Roman and Conor

The knife sprouted from his neck like a weed from the ground. I swiveled past him, and his eyes were filled with astonishment, shock, and fear. Blood dwelled around the blade's hilt and trickled onto hands already sticky with the dark red liquid. I pulled it out, a fountain spurted, and he dropped. His body hit the ground with a thump, but I'd already stopped listening

Eight men had piled out of those three black SUVs, piled out and then filed in amongst the war memorial's huge, rusted iron pillars to secure the area for their boss. Three already lay dead at my hands, scattered around in various stages of lifelessness, snapped necks or slit throats chronicling their descent into death.

Now four.

The earpiece around the body's neck crackled, relaying a high-pitched warning its owner would never get to hear. I stared at it with disgust, considered posting it on, hearing the pained, terrified cries of my enemies as their confidence evaporated, as their minds filled with fear and doubt. I decided against it, kicked it off his neck and crushed it underneath my boot. An electronic screech briefly pierced my ears, and then nothing.

This was a hunt. They were animals, and animals don't talk.

I kept walking, straight through the rusted pillars. They were built offset, like a thicket of trees that grew not by design, in careful rose, but wherever their seeds fell, so that whatever lay behind was visible only rarely. Brief snatches of the floodplain, the back of Victor's head in the distance, then rusted metal stakes, warnings against the folly of human violence – and now testament to yet more of it.

The breeze gusted, and carried on it a sound, a squeal – a baby's cry. My blood ran cold, and I stopped dead in my tracks, legs swallowed up by quicksand, the air in front of me replaced by invisible concrete. No! This can't be. He's not supposed to be here.

I closed my eyes, blinked, licked my lips with a tongue that was as dry as sandpaper. Ellie's soft, sweet, innocent face flashed upon my mind, and it was all I could see. If our child was here, then it meant that this distraction – half of it, anyway, was for nothing. Maya would stumble across an empty nest, and as for Ellie…

It didn't bear thinking about.

My calm, deadly confidence evaporated. Anger surged through me, and then cold determination. If Victor had my baby, then he was as good as dead. The rules of the game had shifted, and my promise to Conor and Maya meant nothing. Perhaps I couldn't save Ellie, but my son was another matter entirely. I was going to get him back, and take his captor out.

Victor's voice drifted on a change of wind, and what he said filled my heart with dread. "Find… Get it done."

Find her? Get what done?

I didn't know, and it terrified me. But I did know, and it was Ellie, there wasn't a shadow nor a speck of doubt in my mind that she was in danger. The bloody knife fell from my hand and landed point down in the dark earth, soil that the river had deposited over centuries, rich, life-giving mud. Droplets of blood trickled down the blade and soaked into the earth. Next year, a flower might feed on the death, or grass will grow, but it meant nothing to me. My hand moved on autopilot, unclipped the holster at my waist and pulled out a gun. One-handed I flicked off the safety catch, then racked the slide with my left. I was the gun now, and it was me. We were one, and Victor was in our sights.

I broke into a run, straight for the sound of Victor's voice. I dodged pillars as I sprinted, huge, stark edifices the color of blood, and they seemed like monuments to the lives of those that I'd killed. I didn't see them. Adrenaline soaked my muscles, flowing in not as a trickle but in a flood, and my vision narrowed until there was nothing ahead of me, nothing except my target, and blackness all around.

I ran forward, past the last line of rusted stakes, and broke into the open.

Victor's last bodyguard span.

A shot echoed.

His body dropped to the ground.

I screamed, a raw, painful roar that ripped my throat to shreds. It was an outpouring of rage, of grief, and the statement of intent. "Victor!"

He stood stock still, his arms by his side, but held oddly up at the elbow, as if he was hugging himself. Or cradling something… I leveled my gun and pointed at his skull, but it was an impotent gesture. I knew that if I shot, and he fell, he might crush my son, my fragile son, and I caressed the trigger and spat on the ground with

A baby's cry echoed out upon the breeze, and the blood thundered in my ears, and it felt wrong, sounded wrong.

"Ah, the avenging father appears at last," he called, in a mocking, lilting tone of voice. "Where have you been, Roman? I've been waiting. I have to say, I'm impressed. It seems I miscalculated – I thought ten men would be more than enough. Mistakes, eh. I've made a few."

He turned round, and in his arms I saw what I feared most – a bundle of cloth, held tight to his body with one hand, but worse, so much worse, a stainless steel, 9 mm Desert Eagle pistol held, limp-wristed with the other.

My voice broke. "What kind of man –," I said, throat cracking. "Threatens a child?"

"This?" Victor shrugged, an evil smile dancing across his lips. "This isn't a child, it's a pawn." His smile vanished, face changing in an instant from sinister, to downright terrifying – the kind of face that stalks every child's worst nightmare. Not stretched, not pulled into an affected grimace – just soulless, dead.

Conor appeared to Victor's side, rifle held ready at his shoulder. He stared down the sights, aimed, and then looked at me, a question in his eyes.

I shook my head.

"That's right," Victor sneered. "Listen to your master, puppy. If I die, who's to say this finger doesn't pull against the trigger as I fall? We wouldn't want your sweet baby to suffer for your mistakes, would we? So here's what's going to happen." He said, a victorious grimace that I imagined was intended to pass for a smile curling at the corner of his mouth. "I'm going to get into that SUV, there, and you're not going to follow, or – well you know what happens."

"Who were you talking to?" I said in a choked voice, my heart in my mouth. "Just then, on your cell phone. Answer me! Who the fuck were you talking to?"

"I'm sorry, Roman," came the reply, in a mocking tone of voice that didn't even register as a tidal wave of guilt crashed against my body. "If you're talking about your pretty little girlfriend, I'm afraid it's too late…"