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

practice against right-handers. I've done

Hard. Fast. Teeth bared. Pupils

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

I

Sweat. Sour.

scent

Not excitement.

Fear.

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

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

forward, reaching for his

with my right hand and he twists

The other knife...

Ambidextrous?

swerves away from my right hand, my left

the rib

Got you, you bastard…

her. The Indian

Baxter, she charges

staggering back, my foot skids on

Drinks slops?

Blood?

In slow motion...

my arms

I go down...

on top

…

gasp as his blade

The rasp of shredding

metallic

Whose?

Mine…

his moment, the knife poised at

point nipping at the vein, he reaches into his jacket, he

My Glock?

my forehead,

not use the

got the

I swing 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 is how

all the ways I could have died over the years, I’m taken out by

something I didn’t actually

Live by the sword…

at these moments. The brain

think I’m

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

My throat tightens…

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

know that

swing to its owner.

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

shoulders and frames a

“Mitch?”

admit it.

So does Baxter.

might have been full of women offering their all. But nothing compares

like this, not even in

strike a pose. And with an eye on Baxter that dares him to do his

dangles, an open silver loop. She hooks a finger into the loop and tooth by tooth,

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