CHAPTER 17 BLOOD IN THE DUST
1259 Words
The alley was too quiet, too empty, too staged. Ethan felt it before he saw it. The kind of stillness that comes before a blade flashes or a bullet sings. He raised a hand, silently signaling Maya to halt behind him as he scanned the rooftops, the shadows, the glimmer of broken glass scattered across the dirt road.
But Maya stepped forward anyway.
“We’re losing time. Jade said the warehouse would be"
A metal clink cut her off.
Ethan reacted first grabbing her waist and pulling her behind a rusted dumpster just as the explosion ripped the air apart. The shockwave slammed into them, dust exploding upward like a rising storm.
Maya’s ears rang. Her breath caught. But Ethan didn’t give her a second to settle.
“They’re here,” he whispered. “And they knew we were coming.”
Her pulse jumped. “Rico…”
Ethan nodded grimly. “This is his style.”
Boots scraped behind them. A shadow shifted. Ethan spun Maya behind him again, drawing his gun in one clean motion.
A man lunged.
Ethan fired. The attacker dropped, a grunt escaping his lips as he hit the ground. A second one appeared just as fast, swinging a metal bar toward Ethan’s head. Maya reacted on instinct, grabbing a shard of glass from the floor and slashing across the man’s forearm. He screamed and staggered backward, giving Ethan an opening to finish him.
Then silence again.
Ethan turned to her eyes sharp but filled with something soft beneath the adrenaline.
“You okay?”
Maya nodded, chest rising and falling. “You pulled me out again.”
“You keep standing in front of explosions. I don’t have a choice.”
She almost smiled but then her gaze hardened.
“We need to move.”
Ethan grabbed her hand, and together they slipped deeper into the alley toward the old metal door Jade had marked on the map. The door was half-bent, half-welded shut, with the smell of gasoline and decay seeping from the cracks.
Maya touched the handle and flinched. “It’s warm.”
Ethan crouched beside her, examining the hinges. “Someone opened it recently… and not long ago.”
He pushed the door open slowly.
Cold air hit them.
The room beyond was dark, lit only by a flickering ceiling bulb that buzzed like an angry insect. The warehouse stretched farrows of crates, broken shelves, and hastily discarded equipment. But the thing that froze Maya’s heart wasn’t any of that.
It was the symbol sprayed on the wall.
A red circle.
A black serpent inside it.
Rico’s mark.
Maya whispered, “He’s taunting us.”
“Or warning us,” Ethan said. “Rico never leaves signs for no reason.”
She stepped closer, touching the rough paint, her fingertips trembling. Each moment of this hunt brought her one second closer to her sister… or one step closer to heartbreak.
“Maya,” Ethan murmured, stepping behind her. His hands hovered near her shoulders, close but not touching. “Whatever happens in here… you’re not alone.”
She swallowed hard. “I know. But she is. And if he hurts her”
Ethan gently turned her toward him.
“We’ll get her out. Alive. I swear it.”
His voice rough, low, carrying a weight he rarely let anyone hear hit her deeper than the promise itself.
Maya breathed in shakily. “Why do you care so much?”
Ethan hesitated. His jaw tensed. His eyes softened.
“Because somewhere along this road… you stopped being a mission.”
For a moment, just a moment the world stood still around them. The flickering light, the distant hum of machinery, the smell of gasoline… everything faded into the background.
Maya’s breath caught. Her lips parted. And she stepped closer, wanting to hear him say more, wanting to feel the unspoken words pressing against the space between them.
But a scream shattered the moment.
A woman’s scream.
Maya’s heart collapsed and rebuilt itself in a single beat.
“Jade!” she cried.
They ran.
They sprinted past stacks of crates, down a narrow corridor, through a metal gate that swung open too easily. The screams grew louder, echoing in desperation and terror.
They burst into a small room illuminated by a single dangling bulb.
Jade was tied to a chair, blood dripping from her lip. Standing beside her was a tall man with a scar across his face and a cold smile that curled like smoke.
Rico’s second-in-commanditor Kane.
He raised a blade.
“Move any closer,” Vitor said lightly, “and she bleeds deeper.”
Maya froze.
Ethan didn’t.
He strode forward with lethal precision. “Let her go.”
Vitor smirked. “Ah, the famous Captain Ethan Ward. Rico said you’d come. He said you’re predictable when it comes to women.”
Maya clenched her fists.
“Touch her,” she growled, “and you’ll find out how predictable a bullet to the skull is.”
The goon laughed. “Fiery. I like that.”
Ethan aimed, but Vitor pressed the blade to Jade’s throat.
“One more step,” he whispered, “and she says goodbye to breathing.”
Jade trembled, tears streaking her dusty cheeks. “Don’t… don’t let him…”
Maya’s heart cracked.
Ethan’s eyes flicked to Maya, silently asking for trust.
She gave it to me.
Slowly, he lowered the gun just slightly. Enough to ease Vitor’s confidence. Enough to make him shift his stance.
In that tiny, fragile window
Maya moved.
She lunged forward, grabbed one of the scattered metal pipes from the floor, and swung with everything inside her.
The pipe cracked against Vitor’s arm.
The blade flew.
Ethan tackled him before he recovered, slamming him into the wall. Fists flew. Bones cracked. Vitor roared in rage, swinging wildly, but Ethan was faster, sharper, angrier.
Maya rushed to Jade, untying the ropes with trembling hands.
“You’re safe,” she whispered. “You’re safe now. I’m here.”
Jade sobbed into her shoulder.
Ethan delivered the final blow, a brutal strike that sent Vitor collapsing to the floor, unconscious and bleeding.
Breathing hard, Ethan stood over him. “Where’s your boss?” he growled. “Where’s Rico?”
Vitor laughed weakly despite the blood in his mouth.
“Too late,” he rasped. “Rico already moved her.”
Maya froze. “Moved who?”
He smirked. “Your sister.”
The world tilted.
Maya’s vision blurred. But rage steadied her spine.
She crouched beside him, grabbing his collar.
“Where did he take her?” she hissed. “Tell me!”
Vitor smiled through missing teeth.
“Straight to the beginning, sweetheart.”
Ethan stepped closer. “What does that mean?”
Vitor whispered one final clue before passing out:
“Where it all started…”
Silence fell.
Ethan exchanged a grim look with Maya.
Jade trembled as she held onto Maya’s arm. “Maya… your sister… what now?”
Maya inhaled slowly.
Deeply.
Pain, fear, anger, hope all burning together in her eyes.
“We go back,” she said. “To the one place I never wanted to return to.”
Her childhood home.
Where everything began.
Where the nightmare started.
Where Rico waited.
Ethan placed a hand gently on her backsteady, grounding, protective.
“We’ll face it together,” he said.
Maya nodded.
But in her heart, she knew:
The next strike wouldn’t just be for rescue.
It would be the last strike for love.
The one that decides everything.
- Writer
