They are already here!"
Mendoza's voice came out stripped of everything except urgency.
"Which people?" Hilda demanded, twisting in her seat, her eyes scanning the darkness beyond the windows.
There was no time for an answer. Mendoza threw himself over into the driver's seat and gunned the engine, his hands moving fast and certain. The car lurched forward.
Then the bullet came through.
It caught him in the arm and the sound he made was not a scream. It was something worse. Short and swallowed and immediately suppressed.
"Daddy!" Tesni's voice broke apart on the word.
"I am fine." He grabbed his arm, jaw tight, eyes still forward. "I am fine."
He was not fine.
It did not matter. There was nowhere to go.
From every direction the black cars appeared, sliding out of the dark with the kind of coordinated silence that only came from people who had done this many times before. They closed in from all sides, forming a wall of metal and intention around the family car until the road ahead and the road behind ceased to exist entirely.
The doors of the car directly in front of them swung open.
He stepped out slowly.
He was enormous. Nearly seven feet of deliberate, unhurried presence, dressed head to toe in black. A turtleneck. Pressed trousers with a crease sharp enough to cut. An overcoat that moved with him like a second skin. He carried an umbrella even in the dark, its canopy tilted just enough to keep his face in shadow. Behind him, fanning out across every available inch of space, stood close to a hundred men. Still. Waiting. Watching.
The night felt smaller with him in it.
"Nobody gets out of this car," Mendoza said, his voice low and absolute despite the blood soaking through his sleeve. "Understood?"
"Yes, Dad," Aine said.
Then the voice came from outside. Unhurried. Almost polite.
"Mr. Mendoza." Ravi did not raise it. He did not need to. "Get out. Now."
"Daddy, no." Tesni reached forward.
"Dad." Aine's hand found his arm and held on. "Dad, do not."
"Mr. Mendoza."
A pause that felt like the world holding its breath.
"One."
"Dad." Aine's grip tightened.
"Two."
Three
He opened the door before the third count could come.
He barely made it one step.
Someone moved with terrifying speed and seized him, forcing him down to the wet ground before he could find his footing. The impact was brutal and immediate and he did not make a sound.
"Dad!" Aine slammed against the car door.
"No, Aine!" Tesni threw her arms around her from behind, pulling her back with everything she had. "No!"
Ravi stood over Mendoza without a word. He lifted his boot and pressed it under his chin, forcing his head up. Then he stamped down.
"Daddy!" Both of their voices tore out of them at the same time, crashing against the windows of the car.
Ravi did not even look up. "Tell those chicks to shut up."
Tesni pulled Aine into her arms and held her with a fierceness that had nothing to do with restraint and everything to do with love.
"Nothing is going to happen to Dad," she said, her voice low and unshaking even as her whole body trembled. "Okay? Nothing."
Aine pressed her face into her sister's shoulder. "Nothing is going to happen to him," she repeated, like if she said it enough times it would become true.
Then the gunshot rang out.
Aine's voice left her body before she could stop it.
She shoved Tesni aside and the car door flew open.
The rain had started without anyone noticing, the dark clouds splitting open overhead and releasing everything they had been holding. It came down hard and immediate, soaking through the elegant dress in seconds, plastering her hair flat against her face. She did not feel any of it.
She walked forward and her voice came out of her like something that had been locked away for a very long time.
"Take your filthy boot off my father."
The words fell into the rain soaked night with the kind of quiet fury that made the air around them feel different.
Mendoza turned his head at the sound of her voice.
His face was covered in blood. It ran freely in the rain, tracking down his jaw and dripping from his chin, and still his eyes found her immediately the way a father's always would. And in them, beneath the pain and the blood and everything else, was something that looked terrifyingly close to fear. Not for himself.
For her.
Above them the dark clouds rolled and rumbled like they too had heard what she said and were waiting to see what came next.
Were you not taught how to speak?"
Ravi's voice carried no heat. It was the kind of cold that settled into the bones.
"I should be asking you that question." Aine did not blink. "Scumbag. Do not make me repeat myself."
The word landed in the rain soaked air like a match dropped into something flammable. The hundred men around them went perfectly still. Nobody spoke to Ravi like that. Nobody.
He took one step forward and levelled the gun directly at her father's head.
"You dare move," he said quietly, "and I will blow his head off."
Aine stopped.
Her hands curled into fists at her sides but she stopped.
Inside the event Jokull appeared at Dismas's shoulder, his eyes scanning the room with a restlessness that had been building for the last several minutes.
"Have you seen Aine?"
Dismas glanced around. "She just left. Why?"
"Nothing." His jaw tightened. "I will give her a call."
Outside in the rain the men moved and dragged Tesni and Hilda out of the car, pushing them forward until the whole family stood together in the downpour, surrounded on every side.
Mendoza lifted his bloodied face and looked at Ravi directly. "I was keeping my family safe from you. That is all I was doing."
"Then why not simply pay what you owe me?" Ravi asked, almost conversationally.
"Give me one week," Mendoza said. "One week to raise the money."
Ravi was quiet for a moment, tilting his head slightly like he was genuinely considering it. "I cannot wait." He let that sit. "You should leave me a substitute instead. Someone to hold onto while you gather my money." His eyes moved slowly across the family. "You have a history of running, Mr. Mendoza. I need insurance."