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…

Thinks that gives him an

right-handers. I've done

stabs out. Hard. Fast. Teeth bared. Pupils

arm. We grapple. His blade to my

I

Sweat. Sour.

scent of

Not excitement.

Fear.

away, dancing back from me and suddenly I'm overreaching… off-balance… and I pull

lash for his neck but

bully forward, reaching for

and he twists away, still

The other knife...

Ambidextrous?

swerves away from my right hand, my left hand

rib cage and

Got you, you bastard…

it’s her.

nowhere, pelting for the exit, apparently blind to me and Baxter, she charges between us and I twist

staggering back, my foot

Drinks slops?

Blood?

In slow motion...

arms wind-milling for

I go down...

on top

…

My gasp as his blade slices across

rasp of shredding

metallic tang

Whose?

Mine…

he hovers, enjoying his moment, the knife

vein, he reaches into his

My Glock?

my forehead, he backs

not use

the

wildly, one way or

There are none.

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

Is this it?

all this time… this is

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

for something I didn’t

Live by the sword…

moments. The brain does odd things under

think I’m

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

My throat tightens…

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

I know that

eyes swing to its owner.

six feet in the spiked heels. The matching skirt

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

“Mitch?”

admit it. I

So does Baxter.

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

have never seen her dressed like this, not

a little curved to strike a pose. And with an eye on Baxter that dares

a finger into the loop and

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