I grabbed it and plunged it straight into Snake’s side.
“You…motherfucker…”
I twisted it, and he winced in pain, collapsing to the ground. I let him fall and stood over him, taking a moment of triumph.
“That…that actually hurt,” he said, sounding like he was down to his dying breath.
Good. For all the shit this bastard had done to hurt the world, he deserved to suffer some before he died. He needed to feel some of what he’d done to all the girls and families he’d destroyed.
“I’m glad you can die knowing you did something to me!”
He reached out and swept my feet underneath me, and then, in the most surreal thing I had ever fucking seen in my life, Snake pulled the knife out of his side and brandished it over me. The man had no fucking right to be standing on his own feet after that, let alone even alive, but he was a fucking monster. That was the only goddamn explanation for this moment.
I kicked him, but he seemed to have regained some superhuman strength. He swung the knife at me and barely missed. I wouldn’t have time to get off the ground, not without either getting extremely lucky or extremely cut up.
He had me backed into a corner. I wouldn’t fucking die like this, not trapped in a corner.
“Pathetic,” he said. “At least now I’ll get the rest of you assholes out in the open and make short—”
Glass shattered over his head, making him stumble forward. I saw an opportunity. I got up, ignoring any pain in my body, and broke his wrist, removing the knife from him. I bent down as he still howled in pain, grabbed the knife, and slammed it through his fucking neck.
He looked at me wide-eyed, brought his hands up, and then had his legs give out. He looked up at me like he wanted to say something, but the knife stopped the words in his throat. It was just as well. An asshole like this didn’t deserve a chance to say one more evil word.
And finally, with one last wicked smirk on his face, as if a taunt to the world as he left, Snake died.
DOM had finally done it.
We’d fucking killed one of the most notorious international criminals, the mastermind behind a shitload of horrifying kidnappings, rapes, and God knew what else.
DOM had accomplished its biggest mission yet.
And it…it had fucking taken Emily returning with what looked like a glass vase and smashing it over the head of Snake to stun him long enough for me to get the upper hand.
“Holy fuck,” I said breathlessly.
I looked at Emily. She was never going to forget this scene. For better or worse, you didn’t forget witnessing someone die with a knife through their throat.
But at least she could recall such a scene in peace. She’d never have to fucking worry about Snake ever again. No one would ever have to fucking worry about Snake again.
“You OK?”
She nodded. She actually looked much more composed than I would have assumed. I guessed I’d underestimated her some. She had, after all, dealt with Sean and she wasn’t a rookie at this sort of shit.
“You?” she said.
I grimaced and nodded.
“I appreciate you coming in. I thought you’d run away.”
“I almost did,” she admitted. “But I wanted to stick around in case you needed help. I had one hand on the door handle, though.”
“Sorry about your place,” I said. “I know it’s going to take some cleaning up.”
“What the hell are we going to do about him?” she said, pointing to Snake’s corpse on the ground.
His eyes still open, his lips curled up in a smile, it looked like one of those unsettling sculptures from the Middle Ages. I wanted to change his face, but I also didn’t want to fucking touch him. He was as good as gone by now, but the very idea of touching Snake like that just seemed so…wrong.
“I’ll take care of the body,” I said.
“How?”
I shrugged.
“It’s not my first rodeo Emily.”
Body disposal was one of those things that was best left done and not said. But suffice to say, it wasn’t the first time I’d had to dispose of a body. Edgar Allen Poe had taught me a thing or two, it turned out.
“I’m going to need your bathroom for a bit,” I said. “I’ll take care of shit. You do whatever you need to do. I’ll come back after I take everything out.”
By the time I had taken care of Snake’s body I just wanted to collapse and sleep for the next year. And it wasn’t because I lacked sleep from the last few days, but from years and years of dealing with this motherfucker. Snake was the monster under our beds that we could never quite kill.
Oh, we’d come close before. Scott and Liam, when they’d rescued Kaylie, had apparently had a decent shot. In the past, before this whole venturing to kill him shit went down, we’d all had him in our scopes before other priorities took over.
But never before had we done it. He always eluded our grasp, laughing and taunting us with each task. It became a weight we could not shed.
But no more.
He was gone.
I got to my car, stuffed him in my trunk, and figured I’d take care of the rest later. For now, I had someone to get back to.
I found myself able to move more freely, more calmly, as I made haste back to Emily’s place. I again eluded her
