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 cared

Well used…

Left-handed…

Thinks that gives

right-handers. I've done

stabs out. Hard. Fast. Teeth

grab him by the arm. We grapple. His blade to my throat. My hand

I

Sweat. Sour.

sour scent of

Not excitement.

Fear.

me and suddenly I'm

then grunts as I lash for his neck but as he swings away,

forward, reaching for his blade, slashing out with

right hand and he twists away, still grinning manically, but he doesn't

The other knife...

Ambidextrous?

swerves away from my right hand, my left

rib cage

Got you, you bastard…

her. The Indian

exit, apparently blind to me and Baxter, she

back, my foot

Drinks slops?

Blood?

In slow motion...

arms wind-milling for

I go down...

Baxter’s on

…

as his blade slices across

The rasp of

The metallic tang of

Whose?

Mine…

hovers, enjoying his moment,

he reaches into his jacket, he takes out a

My Glock?

and aiming for my forehead, he

use

the balls

round wildly, one way or the other, searching

There are none.

staring straight up the barrel of my own fucking gun and to Baxter’s

Is this it?

this time… this

Of all the ways I could have died over the years, I’m taken out by a shite like

something I didn’t actually

Live by the sword…

how the mind works at these moments. The brain does

think I’m

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

My throat tightens…

just the real man.” The voice is sultry, smooth, and drips honey and contempt in equal measure… “A hero with a gun and a knife

know

eyes swing to its owner. So

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

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

“Mitch?”

it.

So does Baxter.

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

like this, not even in her ‘professional’

leg a little curved to strike a pose. And with

She hooks a finger into the loop and tooth

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