like mockery, just another snide remark. But the push was too light, more a nudge than a blow. His voice carried a note Luka didn’t know what to do with. Not kind or cruel. Just... off. Wrong for the moment.

Luka let himself wonder if that softness meant something.

Then he crushed the thought. He couldn’t afford to see mercy where there wasn’t any. Better to believe they were exactly what they looked like. Alonzo’s sons, doing Alonzo’s work.

Dante’s gaze flicked to Rico and caught. There was a whole conversation in that look. Luka saw it, hesitated over it, then forced himself to look away.

If there was anything human left in them, he decided, it wasn’t for him.

Luka stumbled forward when Rico tugged, his feet catching on clumps of dirt and dry grass. Rico fell into step beside him, an almost antique revolver heavy in his hand. He fed rounds into the cylinder one by one, the brass glinting in the low light, the clicks sharp. Rico had always liked old things, anything built to last. Black gloves fit his fingers like something complicit. The gun spun in his palm, the cylinder snapping shut with a practiced flick. It looked like something straight out of a movie. This was how the Valentis solved problems.

Behind them, one of Alonzo’s men let out a low snort.

“Well, Rico, looks like today’s the day ya make the old man proud,” he drawled, his Brooklyn accent thick. “Don’t screw it up.”

“Yeah, kid,” the other chimed in, his accent uglier. “Make it nice an’ clean. Boss likes clean.”

The word clean scraped over Luka’s nerves. His shoulders jerked.

He’d been so trapped inside his own panic that he hadn’t clocked that Alonzo had sent backup. Two men stood in the shadows at his back, smirks carved on like they’d waited all week for this show. He knew who they were. He hated who they were.

Luka turned his head just enough to see them. Their eyes were eager. Not a hint of doubt. If Rico hesitated, if Dante flinched, those two would finish the job without a second thought. Any fantasy Luka had of Rico lowering the gun or Dante stepping between them shrank to a grain of sand.

“Move,” Dante snapped.

The shove between Luka’s shoulder blades was sharp but controlled. Again, it wasn’t right for the moment. Luka felt that difference and hated himself for noticing it.

It wasn’t like he could protest, so he went where his brother directed.

Dante walked him to the center of the field, the grass brushing his legs, the sky burning itself out in streaks of orange and pink. He stopped him there and turned him to face the dying sun, putting Luka’s back to Rico and the others, lining him up like a blind target.

Dante stepped in close enough that Luka could feel his breath at his ear.

“Don’t watch,” he murmured, his voice low. “This’s gonna be over soon, a’right?”

The words landed wrong. His brows knitted as confusion twisted through the fear. Was that mercy? A promise? A lie dressed as kindness? A quick death wrapped in a brother’s voice?

How thoughtful. Nothing like a little bedside manner before the murder. Thanks, but no thanks, he thought bitterly. Comfort didn’t mean much when you were the one facing the execution squad.

Dante’s hand settled on his shoulder, his fingers tightening once before letting go. It was nothing. It was everything. Luka didn’t know which hurt more: believing it meant nothing or hoping it meant something and letting that hope break whatever was left of him.

He decided it was easier to call it nothing.

He wasn’t going out with his head bowed.

He lifted his chin and stared into the last warm spill of the sun, the horizon on fire, the sky’s clever deception that this was an evening like any other. The light hit his face and almost felt gentle, as if the moment belonged to someone who wasn’t about to die. Heat lingered on him like a final touch, the day’s last goodbye.

He drew in a breath anyway, deep and slow. His lungs resisted, but he forced the air down.

Behind him, he could feel the gun without seeing it. Not the metal, just the intention of it, the weight of Rico’s aim pinning itself between his shoulder blades. The hair at the back of his neck lifted. Every nerve in his body fired off as if he’d touched a live wire with wet hands.

“This is about loyalty,” Rico said, his voice rough.

Like that made a difference. Rico was still murdering his own brother. Proof of his loyalty to Alonzo and his hatred toward Luka. The bitterness was enough to keep Luka upright.

Then the revolver cocked.

The sound was small, but it tore clean through him. A click that meant the world had decided. Bile surged up his throat. He swallowed it back, his throat burning, his eyes watering despite his attempt to stop the tears.

He knew that sound. He’d heard it a hundred times at Alonzo’s firing range, standing behind Rico while the antique revolver spat holes into paper targets. Back then, it had been a ritual. Rico showing off. Luka pretending he wasn’t scared of the way the gun looked like it belonged to another century and was still as lethal now as it had been then.

Here, in the field, it didn’t feel like a ritual. It felt like an ending.

Luka squeezed his eyes closed so tightly that the skin around them wrinkled and his nose burned as a tear escaped. He tried to drag his mind somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Back in Paris. Buildings lined the streets with old-world grace. Streetlights made everything look like it had a purpose. Coffee and music and art that didn’t smell like gunpowder.

In Paris, families died for you. They didn’t line you up in a field and call it loyalty.

Behind him, one of Alonzo’s men barked, “What’re you waitin’ for?”

“C’mon,” the other jeered. “Make ya papa proud.”

Rico didn’t answer. His gun did.

The shot ripped the air apart.

Luka flinched, his breath punching out of him. The blast was louder than it had ever been at the range, too close to ignore, as if the sky had cracked open above his head. The sound left his ears ringing.

His muscles braced for the hit. His spine tightened, ready for the metal to tear through him. He could almost feel it arriving, that invisible line from Rico’s hands to the center of his back, speeding toward him, inevitable.

Except it never landed.

There was no impact. No kick to his ribs. No sudden weight dragging him forward. Just the wind, the darkening sky, and the ringing in his ears.

His mind refused to accept it. It had to be delayed. He had heard it. He had felt the air move. The bullet had to be inside him already, tearing through him on its own schedule.

He waited for the burn, the pain, the wet warmth soaking his shirt, but it never came. No sharp ache arrived. No heat bloomed across him. Nothing ran down his skin.

His knees held. His lungs still pulled in air, ragged, like they were working on instinct alone.

His heart gave one violent kick and then seemed to stop. The world narrowed to a handful of details: the tape biting into his mouth and wrists, the bitter bite of gunpowder in the air, and the struggle to pull in another breath.

Then his heartbeat returned with one hard thud and another, faster now, as if his body had realized it had gotten away with something it wasn’t supposed to survive. Blood roared in his ears, and relief hit so suddenly it made him sway.

He was still here. Still standing. Still breathing.

Rico never missed his target. If Luka was still alive and whole, that meant only one thing.

He hadn’t been Rico’s target.