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

Well used…

Left-handed…

gives

practice against right-handers. I've

stabs out. Hard. Fast. Teeth bared.

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

close, I smell

Sweat. Sour.

sour scent of

Not excitement.

Fear.

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

for his neck but as he swings away, my fist

bully forward, reaching for his blade, slashing out with my

right hand and

The other knife...

Ambidextrous?

from my right hand,

the rib

Got you, you bastard…

her. The Indian

the exit, apparently blind to me and Baxter, she charges

my

Drinks slops?

Blood?

In slow motion...

arms

I go down...

Baxter’s on

…

as his blade slices across

The rasp of

metallic

Whose?

Mine…

maniacally, he hovers, enjoying his moment,

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

My Glock?

and aiming for my forehead, he

use

got the

swing round wildly, one way or the other, searching for

There are none.

up the barrel of

Is this it?

this is

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

I didn’t

Live by the sword…

at these moments. The brain does odd things under extreme

don’t think

looms close and huge. The rest of the world

My throat tightens…

contempt in equal measure… “A hero with a

know that

swing to its

heels. The matching skirt just clears the crotch and the zip-front

a face made up with emerald eyes painted

“Mitch?”

admit it. I

So does Baxter.

be a brothel. It might have been full of women offering their all. But nothing compares to Mitch in all

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

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

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

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