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…

gives

against right-handers. I've

Fast. Teeth

follows through, but I grab him by the arm. We grapple. His blade to my throat. My

I smell

Sweat. Sour.

sour scent of

Not excitement.

Fear.

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

but as he

up on my advantage, I bully forward, reaching for his blade, slashing

right hand and he twists away,

The other knife...

Ambidextrous?

from my right hand, my left hand is

the rib cage

Got you, you bastard…

her.

and Baxter, she charges

back, my foot

Drinks slops?

Blood?

In slow motion...

my arms wind-milling

I go down...

Baxter’s on top of

…

gasp as his

The rasp of

The metallic

Whose?

Mine…

enjoying his moment, the knife poised

reaches into

My Glock?

my forehead, he

use

the

wildly, one way or the other, searching

There are none.

of my own

Is this it?

all this time… this is how

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

something I didn’t

Live by the sword…

how the mind works at these moments. The

think

close and huge. The

My throat tightens…

honey and contempt in equal measure… “A hero with a gun and a

know that

to its owner. So do

thigh boots set her close to six feet in the spiked heels. The matching skirt just clears the crotch and the

a face made up with emerald eyes painted Goth-dark and fuck-me

“Mitch?”

admit it. I

So does Baxter.

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

I have never seen her dressed like this, not even in her ‘professional’

stands tall, chin lifted, one leg a little curved to strike a pose. And with an

a finger into the

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