Chapter 1 – The White Hell

Besnik

The wind does not simply howl; it tears at the mountain like a starving beast, shredding the whiteout into a barrage of icy shrapnel. Every step through the knee-deep snow requires a violent exertion of will. The muscles in my thighs burn with lactic acid, and the freezing air scorches my lungs with every intake of breath. But I do not stop. I cannot stop. The dead weight dragging behind me requires all my remaining focus.

My gloved hand is locked in a death grip around the collar of his tactical jacket. Endrit stumbles again, his knees hitting the hidden rocks beneath the snowdrift with a dull, muffled thud. He is shivering violently, his body giving out, but I feel no pity. Pity is a flaw in the system, a crack in the armor that gets men killed. I yank him upward with a sharp, merciless heave, forcing him back to his feet.

"Move," I command, my voice flat, instantly swallowed by the roar of the avalanche-grade blizzard.

He thrashes blindly, a pathetic, uncoordinated burst of resistance. His frozen fingers claw uselessly at my wrist, seeking a release he is not going to get. I ignore him, driving my boots into the icy incline, dragging him up the final steep slope. The silhouette of the abandoned hunting cabin finally materializes from the blinding white haze—a rotting wooden structure clinging desperately to the side of the Alps. It is our only shelter for the next fifty miles.

I haul him onto the narrow, snow-caked porch. I release his collar only to drive my heavy combat boot directly into the center of the heavy oak door. It shudders violently. The rusted iron hinges shriek in protest before giving way with a loud crack. We spill into the abyssal darkness of the cabin, escaping the lethal grip of the storm.

I shove him hard. He hits the floorboards and slides across the frost-covered wood, collapsing in a heap in the center of the room. I turn my back to him just long enough to slam the heavy door shut, throwing the rusted iron deadbolt into place. The sudden absence of the wind’s deafening scream leaves a heavy, ringing silence in its wake, broken only by the sound of our ragged, desperate breathing.

Endrit

Pain explodes across my left shoulder as I slam into the unforgiving wood. The floor is coated in a thin, slick layer of frost, and the cold bites instantly through my soaked layers, stinging my flesh like a swarm of angry wasps. I lay there for a fraction of a second, my lungs expanding frantically, burning as I try to pull the stale, freezing air into my chest.

Panic, raw and electric, overrides my exhaustion.

I scramble backward, my boots kicking wildly at the floorboards to gain traction. My hands are numb, the fingertips split and bleeding from the ice, but the instinct to survive turns me into a cornered animal. I twist my body, aiming a desperate, blind kick at the massive shadow looming near the doorway.

He intercepts it before my boot even makes contact.

The grip on my ankle is forged from iron. I gasp as Besnik yanks my leg backward, entirely upending my center of gravity. I crash face-first onto the wood, tasting dust, blood, and frost. Before I can even attempt to roll away, his heavy knee drops squarely onto the center of my spine, pinning me flat against the floor. The remaining oxygen leaves my lungs in a violent, forceful rush.

I claw frantically at the floor, wooden splinters tearing into my raw palms. "Let me—go!" The scream tears out of my throat, sounding thin and pathetic in the echoing, hollow space of the cabin.

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t curse, doesn’t grunt with the physical effort. It is the terrifying, absolute silence of a machine methodically dismantling a minor inconvenience. His heavy, leather-clad hand presses the side of my face flush against the dirt and ice of the floor, the downward pressure steady, immovable, and entirely suffocating.

Besnik

He fights like a trapped fox—wild, completely uncoordinated, driven by nothing but terror and adrenaline. It is a useless expenditure of calories we cannot afford to lose. I shift my weight, driving my knee just a fraction deeper into his spine to paralyze his thrashing, keeping him securely pinned against the rotting planks.

My left hand maintains the crushing pressure on the back of his neck. With my right hand, I reach down to the tactical pouch strapped to my thigh. I pull out the heavy steel chain. The metal links clink together with a dull, heavy resonance. Attached to one end is a solid brass combination lock, a five-cylinder mechanism I trust far more than I have ever trusted a human being. It cannot be negotiated with. It cannot be betrayed.

I grab his flailing right arm, twisting it sharply behind his back with enough precise force to stretch the ligaments, bringing him to the very edge of dislocation. He cries out, a sharp, broken sound that echoes off the timber walls. I wrap the thick steel links tightly around his wrist, securing the loop directly against his skin so he cannot slip it.

I grab him by the harness of his jacket and drag him across the floorboards toward the darkest corner of the room. A rusted, heavy iron bed frame sits there, its thick legs bolted directly into the cabin’s foundation. I shove him against the mattress, pulling his chained arm upward. I loop the other end of the heavy steel chain around the thickest iron pillar at the headboard, feeding the lock through the final link.

I spin the brass cylinders, scrambling the code.

Clack.

The mechanical sound is definitive. Final. A boundary set in unbreakable steel. I step back, watching his chest heave as he scrambles to a sitting position, immediately pulling frantically at the restraint. The chain pulls taut with a sharp metallic clatter, anchoring him entirely to the iron bed.

Endrit

The frozen metal bites viciously into my wrist. I yank at it with both hands, throwing my entire body weight backward, but the chain only grinds against the rusted iron bedpost. It doesn’t give a single millimeter. A cold, sharp flood of adrenaline spikes through my veins, making my teeth chatter uncontrollably. I am tethered. Caged.

I force myself to stop pulling, fighting the urge to hyperventilate. I blink through the stinging sweat and the melting snow dripping into my eyes, forcing my vision to adjust to the gloom. The cabin is a tomb. There is a stone hearth, entirely empty and dark, a few overturned wooden crates, and this single, miserable bed. Nothing else. The two small windows are boarded shut with thick wooden planks. There are no secondary exits.

And then there is him. Besnik.

He stands merely five feet away, completely unbothered by my frantic struggling. He strips off his snow-crusted tactical gloves with agonizing, deliberate precision, slapping them against his thigh to shake off the ice. His face is a mask carved from granite, devoid of any readable emotion. His dark, predatory eyes scan the room as if taking inventory, completely dismissing me as an active threat.

He moves toward a rusted metal lockbox near the hearth, prying the latch open. He pulls out a road flare, a half-empty box of matches, and a heavy carbon-steel hunting knife. The serrated edge of the blade catches the dim, gray light filtering through the cracks in the wooden walls.

My stomach plummets. I have charmed my way out of heavily guarded facilities, talked my way past cartel enforcers, and manipulated the most paranoid men in the underworld. But looking at Besnik, I realize the terrifying truth. He is not a man who listens; he is an executioner. And I am entirely, hopelessly at his mercy.

I drop my gaze to the floor. A jagged, broken piece of heavy timber lies just within my reach, cast off from a smashed crate. It has a sharp, splintered end. If I can grab it. If I can just leverage it when he turns his back—

Besnik

I hear the subtle shift in his breathing before I even see the movement. It is the sudden, calculated cessation of his frantic pulling. The quiet gathering of kinetic energy. I turn my head just as his unbound fingers graze the edge of the splintered timber on the floor.

He is fast, but he is running on sheer panic. I am running on a lifetime of disciplined violence.

Before he can wrap his hand around the makeshift weapon, I cross the distance between us in a single, fluid blur of motion. I kick the heavy timber across the room, sending it clattering against the stone hearth. In the exact same motion, I drop my entire weight forward, my knee slamming directly into the mattress right between his thighs, caging his hips against the unyielding iron frame of the bed.

My left hand snaps out like a viper, gripping his jaw. My thumb and fingers dig brutally into the hollows of his cheeks, forcing his head back against the rusted iron bars of the headboard until his neck is completely exposed.

With my right hand, I bring the heavy hunting knife up. I press the flat, freezing carbon-steel blade directly against his carotid artery.

His breath hitches, freezing in his lungs. His pupils blow wide in the gloom, swallowing the pale amber of his irises, reflecting absolutely nothing but the jagged edge of my steel. The pulse hammering against the blade is erratic and frantic, the pathetic, rapid drumming of a dying bird trapped in a snare. I lean in closer, the scent of wet wool, fear, and freezing rain radiating off his skin.

"You like to play games, Endrit," I say. My voice is barely a low, gravelly whisper, yet it cuts effortlessly through the muffled howl of the blizzard outside. I turn my wrist just a fraction of a millimeter, letting the razor-sharp edge press directly into his skin, just enough for him to feel the lethal bite without drawing his blood. "But out here, there is no audience for you to charm. There is no one to manipulate. There is only the ice, and me."

I lean my face inches from his, watching the terror solidify in his eyes.

"Move against me again, and I will not hesitate to let the snow bury what is left of you."