Page 1 of Hunter's Revenge

Prologue

Malik

Kazakhstan 6 years ago

In the dark enclosure of my hell, excruciating pain flows through my veins when someone lifts my head.

Apart from the cold stone of my prison floor, pain is usually the only thing I feel.

I’ve gotten used to the evil of my masked captors. Their ominous presence of death and doom always makes me wonder if my last moments in the world of the living are breaths away.

I expect another session of torture I might not survive, but then the familiar voices of my father and my uncle snap my mind back to reality.

I can’t see anyone in this dark, but I can hear them, followed by gunshots and the screams of dying men in the distance.

The presence of my family must mean that they found me.

They actually found me and I’m being rescued.

God…how long have I been lost?

Months…

Years…

I don’t know.

It feels like an eternity.

As my broken body is carried out of my prison, voices continue to muffle in my ears like a twisted cacophony of broken instruments playing in an orchestra.

Someone—I don’t know who—is asking me if I’m okay, but I can’t talk. I can’t remember the last time I spoke words.

Then I see light. Daylight.

The sun greets me with the warmth of a close old friend you haven’t seen in years. But when my gaze settles on the deep Prussian blue sea flowing before me—calling to me—that moment there… that’s when I remember who I am.

I am Malik Volkova. A Knight.

Being rescued means I got the one thing I truly wanted above all else—a chance.

A chance to rain Armageddon and avenge the fallen who can no longer fight for themselves.

Watching my Navy captain Jim Davison die as he took a bullet for me was a blow to my soul. He had already lost Brian, his son, and my best friend, mere months before.

When I joined the Navy, he trained me with the same aspirations and ambitions he had for Brian. I owe him everything I accomplished.

Now I have that chance to punish those who took his life and correct the wrongs that struck when the criminal world followed me.

I’ve waited and waited and waited.

Now, finally...

Today, I am the dark phoenix rising from poisonous ashes.

I will never stop hunting until the sky rains the blood of my enemies and the earth is nothing but red.

This is my rebirth.