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

Well used…

Left-handed…

gives him

right-handers. I've

out. Hard. Fast. Teeth bared.

by the arm. We

I smell

Sweat. Sour.

scent

Not excitement.

Fear.

breaks away, dancing back from me and suddenly I'm overreaching… off-balance… and I pull back recovering my

neck but as he swings away, my

my advantage, I bully forward, reaching

my right hand and he twists away, still grinning manically, but he

The other knife...

Ambidextrous?

he swerves away from

rib

Got you, you bastard…

her.

and Baxter, she

back, my foot skids

Drinks slops?

Blood?

In slow motion...

my arms

I go down...

on

…

My gasp as his blade slices across

The rasp

The metallic tang of

Whose?

Mine…

grinning maniacally, he hovers, enjoying his moment, the knife poised at my

reaches into his jacket,

My Glock?

my forehead,

not use

the

round wildly, one way or the other, searching

There are none.

up the barrel of my

Is this it?

time… this is

with irritation. Of all the ways I could have died over the years, I’m taken

for something I didn’t actually

Live by the sword…

moments. The brain does odd things

don’t think

gun looms close and huge. The

My throat tightens…

is sultry, smooth, and drips honey and contempt in equal measure… “A hero with a gun and a knife against an

know

eyes swing to its

in the spiked heels. The matching skirt just clears the crotch

shoulders and frames a face made up with emerald eyes painted Goth-dark

“Mitch?”

it. I

So does Baxter.

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

her dressed like this, not even

one leg a little curved to strike a pose. And with an eye on Baxter that dares

finger into the loop and

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