“Watch out,” Dalton yelled.
His eyes shifted to a mirror, a blur behind him. Jack dropped, turned and fired a rapid flurry of rounds into another guy but the guy managed to get off a round. It was only when he got up and looked back that he saw Dalton grimacing in pain. It had hit him in the upper portion of his shoulder, not far from the heart.
Jack scrambled over to check it out.
“He took her upstairs, Jack. Go.”
Jack pulled open his jacket and saw that it had been a clean shot, straight through, but there was a still a chance he could bleed out. “I need to get you out of here.”
“Just cut me loose. Hurry.”
The distant sound of sirens echoed.
After breaking the plastic zip tie, he helped Dalton out of the warehouse before heading back in and coming under fire from above, this time from a few more of Angelo’s men. It never seemed to cease. Seconds turned to minutes as he took cover, and methodically took out the final threats. Moving quickly, pain still shooting through his shoulder, he made it up to the top of the catwalk, stepped over dead bodies and reached Angelo’s office.
“Come on in Jack.”
Jack glanced in.
Angelo had Kelly with a gun to her head.
Behind him a large window let in the glow of the moon.
“Um. That was one hell of a performance. So hard to find good men. They just don’t make them like you anymore, Jack.” He grinned, his head darted back and forth behind Kelly, his arm wrapped around her. “Should have known you’d eventually break out. Can’t keep a good man down, isn’t that right?”
“Let her go, Angelo. Cops will be swarming this place in a matter of minutes.”
“I know. So what’s it gonna be? Your freedom or hers? I know you won’t go back.”
Jack eyed him; his jaw clenched.
Angelo smiled. “Fucking ironic, isn’t it? The twists and turns of life. You. Me. New Jersey. You and I were always going to come back here. This was always going to happen, Jack. Live and die by the gun, remember? Live and die. Well I’m ready to die, are you?”
He wanted to kill him so bad. For Dana. For him. For every person he’d harmed.
“If you want me dead, you’re going to have to shoot her. You can’t do it. Can you, Jack?”
Kelly had tears streaming down her face. She struggled in his grasp but he held her tight.
He smiled. “They’re getting close, Jack. Cops. Prison. Locked doors. They’ll send you back to Holbrook and believe me, you won’t get out a second time. C’mon!” he taunted him. “What’s it gonna be?”
Jack studied him; his mind knew what he had to do but it went against the one rule he’d never broken. Dana’s face flashed in his mind. Every conversation. Dalton telling him that he could change. Eddie’s letter. Words. Rules. He wanted what was best but was it realistic? Could he ever be more than his past?
Angelo laughed. “See, that’s the difference between you and me. I know when to pull the trigger.”
The cops were closing in, the sirens almost upon them.
Jack saw the glint in his eye, the pulse in his throat beating faster, his muscles tighten.
Jack took the shot, purposely obliterating the glass behind Angelo. Shards showered over him like pebbles, his body reacting as they stuck into his head and neck. Angelo shifted ever so slightly but it was enough. In less than two seconds, Jack had unloaded another round, this one hitting his weapon arm. In an instant, Jack lunged forward over the table slamming into both of them. Kelly broke away. Jack yelled for her to get out as he held down Angelo, releasing anger, rage, and punishing him for Dana’s death.
With Angelo’s face bloodied and swollen, he stopped when Angelo said, “It’s too late, Jack. I told you, I’m ready to die. Are you?” He looked off to the right where a simple timer was ticking down. Numbers flashing red. Less than thirty seconds. His brow furrowed.
“You should thank me, Jack. I made you. The Butcher of New York! I brought you back!”
Jack clenched his jaw, staring at his pitiful face. “I never fucking left.”
With that said he took Angelo’s own gun and shoved it in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Jack’s eyes darted to the timer. Twenty-two seconds and dropping fast. Angelo didn’t need to explain, he already knew what he’d done. He’d rigged the place. Jack nearly lost his footing, his shoulder slammed into the doorway as he scrambled to get out. His boots echoed on the steel catwalk as he leaped over the dead.
Outside, multiple cruisers swerved in with EMS and fire trucks no far behind. Blue and red strobe lights flashed, a dizzying sight. Dalton and Kelly stood nearby among a group of frozen Chinese workers, staring at the chaotic scene as cops rushed toward the building, weapons drawn. “Put it down!” he heard them order. Gunfire erupted for a brief moment before a series of what sounded like controlled demolition explosions erupting from inside the warehouse. Every window burst. Cops ran for cover as a monstrous cloud of dust, grit and glass billowed out. The whole damn thing went up in a fireball of orange and black smoke before the structure collapsed.
Dalton’s jaw dropped as his stomach sank.
“Jack.”
22
A week later
Thunder rumbled overhead, heralding the
