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...

eight inches.

Well used…

Left-handed…

that gives him an

right-handers.

Fast.

but I grab him by the arm. We grapple. His blade to my

I smell

Sweat. Sour.

sour scent

Not excitement.

Fear.

and suddenly I'm overreaching… off-balance…

grunts as I lash for his neck but as he swings away, my fist lands in his

advantage, I bully forward, reaching

my right hand and he twists away,

The other knife...

Ambidextrous?

As he swerves away from my right hand, my left hand is coming

rib cage and

Got you, you bastard…

it’s her. The Indian

out of nowhere, pelting for the exit, apparently blind to me and Baxter, she charges between

staggering back, my foot skids

Drinks slops?

Blood?

In slow motion...

my arms wind-milling

I go down...

on

…

My gasp as his blade slices across

rasp of

The metallic tang of

Whose?

Mine…

his moment, the knife

the vein, he reaches into his jacket, he takes out

My Glock?

my forehead,

use the

got the balls

round wildly, one

There are none.

up, I’m staring straight up the barrel of

Is this it?

this time… this is how

with irritation. Of all the ways I could have died over the

something I didn’t

Live by the sword…

at these moments. The brain does

don’t think I’m

the gun looms close and huge. The rest of the world vanishes

My throat tightens…

and drips honey and contempt in equal measure… “A hero with a gun and a knife against an unarmed man. And

know

its owner. So

six feet in the spiked heels. The matching skirt

and frames a face made up with emerald eyes painted

“Mitch?”

admit it.

So does Baxter.

women offering their all. But nothing compares to

seen her dressed like this, not even in

curved to strike a pose. And

tag dangles, an open silver loop. She hooks a finger into the loop

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