The man mountain stormed around the desk, reached down and grabbed Sam by his shoulder, but as Sam found his balance, he dropped his shoulder and tipped the large man over his head. He crashed through the desk, but instantly got to his feet.
All it did was piss him off more.
The man threw a few punches that Sam blocked with his arms, each impact crashing into his muscles like a sledgehammer. The man was a trained fighter, but his size and strength advantage was something unlike Sam had ever experienced. As the man landed a sickening thump into Sam’s ribs, he thought back to the brawl he had experienced with Mark Connor in the High Rise. The vicious East End gangster, affectionately known as one of the Mitchell Brothers had fought him to the death, the two men beating each other to a pulp until Sam had lodged a knife into the man’s eye and then through to his brain.
This would be different.
As Sam stumbled backwards from the blow, he collided with the wall behind. His huge attacker launched forward at full force, driving his fist straight for Sam’s face. At the last second, Sam ducked, his leg slightly buckling and the man’s knuckles cracked into the plaster, puncturing the wall and colliding with brick work.
The bones cracked.
The man didn’t react.
Oleg retracted his hand and used his left to grab Sam by the throat, pulling him back up to his feet. As Sam rained hard punches down on his monstrous face, Oleg felt the trickle of blood from a gash above his burnt eye.
He reacted by grabbing Sam’s left leg with his right hand, digging his fingers into the fresh bullet wound. Sam roared with pain, but the man tightened his grip around his throat, choking the pain right out of his voice.
Then, in a display of terrifying strength, he spun, lifting Sam off of the ground and hurling him through one of the glass screens that was embedded in the wall. Sam smashed through the divide, collapsing into a pit of sharp, broken shards that punctured into him like a pin cushion.
The tourniquet had come loose on his leg and he could feel the blood begin to ooze to freedom, taking his energy and chances of survival with them. Sam began to crawl through the broken glass, the shards slicing his skin. He thought of Jasmine somewhere below, locked in a crate and what her life would be with monsters like this man.
The drugs. The abuse. The rape.
He couldn’t let another child’s life be ended by his inability to act.
He couldn’t save his Jamie.
He had to save Jasmine.
Sam heard the crunch of glass behind him, the heavy footsteps stamping the glass to dust. Above him, Sam heard the jangle of the chains, the rain slipping in through the gap in the roof and splashing against his face.
A hand reached down and grabbed the back of his collar and Sam was hoisted from the ground. He scrambled in the glass and as Oleg turned him around to deliver another bone crunching strike, Sam slammed his fist into the chest. The man’s eyes widened with agony as Sam stumbled back, the shard of glass embedded deep into the side of the man’s pectoral. Blood began to spill out from around the sides of the wound.
It only provoked him.
The man stormed forward, cracking Sam with two, hard, right hooks before wrapping both hands around his throat and hoisting him clean off the ground. Sam began to choke, his eyes watering and straining from his head, his feeble kicks having no impact. He could feel his life ebbing away, the immortal fingers of death beckoning him towards the afterlife.
It would be easy just to let it all go.
The war would finally be over.
As Sam began to fade, he saw flashes of his life dart before his eyes, ending on his wife walking away from him, disappearing into a field of whiteness. A voice caused his head to look downwards.
His son. Jamie.
‘Not yet, Daddy.’
Sam’s eyes opened, and with a renewed vigour, he hammered at the thick, tree-like arms of Oleg, who snarled crookedly. The man was a cold-blooded killer, and Sam was moments away from being another successful encounter.
Sam scrambled and his hand reached out and grabbed a metal chain. Instinctively, he wrapped some of it around the thick, triangular neck of his attacker and Oleg, realising Sam was fighting back, pressed his fingers deeper into Sam’s larynx.
Sam was seconds from passing out.
With the chain wrapped around Oleg’s throat, Sam used the last of his energy to wrap his fingers around the rusty hook that hung from the end of it.
Darkness began to blur the edges of his vision.
He swung his arm with all the strength he could muster.
The hook rammed into the soft flesh beneath Oleg’s chin, the hook bursting up into his mouth and embedding in its roof.
Oleg’s grip instantly loosened, and Sam reached out and snatched a handful of chains as he dropped, clattering to the floor in agony. As he fell, he pulled the chain taut, lifting Oleg off the ground, the metal links around his throat tightening. As his feet kicked in panic, the blood burst from his mouth and cascaded down his throat like a crimson waterfall.
As his airwaves were choked, his lungs filled up with blood and Sam held on tightly, watching as the gargantuan attacker drowned on his own blood.
Oleg stopped kicking.
Sam fell back, releasing the metal. Oleg crashed to the floor, dead and Sam used the nearby desk to pull himself to his feet. He could barely stand; the bullet wound was still pumping blood, and he reattached his makeshift plaster to see him through. The man’s grip had certainly done some damage to his throat, and his body ached from the cuts
