Nikolai was strangely quiet, tucking Angelo’s hair out of his face. There was a faint red bruise from where the barrel of a gun had been pressed harshly to the side of his head.
"You should stop searching for ways to die." He reluctantly pulled his hands away, his eyes drifting to the door.
Angelo flipped his hair over a shoulder, he couldn’t believe that was coming from Nikolai. He was still a little embarrassed at getting captured so he didn’t give a retort, looking away stiffly.
"Wait here," Nikolai murmured, his attention still on the door, a single-minded focus in his eyes.
Angelo looked back to see Nikolai striding over to the door he had hastily closed. "What are you going to do?" He asked with some measure of concern.
He hadn’t gotten the chance to check out the room with all that was going on but he knew that it couldn’t be safe.
"Nothing much. Don’t move." He tossed over a shoulder not even slowing down.
Angelo was rooted to the grimy stone floor, he flaunted Nikolai’s orders but the Mafia King had never used that tone with him before.
He stood still, reminding himself that Nikolai was practically invincible, and that the Mafia King would be back almost immediately. Right then he would even encourage the use of another grenade.
Nikolai opened the metal door and slipped behind it, closing it behind himself much to Angelo’s horror.
The assassin waited for endless seconds to hear the sounds of gunshots going off but there was nothing. It was eerily silent behind the door, it made him antsy.
He shifted his weight from one foot to another, tightly gripping the handle of the knife that still held traces of blood on it.
Nikolai had told him not to move but it had been a minute, if he delayed any longer and something happened to the Mafia King, it would be his fault.
Besides, how dare he die alone? Who was going to kill him if Nikolai went and got himself dead?
The more Angelo thought about it, the more upset he became, and soon he was walking over, his steps dead silent.
He opened the door gingerly, expecting to find the worst only to find Nikolai standing in the middle of an empty room, completely unharmed.
Angelo paused at the door, stunned. He completely forgot that he was not supposed to move as he looked around the room again, wondering if the fault was with his eyes.
Save for the Alpha they had both killed lying at the door, it really was completely empty. Unable to make heads or tails of what was going on, he turned to Nikolai who had turned to the door when he showed up.
"Uh... What happened here?" He asked timidly, aware he wasn’t supposed to be there.
Nikolai didn’t look upset, if anything, the Mafia King had a trace of a smile on his face as he walked over. "It was empty when I came in. Maybe you scared them away."
Angelo didn’t grace his teasing words with a response, the room was similar to the one behind them, and after glancing at the Alpha dead on the ground again, he noted that the knife in his mangled eye was missing.
Had Nikolai come here just to retrieve his knife?
"What are we doing next?" He asked instead, determined to do a better job next time.
"Leaving." Nikolai’s calm response came.
"Wait what?" Angelo’s eyes widened in consternation.
"There were explosives in the warehouse," Nikolai went on calmly, stepping past him. "The plan was to lure me and my men in and detonate it."
Angelo stuck close to him as they made their way back to the room with the staircase. He wanted to ask why Nikolai still came down here despite knowing that, but he already knew the answer.
"Should we be leaving?" He asked thoughtfully. If there were so many people underground, then it had to be because they were banking on the structure holding up.
Going back up to the warehouse could very well be them walking right to their deaths as they had already blown their cover, literally.
An answer was provided in the form of bullets being fired at that as soon as Nikolai opened the door that led to the connecting room.
Nikolai slammed it shut instantaneously and ducked to take cover behind the thick walls.
Angelo would have done the same on the other side if he wasn’t getting pulled into familiar arms. He didn’t mind the physical contact, but how was either of them going to use their weapons if they were both tangled up ?
The bullets dented the metal door, stopping as abruptly as it began.
"We need to keep moving." Nikolai said, already taking his wrist and breaking into a dead run.
They got to the door with the dead Alpha just as the bullet-mangled door was broken in, and Angelo looked behind him at the last moment to see a literal crowd of people behind them.
Nikolai didn’t slow down, heading confidently to a random door like he knew where it led.
How were there still so many people down here? Had they all gathered at the only way out to keep Nikolai from leaving? It looked that way.
The next door opened to a hallway with a low ceiling. It was unsurprisingly empty, and naked bulbs swung to and fro, giving it an eerie feeling.
Nikolai didn’t hesitate and neither did Angelo, he didn’t particularly care about the outcome. After a series of maze-like turns and going through a handful more empty rooms, they seemed to have lost the crowd chasing them.
Or maybe the crowd had accomplished their goal and were now returning to the hatch door to make it to safety.
He couldn’t help but notice that Nikolai seemed to know exactly where they were supposed to go, the Mafia King didn’t slow down even after they lost their pursuers.
The only thing that stopped him was the first locked door they had encountered ever since they came down. Unlike the other doors which were made of sturdy metal, this was a wooden door that didn’t hold up too well in the damp air underground.