Chapter 3 - The Call to the Underworld
Viral Hook: 🚨 UNBELIEVABLE: She lied to a hitman to save a monster. Now, the countdown begins. Will she survive the next 60 seconds? ⏳💥The moment the two hitmen stepped into the back alley, the diner erupted into pure chaos. Todd was hyperventilating behind the counter, while Brad’s friends were screaming, trying to tie a jacket around his bleeding leg.
"We have to call the cops! We have to call the cops!" Todd wailed, his phone trembling in his hand.
"No!" I shouted, my voice cutting through the panic like a whip. Everyone looked at me, shocked by the sudden authority in the voice of the waitress they usually ignored. "If you call the police, those men will see the flashing lights, come back inside, and kill us all before the cops even park their cars. We need to lock the doors and hide."
"She's right, she's right!" one of Brad's friends sobbed.
While they were distracted trying to drag Brad into the staff restroom, I slipped away. I didn't go up. I went down. Back into the darkness of the basement.
I pulled the burner phone from my pocket. My hands were slick with sweat as I unlocked the screen. There was only one contact, labeled simply: V.
I pressed dial.
It rang once. Twice. On the third ring, a voice answered. It wasn't the gravelly voice of Nikolai, but a younger, clinical, and terrifyingly calm voice.
"Report," the voice said.
"The... the Phoenix is grounded," I said, repeating the phrase exactly as Nikolai had instructed. "He's at the corner of 4th and Elm, in the basement of the diner. He's shot. Bleeding badly."
A sharp silence on the other end. "Who is this?"
"My name is Maya. I'm a waitress here. And you need to hurry. The men who shot him are outside in the alley right now. They know someone was here. They’re going to figure out I lied to them any minute."
"Listen to me carefully, Maya," the voice said, colder than ice. "If Nikolai Volkov dies, you and everyone in that building die. Keep him alive for ten minutes. We are coming."
The line went dead.
Ten minutes. It felt like an eternity.
I rushed over to the locker and pulled the door open. Nikolai had collapsed completely onto the floor of the locker, his eyes rolling back into his head. He was slipping into shock.
"Nikolai," I whispered, kneeling beside him. I ripped off my stained apron and pressed it hard against his abdominal wound. He groaned, his body convulsing in pain. "Stay with me. I called your people. They're coming. Ten minutes."
"Ten minutes... is too long," he wheezed, his hand weakly reaching up to grip my shoulder. His touch left a smear of blood on my collarbone. "They... they will find me."
"No, they won't," I said, putting my full weight into pressing down on the wound to stop the bleeding. For the first time in my life, my size was an advantage. I had the strength to hold the pressure where a smaller girl might have faltered.
Nikolai looked up at me through hooded eyes, a faint, breathless laugh escaping his lips. "You... you are stronger than you look, Maya."
"Save your breath," I muttered.
Suddenly, the heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs shattered.
The sound of wood splintering echoed down the stairwell, followed by a heavy, brutal thud. A scream cut through the air—Todd’s voice, abruptly cut short by a sickening crack.
They were back. And they knew I had lied.
"Where is she?" the tall hitman's voice echoed from above, closer now. "Where is the fat girl?"
Nikolai’s eyes went wide. He tried to reach for his waistband, but his gun wasn't there—he must have lost it in the escape. He was defenseless. We both were.
The footsteps began to heavy-step down the wooden stairs. Creak. Creak. Creak.
I looked around frantically. There was nowhere to run. The only exit was the stairs, and the killer was blocking it.
I looked at Nikolai. I looked at the rusted locker.
"Get back in," I whispered.
"No," he growled. "I won't die hiding in a box."
"Do you want to live or not?" I hissed, using all my strength to shove his heavy body back into the metal enclosure. I pulled the door closed until it was just barely ajar, just as it had been when I first found him.
May you like
Then, I turned around, grabbed a dirty mop bucket full of gray water, and spilled it across the floor, covering the fresh blood trails. I threw myself onto the floor right next to the puddle, pretending to cry, just as a heavy shadow fell across the basement steps.
The hitman had arrived.
