The slicing hiss of a freed blade turned Logan's attention to John just as he plunged the knife into the man's cheek. Her assailant gasped, gagging on the blood accompanied by the cringing report of blade scraping teeth. John shoved forward, pushing the man back until they met the wall.
Ripping the blade free, he sank it immediately into the man's throat. He yanked it back, flinging more blood across the window, maiming the man's neck with several more strikes. The recipient pawed futilely with one hand and gripped at John's sleeve with the other. With each application, the fell man's expression tore and flayed open. His eyes rolled back into their sockets; blood welled from his lips and neck, painting his chest a beautiful, deep crimson.
With the last, gargling gasp, the life fled him.
John stepped back, allowing the dead man to slide down in a heap of bloody, dusty limbs.
Garbed entirely in black, he scanned the room until he found her on the other side of the desk.
She was frozen in place. Though every part of her wanted nothing more than to pick herself up and go to him, Logan was rooted. She'd never expected to see him again. His unkempt hair hung in disarray about his face, blood spattered his cheeks and forehead. He was the thing coming up the stairs, eliciting screams of agony, a macabre artist painting the walls in bloodshed. The director, orchestrating absolute terror.
The men were trying to escape him by fleeing up here, where she awaited.
John Wick; both the shelter and the storm. The Devil Himself was here for her.
Logan's body trembled, screaming to move, to lessen the distance, but she couldn't. She could only stare, wide-eyed and awestruck. She loved him. She loved him with enough fervor, that she couldn't move, forgot to breathe until her chest burned as she stared dumbfounded.
John stepped over the corpse, strode across the office, and crouched before her. He touched her face tenderly, his fingers lightly tracing the cut along her eyebrow. He eyed the bloodstains on her clothing. He took her hands, flipping the over to see the red gashes, the result of her fervid attempt to escape.
Relief washed over her.
Logan closed her eyes, freeing hot tears from their corners.
Gently, he took her by her wrist and they stood. Her shaking limbs steadied when he pulled her close and she fell into him.
Logan finally found function of her lungs and she breathed deeply, pressing her face into the fabric of his chest. His scent and his warmth enveloped her like his arms across her back and shoulders. Her arms wrapped around him, desperately clutching the dark fabric against his back. Logan counted his slow heartbeats within his chest as his fingers worked through her tangled hair. His other hand caressed her back, gently squeezing her whilst they embraced.
What was there to say? she wondered. An apology? Should she reveal her true feelings?
John pulled back and forced her to look at him by lifting her chin. She met his dark eyes, causing her heart to wrench fondly. A mind's account did little justice capturing his predatory stare. She'd missed it dearly.
He dipped his head as she rose to her toes, and their lips met in a gentle, reassuring kiss.
"I need to get you out of here," John told Logan as he removed the rifle slung across his back. He handed it to her and she looped the rifle strap over her shoulder. Her thoroughly gouged palms made it nearly impossible for her to hold the weapon. His singular reference also troubled her.
"Where are we going?" Logan asked as she followed.
Wordlessly, he lead her out of the office towards the stairs. The stairwell was littered with bodies and spent shell casings, the walls painted in ghastly red hand prints of victims fleeing their inevitable end.
"Anywhere. Away. Out of the city, the state."
When they reached the warehouse floor, he stopped and patted down a dead body; removing several magazines from the belt, John racked a round in his pistol and pocketed two magazines. Logan checked her own ammo capacity. She only had one 30 round magazine. Perhaps the fight was over; Logan's gaze swept across innumerable brass that glittered in the dim lighting, her attention arrested by the heaps of shadows-fallen bodies-that were strewn across the floor like sacks of grain. Shapeless, motionless, faceless.
She did this. Her selfishness and need for control was the catalyst — setting in motion the chain of events that brought together a multitude of sordid entities, and pitted them against each other, resulting in the carnage before her. All over a lie, a glaring, blood-red lie. It was a shameful and reprehensible feat.
"Logan," John said softly, steering her away from the morbid display. "I need you outside."
She looked down at the rifle in her heads with its unmistakable markings and accented parts. The rifle was not foreign to her. No, she'd fired it a many times.
Adjusting her grip, Logan yanked the charging handle back and expended a live round; doing so opened the ejection port cover. On flip side, as she suspected, was an embellished Texas flag.
"Where is he?" she shot John a hard stare. "Where is my father?"
"Please, Logan." He avoided the question.
Side stepping, she dropped the rifle and limped towards the open warehouse area just as as the lights flipped on.
Blinded but determined to find Caldron, Logan shielded her eyes with her bloody hand; her frantic gaze lit on him. Everything went cold.
In the center of the warehouse knelt Caldron. Not only was her father captured and bound before her, with a gag stuffed into his mouth — he was flanked by Winston and Abram. Addy was huddled off to the side, attempting to appear as small and insignificant as possible.
You have no idea what's coming …
Logan's eyes dilated as she recalled the Russian's cryptic words.
"What the fuck is going on?" Logan's voice trembled with fear. "What are you doing with him!?"
Winston's soft, yet menacing chuckle drifted towards her, settling upon her like a death's icy touch.
"Exactly what needs to be done, Miss Ryder." Winston drawled; he made a small gesture towards Abram. The Russian glanced at Logan; their eyes locked. With that singular look, Logan desperately sought to connect with Abram, silently pleading for his help; the Russian's eyes held no warmth, no compassion or regret as they raked over Logan's pitiful form as the man strode towards the Kingpin. The stainless steel pistol glittered in the florescent lights as he moved.
Logan's vision was blurred by welling tears as she frantically sought out Addy — surely the barmaid could help her father as she helped Abram? The redhead's sorrowful, mascara-streaked gaze gave Logan the answer she did not want.
Her attention snapped back to her father at the ominous sound of a chambering a round. Abram, who'd stopped a pace before Caldron, aimed his loaded firearm towards her father's head.
Logan's hands flew up to catch the scream that threatened to rip through her. Who would come to avert her distress? No one. The two people who she felt safest with-one had a gun to his head and the other…
She threw a scathing glance over her shoulder towards John. "You knew this would happen?!"
John's shoulders sagged as he shook his head.
"I have a deal, Miss Ryder." Winston said, forcing her to look back towards the kingpin, riveted in place by his merciless and piercing gaze. "If you care to listen."
Logan glared, too furious to reply.
"You leave your father here, and take John with you-"
"No!"
Winston frowned lightly at Logan's outburst. Her shoulders heaved with gasping breaths. Wrought with emotion, it wreaked havoc on her senses and compromised all judgement.
"Miss Ryder, it would behoove you to allow me to finish." Nonchalantly, the Manager paced the warehouse floor as he continued. "Your father is the key to setting John free. Did you know that?" He paused with a smirk, delighted by a distant recollection. "Is that not what you want, to set John free? Is that not the very reason you came here, armed to the teeth, spreading rumors so you could keep him to yourself? Please, Miss Ryder, I know a love-struck fool when I see one."
Hot anger spread like a raging inferno through her, quaking her body and blackening the edges of her vision. It was too much to handle for Logan. Either she would pass out or watch her father die. Anything but both...
"Now before you exact judgement on my behalf, I would like to shed some light on the matter. Do get comfortable. Caldron and John have more in common than just a dead wife and a DD-214." He paused, chuckling dryly. The pieces crashed together. Winston chopped up Jennifer, then left the ghastly remains for Logan to find. All this time, she thought it was the syndicate after John.
"Does 'Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat' strike any chords?"
Logan's features twisted into an ugly mask of despair, breathing through her nose as her vision blurred, tears streaming over her cheeks. At her sides, her fist clenched tightly. Her response came weak and broken, but she managed to confirm his suspicions.
Caldron had those very words etched across his chest. A symbol of a brotherhood, but now his epitaph.
Winston nodded, pleased with her response. "Two rules, Miss Ryder: No blood on Continental ground and all Markers must be honored. If they dishonor the Marker, they die; should they kill the holder of the Marker, they die; and if they run, they die." Winston paused in his amble and speech, allowing the silence to bare down on Logan's shoulders. "Your father tried all three. First, he refused. Second, he tried to take my life, and when he failed, he fled.
Logan dragged her pleading gaze from the kingpin to her father.
"They're close enough in age, wouldn't you say? Both strong, strapping lads from common backgrounds … So common, they even have similar tattoos. Of course, in different locations. But the Camorra doesn't know that. And neither does the High Table. They just know what the tattoo says. When a body is delivered with certain ... traits, and physical markings, the contract will be "closed." Isn't that right, Mr. Ryder?"
Her father closed his eyes and hung his head.
"Of course, we'll do what we can with his face, won't we, Abram?"
The Russian agreed with an infuriating sneer.
You have no idea what's coming … in her heart, Logan knew unimaginable, inevitable tragedy was coming. They planned to kill her father, mutilate him beyond recognition, then present his corpse in its horrific condition to the Camorra. Thus, sealing the contract and freeing John Wick.
"Don't." Logan begged. "Don't do this."
"Then I will take John's life…?"
"No!" Logan nearly screamed.
"Well, you can't have both, my dear. Caldron is indebted to me, much like John is — but, unlike Caldron, John pays his dues. Cowards like your father flee for twenty years, stalling the inevitable. Ah, the bittersweet irony — your father's stolen time has finally come to a conclusion, drawn out from hiding by his very own. So..."
Winston came to stand next to Abram, whose gun barrel was still trained on her father. "If if you cannot decide, Miss Ryder, the decision will be made for you."
Logan's eyes mirrored her father's. His resigned gaze was haunted by his choices, pleading for her to run, get out.
Winston's frightening smile transformed his entire visage, the aura of power and authority emanating from him gave Logan a brief glimpse of the older man's sway. Once again, she was reminded just how terribly she underestimated the gentrified man before her — and how ruthlessly the Underground exacted its pound of flesh.
The scream caught in Logan's throat tore through the empty warehouse as she took off towards them.
Abram drew the hammer back; the gunshot rang out. The flashing muzzle and fateful sound forever etched in Logan's mind.
Blood and brains spewed through the air. Caldron slumped onto his side, now one among many faceless, motionless, shapeless...
Logan fell to her knees, still screaming, still hurting, dying if only one could die of heartbreak.
Life was a choice; she was supposed to die.
Then dark veil hovering at her peripheral closed in and the world went black.
oH damn guys!