Chapter 36: Life is a bet and you should all-in!

We reach Francesco’s second cabin and I smash the locked door open with a kick.

The two Chinese followed by the mafia dudes rush out of the bedroom to see what’s going on.

“Y’all were having a double date in there or what?” I laugh.

“Puttana! Why did you smash the door?!” Shouts the taller one.

“Where is Francesco?” Spits the other while the Chinese look at each other, silently.

Leonardo’s cousins look very similar to him, except for their height, there is nothing obvious that helps me make a distinction between them, and if I didn’t know they were cousins, I would have bet they were twin brothers.

“No need to shout. Where is the boy?”

TIAN SHUI looks at me in the eyes and then makes a chin movement toward where they came from.

I walk past them and head for the bedroom until the Italians stop me.

“Where is Francesco?” They ask again, taking out their guns from their vests.

TIAN HUO answers in my stead by jumping between us and disarming them. I don’t know the thought process that led him to do that, but I’m grateful.

“Motherfuckers! Are you betraying us!” They shout.

“He’s in the other cabin. He’s alive and told us about this place willingly.” DIANA explains with a shrug.

The boy lies unconsciously on the bed and his hands are tied behind his back thanks to bed sheets. If it wasn’t for this last part, he would look like he’s peacefully sleeping. It doesn’t look like they physically abused him.

I untie him and walk out. “TIAN HUO, carry him.”

“What are you gonna do?” The Italians ask while TIAN HUO enters the bedroom again.

I approach the tallest one with an urge to punch him.

“Listen, you son of a bitch. And you too, the shithole. You guys put us in a fucking terrible situation, okay? Because of you, the whole crew is looking for this boy and all our plan is fucked. We’re going to give him back to his sister and find a way to peacefully calm the situation or this will end in a bloodbath and our chances of getting out of this swimming fortress are low as fuck. Are you all stupid or what?!”

I grab his neck and slip my right leg right between his. I push from both sides and he falls head on the ground with a bonk. “I didn’t forgive you yet for making me eat the carpet yesterday.”

The second guy rushes at me and I see TIAN SHUI react, but I give him a confident stare to make him understand that I don’t need his help, and he goes back into ‘no care mode’.

DIANA didn’t even consider I could need help.

The guy aimed a punch at me and I gracefully grab his arm. Thanks to this grip and my flexible body, my legs reach for his neck and hold his head still. Then I just have to pull my body upward and with my body weight, his centre of gravity will be too high to stand still and he will fall on the ground as well.

“Now we’re even.” I smile proudly.

“Damn, that’s so cool! Good job, Boobies!” DIANA claps at my performance.

“I know, I know.”

“Why didn’t you do this against the ninjas earlier?!”

“I told you they were scary! They could avoid bullets! And they didn’t flinch even after being stabbed and shit!”

DIANA makes a weird pout, but I see TIAN HUO exit the bedroom while holding the boy in his arms very carefully.

“Oh, by the way, did he say anything?” I point at him.

“Like what?” TIAN SHUI asks.

“Hmmm I don’t know, anything that’s weird or out of place. We’re looking for a password.”

I see him ponder for a few seconds and then he shrugs. “He say something in sleep earlier, but did not know what. Not understand.”

“It be… he speaks Ainu.” TIAN HUO helps.

“What’s that?” I tilt my head.

“A tribe from the north of Japan.” DIANA points a finger in the air.

“Many tribes. Many different languages too. And in China and Siberia. A lot.” TIAN HUO explains. “But him film it.”

“What?” I frown. His Omen is still too hard to understand sometimes.

They seem to explain to DIANA in Chinese, and she makes an ‘oh’.

“What did they say?”

“They said that Francesco filmed it.”

Wait.

I take out my phone and look at the video.

It’s almost 15 minutes long, no time to check if it’s correct or not. I’ll just send it to Abhi and he will see.

“Hmm.” TIAN SHUI makes another thinking onomatope.

“Yes…” TIAN HUO continues.

“What are you thinking?” I ask them.

“The two hm… the two they don’t like…” TIAN SHUI points at the Italians who slowly stand up from the ground, still stunned, and then points at the empty sofas a few metres from us.

“??”

“The two, where they?”

In the empty cabin, a card game was being played. Poker from the looks of it, and the set of cards are gently pushed by a light breeze of air that comes from the widely opened windows.

The cards turn and turn more and more quickly and then a loud ‘BANG’ resonates from a nearby cabin. Most likely the one we left.

A disagreeable smell of burnt and sulfur reach my nostrils.

The cards dance and fly thanks to the rising wind, and small sparkles of ashes that spread through the windows set them on fire.

 

---

 

The alarm rings.

“FIRE! FIRE”

“FIRE ON THE 12^th BRIDGE SECTION 4! LOCK THE DOORS AND ELEVATORS!”

I smash my walkie-talkie with the grip of my hand.

“These motherfuckers…” I say aloud.

“Miss URCHIN, what do we do?” One of the officers’ asks.

I don’t know! It’s my brother who knows what to do in every situation!

What if he’s in the fire? I can’t get this thought away from my mind.

You are reading story There are Two Gods in Heaven at novel35.com

Heat or suffocation are awfully painful ways to die.

The fire quickly spread from a single cabin to a whole section in less than a minute. For now, there is no way to tell in which it has started. The automatic fire extinguishers are trying their best to contain the catastrophe, but at this rate, it’s going to spread to other decks.

The other sections of the same deck are safe for now because the doors are carefully locked, but since the window is open, the wind is going to help the fire to rise up and down.

If a single cabin nearby has its windows open, then the fire can spread.

The section has been evacuated but the safest thing would be to evacuate the section 4 of every deck from 10 to 14.

I send my instructions to the captain who approves them.

The fire is larboard. Right now, the boat is facing north-west which makes it vulnerable to the western wind.

The ship needs to make a 45° turn west in order to face the wind and lower the impact on its side.

Secondly, fire spreads upward, so we need the officers to extinguish from down, so they don’t risk smelling the smokes.

These motherfuckers have made the biggest mess of my career and are threatening my brother on the same day.

I’m going to make them pay so bad!

In the security cabin, the officers finally found the box with the backup server and connected it to the last functioning screen.

Not caring about the fire anymore, I rush to it, only to find the officers lying on the ground.

At the moment where my rage was boiling at its maximum, two Chinese men in sailor attire are standing in front of me.

My brother is in their hands.

 

---

 

It turns out the thing he pronounced was the password! I don’t know how Abhi did it, but he transcribed it with some super high-tech software or something.

Only 15 minutes after the fire started spreading, I received Abhi’s cracked version.

We found a small refuge in one of the evacuated cabins that was far enough from the fire not to be threatful for the moment.

“Okay boys, we’re going to end this short but we can’t afford to stay much longer here, so as we planned, you’re going to make a mess and keep the security busy while DIANA and I buy the jewels with fake money, get them and we all leave together.”

They nod and leave without another comment.

I am slightly worried but we also have our share of problems to solve.

“How do you know the auction won’t be put on hold during the fire?” DIANA asks.

“Well, I don’t know actually, but if I were them, I wouldn’t do it. It’s their main attraction and it’s both a good way to keep the passengers busy so they don’t want to go back to their cabins and also attract new customers, I guess? It sounds stupid like this but if you think at it the other way, closing the auction in the middle of it would be such a bad economic move for them, they’ll lose their client’s confidence and stuff. It’s showing that they can’t handle a crisis at all…”

I feel my confidence retreating.

“So, it’s a bet?”

I look at her for long seconds and then burst into laughter.

“Yes, like everything we did here, it’s a bet! Isn’t that hilarious, to live on the edge with nothing to lose?”

“Not really…”

“Party pooper.” I say while readjusting Gandiva on my shoulder. “Our life is a bet and we started with the wrong cards in hand, so we should all in, there is nothing else to do.”

“What a stupid philosophy.” She says with a smile showing on her face.

And with my phone, I start buying the most pretentious ostentatious rocks I can.

 

---

 

Panting, my throat aching, my skin burning, I crawl painfully in the hellish corridor.

I cough. My vision blurs. My muscles won’t pull me anymore.

Even if I reach the end of the section, it will be closed hermetically, there is nothing that can get in or out, I am stuck in here until I die.

With my consciousness slowly fading, I accept my fate. It was a short life, but it was eventful.

‘I was a true piece of shit until the very end.’ I smile with difficulty.

“Look look, Caasi!”

“What is it, Airim?”

“I found him, the Cavalcanti!”

“Indeed, you did! Good job Airim!”

“Yeah, Caasi! We’re the best!”

“True, we are! Wait, he’s pretty heavy!”

“He is indeed quite heavy, but we are strong, we’ll carry him!”

What the hell are these guys doing? How are they breathing in this smoke dense area? What are they going to do with me? How are they going to flee from here?

“Well, now… One, two...”

“One, two…”

“THREE!!”

They pushed me? Am I falling? What the heck!

“Don’t worry, Cavalcanti, we’re going with you!”

I open my still aching eyes and see the Camorra couple smiling at me.

“He’s alive! Did you see Caasi? I told you he was still alive!”

“Yes, indeed he is, Airim! You are so smart and knowledgeable!”

They hug me with one arm and hold together a wide sheet with the other.

Thanks to the very hot air that is still caught in the sheet, we raised a few dozens of meters high and are now slowly falling on the roof of the ship.

“Hahaha this is so fun Caasi! But how do we do for the landing?”

“Hahaha, I know right, Airim... Wait what landing?”

Falling now head first on the roof of the ship, I wonder which is the most painful between being smashed to the ground with two idiots or suffocating alone in a corridor?

You can find story with these keywords: There are Two Gods in Heaven, Read There are Two Gods in Heaven, There are Two Gods in Heaven novel, There are Two Gods in Heaven book, There are Two Gods in Heaven story, There are Two Gods in Heaven full, There are Two Gods in Heaven Latest Chapter