Click.
The sound was almost anticlimactic. Just a hollow metallic click where there should have been an explosion of gunpowder, a bullet tearing through flesh and bone.
Amias didn't flinch. Didn't close his eyes. Didn't even blink. He stared directly into Apannii's dark gaze as the hammer fell on an empty chamber. His heart thundered in his chest, but his face remained impassive—a mask he'd perfected over years of hiding his fear.
Apannii's lips curled into a slow, disappointed smile. "Shame," he said, lowering the revolver slightly. "Would've been poetic, you dying right at the start. Quick game." He twirled the weapon casually between his fingers, as if it were a toy rather than an instrument of death. "But this works too. Gives us time to get... acquainted."
Around them, Apannii's men maintained their positions, guns trained on Amias and the crew. The café's fluorescent lights cast harsh shadows across their faces, turning expressions into grotesque masks. The smell of coffee grounds and cleaning solution mingled with sweat and fear.
"Nice little family reunion, innit?" Apannii gestured between Amias and Capari with the gun. "Two cousins playing our game together." His voice dropped, became almost intimate. "Game doesn't end until both of you get a bullet. Might be here all night."
He placed the revolver back on the table, spun it again. The weapon rotated, slowing, stopping—its barrel pointing squarely at Capari.
"Your turn, big man," Apannii said, picking up the gun. He spun the cylinder with practiced ease, the soft click-click-click counting down the moments. "Let's see if your luck matches your cousin's."
Capari didn't move. His expression remained deadpan, eyes cold and calculating. Unlike Amias, whose tension was visible in the slight rigidity of his shoulders, Capari seemed almost bored, as if this were an inconvenience rather than a life-or-death situation.
Apannii pressed the revolver to Capari's forehead.
Click.
Another empty chamber. Apannii sighed theatrically.
"Both lucky tonight," he observed, placing the gun back on the table. "Makes the game more interesting."
Kenzo shifted beside him, his scarred face tightening with impatience. Apannii shot him a warning glance before turning back to his captives.
"You know what I like about this game?" Apannii continued conversationally, spinning the revolver again. "It gives us time to talk. To share stories." The gun stopped, pointing at Amias once more. Apannii picked it up, spun the cylinder. "I've got some good ones."
He aimed at Amias, finger curling around the trigger.
"Did I ever tell you about this girl? Friend of my cousin who goes to Chelsea Academy." His eyes flicked up to meet Amias's. "Your school, innit?"
Click.
Amias exhaled slowly, tension coiling tighter in his chest.
"Pretty thing she was," Apannii continued, placing the revolver back on the table. "Gorgeous, actually. The kind that turns heads when she walks down the corridor." He spun the gun again. "I wanted her. Bad."
The barrel pointed between them this time, favoring neither. Apannii spun it again, more forcefully. This time it landed on Capari.
"Tried all the usual moves, yeah? Gifts, compliments, the works." He picked up the weapon, spun the cylinder. "She wasn't having it. Turned me down flat."
Click.
Capari remained motionless, not even a twitch as the hammer fell on another empty chamber.
"Most girls, they come around eventually." Apannii's voice hardened slightly. "They see what I can offer. Status. Protection. But this one..." He shook his head, placing the gun down again. "Stubborn."
Another spin. The barrel stopped, pointing at Amias.
"So one night, I made her want me." Apannii's tone was casual, matter-of-fact, as if discussing the weather rather than sexual assault. He picked up the gun, spinning the cylinder slowly. "Or maybe I didn't wait for her to want me. Same difference in the end."
Amias's stomach churned, bile rising in his throat. The revolver pressed against his temple felt almost secondary to the horror of Apannii's words.
Click.
"The way she squirmed," Apannii continued, his eyes taking on a distant, remembering quality. "The sounds she made. She was a virgin, you know. I remember the blood."
A muscle jumped in Amias's jaw, his composure cracking slightly. Around the table, even some of Apannii's own men looked uncomfortable, gazes dropping to the floor.
"Wanted to do it again after," Apannii said, spinning the gun once more. "But she refused. Said she'd told the police." He shrugged, a gesture of exaggerated helplessness. "Got a little upset about that."
The barrel pointed at Capari. Apannii picked up the revolver, spun the cylinder.
"So I went to her house one night. Her mum was downstairs making dinner." He nodded toward one of his men, half-masked, standing slightly apart from the others. "Kevin here came with me. We couldn't leave witnesses, could we, Kev?"
The man—Kevin—shifted his weight, expression unreadable behind his mask.
"Kev stabbed the mum right in the stomach," Apannii said, pressing the revolver to Capari's head. "You should have seen it. Intestines spilling out like spaghetti on the kitchen floor."
Click.
Another empty chamber. Capari remained stoic, but Amias could see a vein pulsing in his cousin's temple, the only sign that he was affected by Apannii's words.
"Went upstairs after that." Apannii set the gun down, spun it again. "Found the girl hiding in her closet. Crying. Begging." The barrel pointed at Amias. "Strangled her myself. Watched those pretty eyes bulge. Dumped her body in the river after."
He picked up the revolver, spinning the cylinder with deliberate slowness.
"Want to hear another story?" he asked, pressing the gun to Amias's head. His voice dropped lower. "What about your friend Mason?"
Amias's heart stuttered in his chest. The mention of Mason's name cut through him like a physical blow, sharper than any knife.
Click.
"You were right there, weren't you?" Apannii continued, his eyes never leaving Amias's face. "When I stabbed him to death. Stabbed you too, didn't I? Just not as deep." His gaze dropped to Amias's arm. "Sliced you right on the bicep."
The scar there seemed to burn beneath Amias's sleeve, a phantom pain awakening at the memory.
"Roll it up," Apannii demanded suddenly. "I want to see the scar."
Amias stared back at him, unmoving. His heart raced, but something had shifted inside him. With each click of an empty chamber, each brush with death, the fear was receding, replaced by something colder, harder.
Apannii's expression darkened. He stood abruptly, knocking his chair back, the gun raised and aimed directly at Amias's face. No spin this time.
"Let me see the fucking scar," he hissed.
When Amias still didn't comply, Apannii signaled to his men. Kevin stepped forward, delivering a sharp blow to Amias's jaw that snapped his head sideways. Rough hands grabbed his arm, yanking up his sleeve to expose the pale, jagged line that ran across his bicep.
Apannii leaned in, tracing the barrel of the revolver along the length of the scar. The metal was cool against Amias's skin, raising goosebumps.
"Right," Apannii murmured, almost to himself. "Maybe I ought to leave you some more before you die."
He returned to his seat, spinning the revolver again. As it rotated on the table's surface, Apannii ran his fingers along the gun's barrel, almost lovingly.
"Beautiful piece, this," he said. "Smith & Wesson Model 29. Six chambers. One bullet. Classic, innit? Sometimes the old ways are best."
The gun stopped, pointing at Capari. Apannii picked it up, spun the cylinder, and pressed it to Capari's head.
Click.
With each spin, each click, something strange was happening to Amias. The café began to shimmer around him, reality blurring at the edges. He blinked hard, trying to clear his vision. For a moment, he saw Apannii sprawled on the floor, blood pooling beneath him. He blinked again, and the image was gone.
The fear was draining away with each passing moment, replaced by something else—a detached clarity, a cold focus. His head pounded, a migraine building behind his eyes. He squinted against the fluorescent lights, which suddenly seemed too bright, too harsh.
Apannii's voice became background noise, the words washing over him without meaning. In his mind's eye, Amias saw blood—Apannii's men falling, Apannii himself choking on his own blood, the café floor slick with it.
He blinked again, and the vision changed. Now he saw Apannii behind bars, defeated, diminished. Another blink: Mason standing over Apannii's body, knife in hand. The images flickered, shifted, merged—the alleyway where Mason died, but now littered with the bodies of Apannii and his crew.
"—taking too long," Apannii was saying, his voice cutting through Amias's fragmented thoughts. "Let's try something different."
Amias focused on him, really looked at him for the first time. He saw Apannii not as the terrifying figure from his nightmares but as a man—cruel, dangerous, but ultimately just flesh and blood.
In his mind, Amias explored possibilities: a knife across Apannii's throat, a bullet between his eyes, his hands around Apannii's neck. The violence of his own thoughts should have disturbed him, but instead, they felt like pieces clicking into place, options to be considered with clinical detachment.
"No more spinning the chamber," Apannii declared, picking up the revolver. "Just the gun." He laughed, a sound devoid of true humor. "Let's talk probabilities."
He aimed the weapon at Capari. "One in six chance of dying right now," he said, and pulled the trigger.
Click.
"One in five now," he continued, the gun still pointed at Capari. Another pull of the trigger.
Click.
"One in four." Again, the hammer fell on an empty chamber.
Apannii turned the gun toward Amias, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features. "Your turn. One in three chance of dying."
Click.
"Fucking hell," Apannii muttered, frustration evident in the tightening of his jaw. He aimed at Capari again. "One in two, big man. Fifty-fifty."
Click.
Disbelief flashed across Apannii's face, quickly masked by a forced laugh. "Well, well. Looks like it's your lucky day, cousin." He turned to Amias, leveling the revolver at his forehead. "And your unlucky one. This chamber's loaded. One hundred percent."
Amias didn't look away. Didn't run. Instead, he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the barrel of the gun.
"Do it," he said quietly.
Apannii's eyebrows rose, surprise momentarily displacing his controlled demeanor. Then he chuckled, the sound low and appreciative.
"You really think you're that hard, don't you?" he asked, studying Amias with renewed interest. "How many people have you killed tonight? Five? Three?" He watched Amias's expression closely. "One? It's one, isn't it? You haven't even killed three people tonight."
Something in Apannii's words sent a chill down Amias's spine—not fear, but a strange premonition, as if hearing a prophecy he didn't yet understand.
Apannii leaned back in his chair, the gun still aimed at Amias's head. "Close your eyes," he said.
Amias ignored him, maintaining unwavering eye contact.
"Close your eyes," Apannii repeated, his voice hardening. When Amias still didn't comply, he leaned forward. "Aren't you scared?"
The question triggered a memory—his father standing beside him at Lake Travis, the water stretching out before them. "You scared?" Raymond Mars had asked, his voice kinder then, gentler.
"No," Amias said, the word clear and certain. "I'm not."
Something in his tone, his steady gaze, broke through Apannii's composure. With a roar of frustration, Apannii slammed his fist on the table, the gun discharging with the sudden movement.
Pain seared across Amias's cheek as the bullet grazed him, leaving a burning furrow through his skin. Warm blood trickled down his face, but he didn't flinch, didn't raise a hand to the wound.
Apannii stood, chest heaving, the smoking gun still in his hand. His eyes were wide with a mixture of rage and disbelief.
"Fucking hell, Amias," he snarled, all pretense of calm abandoned. "You're really, really getting on my nerves."