Before he can get either done, he’s down.
The shooter must have a silencer on his weapon because although I don’t hear the shot, I know exactly when he hits his target in the right knee, dropping him instantly as he screams in agony.
“So much for a quiet entrance,” Rafa says.
“My entrance wasn’t intended to be quiet,” I say, opening the door as the SUV comes to a stop. I see another of the soldiers drop as a third raises his arms high in surrender.
Francesco Catalano’s men step out of their hiding places and Rafa flanks me as we walk toward the entrance.
“Stefan, you should wait until we have the soldiers contained.”
“I’m not afraid of these men. They have what’s mine.”
A machine gun unloads and we take cover as the shooter appears in the upstairs window. Bullets spray the SUVs. A moment later, the shooting becomes erratic as he’s hit by one of our men and his body flops over the windowsill, the glass of the window long gone.
The machine gun finally drops to the ground and the shooting ceases.
The door bursts open and a soldier rushes us, weapon ready. Another man appears at a different window upstairs.
They get a couple of rounds off before I hit one and one of our soldiers takes out another.
At my signal, the men spread out around the building.
“On your knees. Hands behind your head,” I yell to the one guard who surrendered like a pussy when we pulled up.
He obeys instantly, but his gun is still strapped to his shoulder.
I take it, sling it over mine. I lean down, grab him by his dusty hair and make him look at me.
“Any more men inside?”
“No!” he shakes his head frantically, looking at the dead one in the window.
“And the girl?”
He’s shaking, blubbering.
“The girl,” I ask, fisting his hair hard.
“Out back.”
I haul him to his feet. “Take me to her.” I shove him ahead of me into the building.
It’s dark, the only light streaming in from the few glassless windows. The interior is completely destroyed, the stairs half-ruined. Any furniture that’s still recognizable is rotting and the place stinks of piss and earth.
Better than the morgue, I tell myself.
I push him along. The house is deeper than it appears from the outside.
Rafa is behind me along with two other men. Our weapons are drawn, in case anyone lied and there are more armed men inside.
We walk through two more rooms, stepping over debris, the bones of some unidentifiable animal.
“If you’re fucking with me,” I start.
He shakes his head, moves through an opening that was once a door to a walled-in courtyard. The walls are high and in the center is a well and I’m going to fucking kill him when he goes directly to it. He shoves the piece of wood covering it aside.
I hear her before I see her. Her gasp echoes as sunlight pours into the deep well.
I look down.
Something moves and she screams, pulling her knees in and the terror in her voice makes every muscle in my body tighten.
“Gabriela,” I yell down, shoving the man aside and leaning the machine gun I took off of him against the well. A soldier takes hold of him and I peer down. The well has got to be sixteen, maybe eighteen feet deep.
Rafa is beside me in an instant. He looks down at her.
“Ah, fuck,” he mutters.
She’s huddled against a corner on her knees. Her hands are bound behind her and a hood covers her face. Something runs across her lap, a mouse maybe, and she screams again.
“I’m coming, Gabriela. I’m coming to get you.”
I don’t know if she hears but she’s trying to stand, to press her back into the wall.
“Here,” Rafa says and I look at him, at the rope ladder he’s unraveling into the well.
“We’re throwing a ladder down. Just be still, Gabriela. It’s me. It’s Stefan. I’m coming.”
I climb down into the cold, damp space. The rope is old, and I have to be careful.
When I get closer, she starts screaming again.
“It’s Stefan,” I tell her, taking hold of her shoulders, pulling her into me. Holding her tight.
The instant she knows it’s me, her body goes limp and she begins to sob, her hooded face buried against my chest.
I look around. I’m glad the well is at least dry. They didn’t have her sitting in filthy water.
I pull back to look at her. She’s covered in dirt and shivering and for as hot as it is up there, it’s fucking cold down here. Although I think without that covering at the top of the well, it would have been worse for her.
She’s cold, but she’s alive.
I have to hold her upright as I look around the small space, see the hole the mouse must have disappeared into, see the carcasses of bigger animals rotting nearby.
It’s probably better she had that hood over her head.
“Stefan?” she manages.
I hug her again, hear her whimpering softly beneath the hood.
“Are you hurt?”
She makes a sound and leans against me, her face, her torso, her weight fully into me. I want nothing more than to pull that hood off. To look into her eyes. To see for myself she’s not hurt. To tell her she’s safe.
But I need to get her out of here before I do that. She’ll panic if she sees what’s down here.
The rope ladder concerns me, though. She’s too weak to climb on her own but I’m not sure it will hold both of us.
First, I untie the rope at her wrists, rub them, eyeing the bruised, raw flesh, the marks on her through the ripped tatters of her clothes.
Her hands move to the hood, but I capture her wrists.
“Let me get you out of here first,” I say.
“I want it off.”
“Trust me, Gabriela.”
She hesitates, then nods. “Okay,” comes her small, trembling voice.
“We’re going to climb up,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice calm. I have to carry her up. I have no choice.
When I pull away, she cries out. “Don’t leave me!”
“Shh. It’s all right. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Stefan,” Rafa’s voice calls down when he realizes what I’m going to do. “The rope isn’t strong enough.”
“It has to be,” I say. I turn to Gabriela who can’t see me. “Wrap your legs around me,” I tell her, lifting her up.
She barely manages and I wonder if they’ve given her food or water in the last few days.
“Good. Now hold on tight and don’t let go no matter what,” I say, folding her arms around my neck and holding her to me with one arm wrapped around her.
I keep her like this for a moment before beginning the careful climb up. My progress is slow and the rope strains beneath our combined weight. When I’m about two-thirds of the way up, it tears beneath my foot and Gabriela screams, clinging so tight she’s almost choking me.
I stop moving. Hug her tight to me.
“It’s okay. We’re okay.”
I look down. I look up.
“A little farther and I can take her,” Rafa calls to me.
I move again, carefully but as quickly as I can, hearing the tattered rope strain with every move, and just as Rafa takes hold of Gabriela, the rung I’ve got my feet on rips away, the ladder dropping to the well floor, leaving me dangling.