Hot Revenge Box Set 2

Chapter 15

Klempner

Although I can hear chaos from down the stairs, up here now, it’s quiet. There’s no-one in the dance room.

In the pool room, the only sound is the crunching of glass under my boots. I carry on to Finchby’s office.

All empty?

It seems so.

The time?

Time to go.

Except… as I’m about to turn and leave a girl, I see her; barely a teenager, some variety of Asian, Indian perhaps. Streaming tears, she skitters out from behind the desk, making for the kitchen.

I follow her and she cringes back into the corner. I offer my hand. “I’m not going to hurt you. You have to leave.”

She babbles at me in I’ve-no-idea-what language, then abruptly, her face swings up to mine and fingers outstretched, leaps up at me, clawing at my face. Reflexively, I jerk back, and she bolts past me and out, back the way I came.

Fuck!

I dash after her, but in the few seconds, she’s gone, vanished.

Where did she go?

Out?

Or somewhere deeper inside?

I check my watch… Three minutes…

Christ!

I have to find her… If she’s on the stairwell, perhaps I’ll hear her. I turn for the bar, heading for the stairs up and down, and there…

Fuck.

Baxter.

I reach for my Glock… And it’s not there.

Damn… When did I put it down?

Baxter flashes brows. And the knife in his hand. “Going somewhere?”

“I was planning on leaving.” I slip the knife from my belt. “Your friend Finchby has already left the building. I believe the money may be with him.”

“I’m not going to weep over Finchby. And I didn't do it for the cash. Well… mainly not for the cash. And I have my half anyway.”

We circle, eyeball to eyeball.

Make the first move?

Wait for him?

I move slowly, watching for the twitch of the hand. The nudge of the shoulder. The tell that he's going to stop talking and...

He slashes out… moves fast…

But it’s a feint and we both know it, calculated to draw a reaction from me.

Testing me…

My speed…

My reactions…

Younger than me...

How much by?

Ten years?

His knife...

maybe eight inches.

Well used…

Left-handed…

Thinks that gives him

against right-handers. I've

stabs out. Hard. Fast. Teeth

he follows through, but I grab him by the arm. We grapple. His blade

I

Sweat. Sour.

scent

Not excitement.

Fear.

and suddenly I'm overreaching… off-balance… and I pull back recovering my

but

I bully forward, reaching for his blade, slashing

chest with my right hand and he twists away,

The other knife...

Ambidextrous?

I’m not. Just well-practised. As he swerves away from my right hand, my left hand

the rib cage

Got you, you bastard…

it’s her. The

Baxter, she charges between us and I twist away to avoid slicing the

my foot

Drinks slops?

Blood?

In slow motion...

arms

I go down...

on top

…

as his blade slices across

The rasp

metallic tang of

Whose?

Mine…

his moment, the knife

vein, he reaches into his jacket,

My Glock?

for my forehead, he

not use the

the balls for

wildly, one way or the other,

There are none.

barrel of my own fucking gun and

Is this it?

this is how

died over the years, I’m taken

for something I didn’t

Live by the sword…

at these moments. The

think I’m

close and huge. The rest of the world vanishes around me. My peripheral vision

My throat tightens…

and contempt in equal measure…

know

swing to its owner.

her close to six feet in the spiked heels. The matching skirt just

hair tumbles gloriously over smooth white shoulders and frames a face made up with emerald eyes painted

“Mitch?”

it. I

So does Baxter.

might be a brothel. It might have been full of women offering their

her dressed like this, not

pose. And with an eye on Baxter that dares

She hooks a finger

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