Except it wasn’t yet.
Petr hunched behind the human shield and stared around the side of Ernie’s neck, only a sliver of his face visible. She locked her aim onto his only visible eye, its pupil dilated, but it wasn’t worth the risk. A millimetre off-centre and she’d shoot Ernie through the throat.
Petr was animated despite the stink of blood and death in the air. Coupled with the pupil, she figured he was high on something.
He stared across the room at her. ‘Oh. You.’
Which meant, You’re the one who killed all my men.
She didn’t know if he had a gun. He hadn’t been holding one, but she hadn’t managed a good look at his belt.
She tried to keep her voice level. ‘You can walk away if you let him go. All I care about is innocents getting left alone. I think we can reach a deal.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Petr said, eyebrows raised. ‘You’re just gonna forget about her, are you?’
Alexis noticed the woman’s body in her peripheral vision, uncomfortably present. The woman had fallen over the sofa’s armrest onto her back, arms out at her sides, blood now soaked all the way through the cushions.
Ernie moaned.
Petr said, ‘That’s right. You’re not forgetting her. So I don’t think I’ll take your offer. Sorry.’
As he apologised he shoved Ernie double-handed. The tech worker offered no resistance and Petr was strong as an ox, so the result wasn’t pretty. Ernie didn’t so much stumble as fly, careening across the room, running the short distance between Petr and Alexis with his gangly arms flailing.
She had to lower her gun so he didn’t run straight into it and depress her trigger finger accidentally.
Ernie barely managed to slow himself down before he crashed into her, but she’d braced for it and she shouldered him aside. The impact still rattled her and she was frustratingly slow to bring the Grach back up to aim. If Petr had a gun like she suspected, he would’ve successfully got the jump on her.
But Petr was gone.
She wasn’t going to blindly rush down the hallway in case he was lying in wait, so she tactically swept the entire condo — room by room, corner by corner, shadow by shadow. She took her time, which shattered her nerves, not knowing what lay behind each hiding spot. She couldn’t fathom how King and Slater did this regularly. By the time she was finished, the condo was eerily quiet, and sirens wailed in the distance, a response to the two shots she’d fired. There’d no doubt already been frantic calls placed by neighbours. As she finished up her search she heard a car tear away at the end of the street, its engine roaring.
Petr, successfully completing his getaway.
Ernie stood motionless in the living room, staring at the dead woman.
Alexis knew a broken man when she saw one.
She walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Police will be here in minutes. Tell them everything.’
‘Huh?’ He wasn’t lucid. His eyes were glazed over, his world destroyed. He turned to finally look at her. Took a few seconds to compute what he saw. ‘You look like someone I work with.’
‘If you could be vague with your description of me I’d appreciate it, but I understand if none of this is getting through to you. You’ve been through something horrific. I don’t have words. There aren’t words.’ She squeezed his shoulder tight. ‘I’m so sorry.’
She stripped the two dead Russians of their phones and weapons and hustled out, leaving him standing there, feet glued to the ground.
At the door she heard him call out, and she took a couple of steps back so he was in her line of sight.
He watched her, shaking. ‘Did you just save my life?’
She glanced at the woman’s body on the sofa. ‘I don’t know. I hope so.’ Then, again, ‘I’m so sorry.’
She ran out.
53
King, Slater and Frankie rendezvoused with the reinforcements in the gym’s front lot.
Danny pulled in first in a beat-up old Peugeot that King couldn’t believe was still functional. The old hatchback seemed to defy physics as it choked and spluttered into the lot, but it was more surprising that Danny even had a car, given what little King knew about his financial situation.
Frankie answered King’s silent question. ‘It’s one of my old rides. Keep it up the back of the garage. I let Danny use it when he needs to.’
So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours that King almost forgot Danny was living with Frankie.
The young man got out, hunched and subdued, and he slouched more when he spotted King. He shuffled over to them, his gait meek. He didn’t look up when he reached them.
Frankie said, ‘Stop cowering.’
Danny straightened a little. Not much.
Frankie said, ‘Look at me, kid.’
Danny complied.
Frankie said, ‘Now look at Jason.’
Danny didn’t.
Frankie said, ‘Now.’
Danny glanced at King, then immediately lowered his gaze.
Frankie stepped forward, grabbed him by the shoulders, forcefully corrected his posture. Then grabbed his chin in a clenched hand, squashing the young man’s cheeks. ‘Stop being pathetic. Yeah, you weren’t wanted earlier. But now you’re needed and that’s that. No hard feelings from anyone.’ He glanced at King. ‘Right?’
King said, ‘Right.’
Frankie let Danny go and shoved him away, hard.
King could see Danny trying desperately to bring himself out of his shell, but the shame lingered. No matter what, it would. Even when this was all done.
He thought about shooting Frankie right
