The bulb snapped on. Not bright. Just enough light to cut the dark into shapes. Smoke hung in the beam. The air smelled stale and sharp.
Men moved into the light. Guns in their hands. Faces hard. They took off their masks one by one. Their eyes were flat. They stood around Paul, Roland and Angelina like a ring.
Angelina's heart pounded. Her breath came quick and small. For a moment she thought this was the last sound she would make. She saw Lucia's small smile and Gloria's loud laugh. The grief rose raw and close. Life and death crowded into one hard thing in her chest.
The figure in the doorway did not move. All the light fell on that frame. He wore black from head to toe. A mask hid his face. Only the shape told them it was a man. No one spoke. No one blinked. All their eyes kept finding that man.
Then he began to walk. Slow. Step after step with no hurry. Each footfall made Angelina's chest tighten like a fist. The gun in his hand pointed at her. He did not look at Paul, or Roland, or the old man bound in the corner. His gaze fixed on Angelina alone.
He came closer. The floor gave soft echoes under his boots. Angelina felt each step beat in her ribs. She closed her eyes for a second and pictured the two women she had loved. She tried to breathe that picture into the room. The man moved on. The gun caught the weak light now and then. It looked like a cold promise.
He stopped in front of her. Close enough she could see the rough curve of his coat. He raised the gun. The barrel touched her forehead like a cold iron. He swung the muzzle to Paul's temple. Then to Roland. Then he turned it back and set it against Angelina's brow.
The gun stayed there a long minute. Angelina's whole body shook. Blood rushed to her face. She wanted to scream and could not. Her pulse thudded in her ears.
"Please," she whispered. It came out thin. "Please. Please. Have mercy. Don't kill me."
The man's voice was low and flat.
"Say your last word," he said.
The sentence hit the room like a stone. Angelina could not think. She kept saying, softer now, "Don't kill me. Don't kill me."
He reached up and pulled his mask away. His face was not a face she knew. It was scary. Lines crossed his skin like old maps. He had a hard, ugly lean. Angelina felt the room tilt. The hope she had held for a second—that maybe this was someone she could reason with—fell away. He was only the chief of this cruel thing.
He clicked the gun. The noise was sharp and too close. Angelina felt like she might pass out. Her knees trembled. The smell of smoke and sweat filled her mouth. She tasted iron.
"Do you know why I want to kill you?" he asked.
No one answered. Paul made a small sound. Roland tried to say something and swallowed it. Angelina opened her mouth but nothing came.
The chief walked between them like a man reading a list.
"Lucia ruined my boss's life long ago," he said. "She stole funds from him. She was responsible for his mother and sister's deaths."
The words hit like a strike. Angelina's head went cold. Her late mother, Lucia, had been kind. She fed neighbors when the house had less than the cupboard. The idea of Lucia as a thief did not fit in Angelina's chest. It hurt too much.
She tried to speak. To say Lucia could not have done that. But the rope at her wrists cut deep and the cloth in her mouth pressed tight. Her voice stayed small and buried.
The chief smiled as if that pleased him. He told the rest like a man reaching the last page.
"I killed Lucia," he said flatly. "My boss paid for her soul."
The room sank with those words. Paul's face went pale and then red. Angelina watched his shoulders shake. She had never seen her father cry. Now a heavy tear tracked down his cheek. Roland made a broken sound and pressed his forehead to his palm.
The chief paced once and stopped. He looked at Angelina slowly. "My boss already paid for your souls," he said. "He paid me to take Roland, Paul and Angelina. Tonight you become my payment."
Hearing their names from his mouth felt like a blade. Angelina tried the knot at her wrists again with her shoulder. The rope did not give. Her hands tingled and went numb.
He moved toward the man in the corner. The man was small in the half-light. He was bound and his mouth was banded. He did not struggle. His head leaned forward like a man who had already accepted the end. The chief bent down and said, "Say your last word."
The old man lifted his head. His voice was very small.
"May my soul rest in peace," he whispered.
The gun fired. The sound filled the room and left a heavy, stunned quiet.
The old man slumped. Blood darkened his shirt. His body fell without sound. Angelina felt a cold that was not the room. It was the reality of the shot. The powder stung the back of her throat. She watched his eyes go glassy. They stared at the ceiling. He did not move.
Angelina had believed—must have believed—that someone would come. That pleading, money, noise, anything could change it. The old man's fall shut those doors. It closed a door she had not known she kept open.
Paul mouthed something like a prayer. Roland made a small keening sound and pressed his face into his hands. Angelina's voice had gone thin and higher than she knew it could be. She kept thinking of Lucia's hands. Of Gloria's laugh. The memory did nothing in the room. It only made the pain sharper.
The chief walked back to Angelina. His boots made the same small sounds on the rough floor. He leaned close and tapped the gun lightly against her cheek. The cold weight of it felt deliberate.
"Say your last word," he repeated. The sentence sat in the air like a latch being shut.
Angelina thought of everything she had not said. Little things came like a list. She thought of asking Paul to teach her the business papers. She thought of Roland's jacket hanging on the peg. She thought of the white flower she had left at the stone hours before. Lucia and Gloria's faces flashed as if from a bright bulb.
Her mouth opened. No sound came. She tasted iron and dust and the dry smoke of the room. Her mind ran in circles like a small animal. She wanted to bargain. To promise anything. She wanted to see daylight and hear normal sounds again.
Is this how I am going to die?