Hollowell shrinks a little as he looks up at Niles, who seems to have grown in his anger, towering over the other man.
“I give a fuck about the fact that after relying on us for years while you built yourself up in this town, you thought it would be wise to run for office on a campaign promise of wiping me off the face of the earth,” Niles continues. His voice was like a gunshot before, but now it’s as quiet and deadly as the purr of a lion.
Hollowell freezes. Then he shakes his head, letting out a small, disbelieving laugh. “That’s not true. I would never do that.”
“Are you sure?” Niles purses his lips. “It would be quite a coup for a new Senator. The kind of feather in the cap of your career I know you’ve been craving.”
Judge Hollowell licks his lips. The calm is cracking again, his charming half-smile gone. He’s on his knees before the two men, and now he clasps both hands together, making it look so much like he’s praying that it sends a shiver up my spine.
I’d be fucking praying too.
He opens his mouth once and then closes it, then tries again, smiling disbelievingly like he can’t believe they’re even discussing this.
“I…” He shrugs helplessly. “I might’ve mentioned it to a few private donors. In the context of a broader need to be tough on crime. But no promises were made. That’s just how politics go. You tell people what they want to hear in the moment, but no one keeps their word on every campaign promise.”
Niles shakes his head, taking a step back from the man on the floor. “Oh, you don’t have to tell me about people breaking promises.”
He lifts his hand, the one holding the dark gun with the silencer on the end, and I see the moment Hollowell registers it, see him open his mouth, see his body lurch forward with desperation.
But then a small metallic noise sounds as the gun fires, and Hollowell jerks back.
24
My body jerks right along with Hollowell’s, shock and adrenaline pouring through me so quickly it’s like getting punched in the heart.
His head and shoulders hit the ground with an awful sounding smack, his arms not even moving to brace his fall. His legs bend awkwardly underneath him because of the angle of his fall, and thick red blood begins to spread across his chest, staining his suit-jacket and crisp white shirt.
Fuck.
Holy fuck.
Bile races up my throat, filling my mouth with a metallic taste, and I swallow several times to force it back down. Everything inside my body wants out, as though if I won’t flee, my internal organs are planning to make a break for it on their own.
Hollowell’s dead. Or if he’s not dead yet, he will be soon.
It happened so fucking fast. Between one half-second and the next, a bullet carved its way through his body. Between one heartbeat and the next, he went down.
I wasn’t ready.
He wasn’t ready.
I could see it on his face. Right up until the moment Niles D’Amato squeezed the trigger, Hollowell still thought he could talk his way out of this. That all the bluffing and the mind games and manipulation he was so good at could turn this around, could buy him one more free pass out of facing the consequences of his actions.
But his free passes have run out.
There’s a sharp wheezing sound in my ears that I only vaguely realize is the sounds of me trying to suck air into lungs that are closing up, tightening painfully.
Niles nudges Hollowell with his shoe, looking down at the angled body with disgust. “Goddamn you.”
Then, as if that’s all the benediction the man deserves, the tall man lifts his head, his demeanor changing entirely, as if his anger at Hollowell evaporated in the same moment the bullet pierced his chest.
“This was not how I planned on spending my fucking day,” he tells Mitch, shaking his head as he squats down next to Hollowell’s still form. He tucks his gun away and holds out his hand. “Gimme your piece.”
Mitch pulls his weapon out from where he tucked it in the waistband of his pants and hands it over.
Niles wipes the dark metal of the gun with a small cloth he pulls from his pocket, then grabs Hollowell’s limp right hand and wraps it around the grip, pressing each finger lightly against the metal to leave a clear print.
He rises to his feet and returns the gun to Mitch, jerking his head in our direction. “Now them.”
I feel Chase stiffen beside me, and Linc makes a noise low in his throat. The three men in the living room with us all relaxed the second Hollowell went down, and now one of them steps forward, looking at Niles expectantly.
Their boss flicks his attention to us, and I see… nothing in his eyes. His gaze travels over me the same way it might move over the stuffed fox by the mantel—with mild interest but no compassion at all.
“Get ’em up. Spread ’em out. It needs to look like a home invasion gone wrong, not an execution.” He turns to Mitch, who holds the nine millimeter loosely in his hand. “Don’t make any of the shots too clean. Make it look like a scuffle broke out.”
“Yup.”
The burly man nods once, then steps into the foyer as the other three men haul us to our feet. I’m shoved roughly into a corner of the living room next to Linc, and he puts his body in front of mine as if he’s trying to shield me.
No. No. No.
My hand is shaking as I reach for him, but before my fingers can brush his arm, the man who dragged us here steps back, raising a hand to gesture Mitch over even as he addresses us.
“Spread out. More space between you.”
Linc growls again, and I think he’s about to launch himself at the man. But he can’t. He can’t. Death
