“I’m coming, Blake.”
The phone fell silent.
Inside her apartment, Sara collapsed to the floor and wept.
266
It Makes The World Go Around
Tanner’s hands had been resting on the table when June Thompson, known as IRS agent Jade Taylor, brought up the Glock 19, which had been concealed behind her purse. The gun held sixteen rounds in total, and it had been modified to fire fully automatic.
Tanner had wondered why the IRS agent would be at the club, but he hadn’t felt threatened by her presence.
June was smiling. Half of it was a ruse, while the other half was joy at how easy the hit would be. She saw no weapon near Tanner’s hands and was glad that she hadn’t believed the stories about the man being a killing machine.
By the end of the day, she expected to be fifty thousand dollars richer; however, she wouldn’t live to see the end of the day, or even the next five minutes.
When Tanner saw the gun emerge, he kicked the empty chair that was opposite him. It slammed into June’s legs with enough force to knock her off-balance, even as her finger tightened on the trigger of the gun, which sent bullets flying about the bar.
At the same instant that Tanner had kicked the chair at her, Joe Pullo had flung his beer bottle at June. It struck her in the forehead and shattered. Between that and the impact of the chair, June fell backwards and became tangled amid the barstools.
Tanner was on her in a flash. He ripped the gun from her hand before landing a solid kick into her stomach.
“Johnny!”
Pullo cried out his friend’s name in shock and fear, as he saw that Johnny Rossetti was sprawled on his back near the middle of the bar.
When Pullo reached him, he viewed the line of bloody holes stitched across his friend’s torso and knew that Johnny was dead.
There had been two men guarding the front door. They were mostly there to shoo away people, while informing them that the bar was closed for the day.
June had made her way past them with the help of her phony federal credentials, and one of the men had seen her at the club before and believed she was an agent.
The two men entered the club and stood looking about helplessly at the tragic scene. Tanner instructed them to go back outside and make sure that no one else entered. One of the men looked like he wanted to be sick when he realized that Johnny was dead, but he and the other man returned to their post on shaky legs.
June had vomited in reaction to Tanner’s kick, and was bent over at the waist, but he gripped her one-handed around the neck and jerked her head up.
“Who do you work for?”
June spat up blood. “I think you broke something inside me.”
“You think I broke something? Let’s leave no doubts.”
Tanner gripped June’s right arm with one hand on her elbow, while the other grabbed her wrist, then he brought her arm down hard on his knee. The bones in her forearm made a dry cracking sound as they splintered, and June let out a scream as her wide eyes took in the bone jutting from her torn and bloody flesh.
For long seconds, the only sound in the bar was that of weeping, the pain-filled whimpering of June, along with the agonizing sobs of grief coming from Pullo.
After June had swallowed several big gulps of air, Tanner questioned her again.
“Who do you work for?”
“I… I was, I was hired by a man named Duke and he works for someone else, I don’t know who.”
“I do,” Tanner said.
He looked along the bar, where Pullo sat on the floor while cradling Johnny’s body in his arms. Tanner knew that Rossetti’s death was caused by Sara.
Tanner grabbed June by the hair, flipped her over onto her stomach, and with one smooth move, he reached around and sliced open her throat with the top half of a jagged beer bottle. It was the remains of the bottle Pullo had thrown.
June had spotted the shard of brown glass in Tanner’s hand and cried out for mercy by shouting the word, “Don’t!”
There was no mercy, for however improbable and nascent the friendship between himself and Rossetti had been, it had been forming, and Tanner had grown to like the man.
After slitting her throat, Tanner left June to die in agony. She gagged and thrashed like a fish without water, while her lifeblood spread into a puddle around her.
Afterwards, Tanner knelt beside Pullo with a hand on his shoulder. When he heard Sara’s tinny voice come from Johnny’s phone, he picked it up and informed her of Johnny’s death, while insinuating that she would soon join him in the afterlife.
Pullo managed to gasp out words from a face covered in tears. “Sara did this? She sent that woman to kill you?”
“I don’t know if she was sent by Blake, but she worked for her. As far as I’m concerned, she’s broken our truce.”
“Oh God, Tanner, look at him. He must have been hit six times.” Pullo gazed over at June, who had died and lay in her own blood. “Oh, you fucking bitch!”
Tanner squeezed Pullo’s shoulder, stood, and took out his phone. When Sophia answered, he asked her to take a taxi to the club.
“What’s going on?”
“Johnny Rossetti is dead. I’m sorry, Sophia.”
“What? How?”
“Sara Blake, someone working for her, but it was an accident. The woman was gunning for me.”
Tanner heard Sophia sobbing and he let her cry until she could talk again.
“I loved him, Tanner, you know? I wasn’t in love with him anymore, but I still loved him, and he was a hell of a friend.”
“I know, but please come. Joe needs someone, and I have to go soon.”
“Are you all right?”
“I will be once Blake is dead. This was her doing and this shit ends today.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Sophia said, and then the call ended.
Tanner sat on a barstool, looked about the club, then back down at Rossetti’s lifeless form. The man had been killed because of the actions of the woman he loved, actions spawned from the woman’s loss of a previous lover, whose death she sought to avenge.
If it weren’t so tragic, the irony would almost be humorous.
267
Confession
Thanks to the tracking device hidden on the bottom of Tanner’s boot, Sara could stay one step ahead of him and knew that he had already been to both hers and Johnny Rossetti’s apartment while looking for her.
Oh, Johnny.
Sara was devastated by Rossetti’s death and realized she was to blame for it. Tanner had been telling the truth when he gave his word that he wouldn’t kill her. Had she not sought to trap him in a lie, Johnny would still be living.
At one point in the day, she called the club and spoke to Joe Pullo while crying. Pullo listened as she told him everything, even revealing that she had planted a tracking device on Tanner. As Johnny had earlier, Pullo realized she had more knowledge than she should about Tanner’s movements over the last few days, so she admitted the offense.
“Johnny is dead because of you, Sara.”
“I know, Joe.”
“I think he loved you, and because of that, I won’t harm you. I can’t say the same for Tanner and I won’t stand in his way.”
“I fucked up, Joe, plain and simple. I gave my word and I broke it, but I just could not imagine that Tanner would keep his word.”
“You know, you see Tanner as this great evil, but he’s not. He kills people for a living because it’s what he’s good at, like a military sniper. And believe it or not, he’s about the best man I know.”
There was silence on the line after that, but Pullo ended it.
“Goodbye, Sara. I don’t think I’ll be seeing you again.”
“Goodbye, Joe. And I’m so, so, sorry.”
Minutes later, the tracker went dead.
Sara had called from the passenger seat of a van driven by Duke, who assumed that he too was on Tanner’s kill list. However, they had a pla
n, one devised by Sara.
Tanner had to die, but first, Tanner had to be survived.
And as Sara spent the day hiding from Tanner, a plan had formed on just how to accomplish that. It was a bold plan and perhaps a foolish one, because for her plan to work, Tanner would have to be capable of love, and that love, that caring for another human being would prove to be his Achilles’ heel.
Is it possible for the Devil to love? Sara asked herself.
If it wasn’t, she knew she might be living her last hours on earth.
268
It Ends!
Laurel had learned of Johnny’s death from Joe but had been unable to leave the clinic because she had patients that needed treatment. Due to her nurse’s treachery, she was working alone.
She had liked Johnny a great deal, as had most of those who knew him, and his death saddened her.
Merle and Earl had been with her earlier in the day, but after Johnny’s death, Pullo had asked them to come back to the club. They would be needed to perform various chores, and to fulfill their duties as chauffeurs.
As darkness fell, Laurel had just finished with her last patient. He was a leg breaker from the docks who had met up with a late payer who fought back. The deadbeat had broken three fingers on the collection man’s left hand, but the leg breaker had stayed true to his name and had broken his adversary’s kneecaps in retaliation.
Pullo had left a man to guard Laurel, although he didn’t believe she was in any real danger, as she had not been the target of Heinz’s would-be assassin, but only a bystander who needed to be dealt with by necessity.
The guard escorted the last patient out, and after watching the gate close behind the departing vehicle, he stayed out front for a smoke.
There was a van parked across from the fence with no one in it, and the guard, named J.T., idly wondered who had left it there, as he puffed away. But his mind was occupied by thoughts of the coming days, because with Johnny Rossetti gone and war on the horizon, the Giacconi Family were looking at dark times ahead.
As he was about to go back inside, he spotted the woman walking toward him from the right. She was beautiful, had long dark hair, and was unbuttoning her blouse as she drew closer. With his eyes riveted to the ever-increasing exposure of soft flesh, J.T. never noticed Duke coming up on him from the left.
Duke pressed a gun against J.T.’s head and issued instructions. “Open the gate with your remote and then punch in the access code for the door, or so help me, I’ll blow your head off.”
J.T. was a practical sort and much wiser than his brutish appearance might lead one to believe. He opened the gate and punched in the code without blustering or hesitation, in the hopes that all the pair wanted was to rob the clinic and not harm anyone.
Sara had her blouse refastened, and she retrieved the van and drove it into the parking lot. Once they were inside the clinic, Duke smashed the gun against the side of J.T.’s head, and the big man fell to the floor, stunned.
Laurel appeared and ran to the guard’s side to help him. “Oh God, what are you doing?”
“He’ll be fine,” Duke said. He flipped the guard over and used zip ties to bind the man’s hands behind his back, before placing larger ties around his ankles.
Laurel had been down on the floor beside J.T., checking the cut on his scalp, but Sara pulled her to a standing position and pointed a gun at her.
“I want you to get Tanner here. Call him!”
Laurel looked down at the gun and then up at Sara. “Wasn’t killing Johnny enough? Does Tanner have to die as well?”
“It’s kill or be killed when it comes to Tanner, and I don’t intend to die.”
After saying this, Sara’s expression softened, and she sniffled and took in a deep breath.
“I’m so sorry that Johnny had to pay for my mistakes and I’m sorry that I have to use you too.”
“Use me?” Laurel said.
“Yes, you’re the bait that will place Tanner in my trap, and if I’m right, he’ll snap it shut on himself.”
“You want to kill Tanner, but it won’t turn out that way, he’ll kill you instead.”
“You’d better hope not.”
“Why?”
“Because if I die, then so do you.”
Tanner arrived within minutes of receiving Laurel’s call, and he came alone.
He and Duke kept their guns pointed at each other as Duke let him inside, and he stepped past the now fully aware, but bound and gagged, J.T. However, as soon as Tanner spotted Laurel and Sara, all else faded into the background.
Sara was standing with her left forearm locked around Laurel’s throat, while with her right hand, she pressed her gun firmly against the side of Laurel’s head.
The situation was nearly identical to one Tanner faced days earlier when the assassin Gerda held Sophia hostage.
Tanner had ended that standoff with a well-placed shot to Gerda’s throat, and luckily, the woman had not fired in reflex and killed Sophia.
Such an act now seemed not only dangerous to Tanner, but cavalier as well. He could not imagine risking Laurel’s life in a similar fashion.
“I tried not to underestimate you, Blake, and I wound up overestimating you. I really believed you would keep your word, but you’re just a lying little bitch, aren’t you?”
“I had every intention of keeping my word, it’s just that the situation… I… what does it matter? This is where we are now.”
Tanner looked at Laurel and searched her for signs of abuse. “Has she hurt you?”
“No, but I believe her when she says that she’ll kill me.”
“Let her go, Blake. This is between you and me.”
“No Tanner, this is between you, me, and Brian Ames, the man you killed, the man I loved.”
“The way you loved Rossetti? Johnny is dead because of you, Blake, because you couldn’t keep your word and let the past be.”
“I know I’m to blame, but it was only because I believed, no, because I knew you wouldn’t keep your word and that you couldn’t be trusted.”
“You were wrong. My word is about all I have in this world. When I say I’m going to do a thing, I do it.”
“I see that now, and as amazing as it is to me, I believe you would have let me live.”
“It’s too late for that now,” Tanner said. He raised his gun and pointed it at Sara’s head.
Duke moved toward him, and the guard, who was seated on the floor with his back against the wall, thrust out his bound feet and tripped Duke, who stumbled, but kept his balance.
Tanner spun on Duke in an instant and caught the man across the bridge of his crooked nose with the barrel of his gun, which broke the nose once more, then he wrenched Duke’s gun out of his hand.
Duke cried out in pain from the blow, as he leaned against the wall, while Tanner, after using his knife to free J.T.’s hands, gave the big man Duke’s weapon.
Sara saw that her plan was falling apart, and she issued an ultimatum. “Stop Tanner, or I swear I’ll blow Laurel’s brains out.”
With the guard keeping an eye on Duke, Tanner walked back over to Sara, and once again pointed his gun at her.
“Let her go. She’s an innocent. I can understand you breaking your word while in the grip of paranoia, but Blake, I don’t think you would kill an innocent.”
Sara let out a laugh that teetered on the edge of hysteria. “She may be an innocent, but she’s also karma.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“An eye for an eye, Tanner. You killed someone that I loved and now I’ll kill someone you care about. I’ll still die, but I’ll have a little payback as I go.”
Tanner lowered his arm after hearing those words, as a chill ran down his spine.
Laurel spoke as tears fell from her eyes. “I don’t think this is going to work out well for me, is it, Tanner?”
Tanner grimaced after hearing the tone of desolation in Laurel’s words. With his left hand, he reached up and brushed
her tears away.
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Laurel smiled, opened her mouth, and bit down hard on Sara’s forearm.
Sara yelped in pain, but she tightened her grip, then jammed her weapon sideways into Laurel’s mouth.
“No!” Tanner screamed, even as he thrust his gun against Sara’s head.
“Do you love this woman, Tanner?” Sara asked. “Because if you do, the only way to save her is to give yourself up.”
Tanner pressed his gun into the side of Sara’s head as he spoke through gritted teeth. “Let her go!”
“The only way that happens is if you surrender. She might live if you pull that trigger, but given where my gun is located, I doubt that outcome.”
Tanner looked at Laurel. She was gagging on the gun and her eyes were filled with the fear of death.
Tanner removed his gun from Sara’s head, took a step back, and spoke to Laurel.
“You asked me if I loved you and I didn’t answer… I’m answering you now.”
Tanner’s arm lowered, and he let his gun drop to the floor.
Sara sighed with relief and removed her gun from Laurel’s mouth.
“Duke?” Sara said, and Duke held out his hand toward the bodyguard.
“Give him back his gun,” Tanner said, and J.T. reluctantly complied.
Sara still held her gun on Laurel and kept it there until Duke had Tanner’s hands cuffed behind his back. Still, when Laurel moved toward Tanner, Sara held her back with a hand on her arm.
Tanner glared at her. “Are you going to keep your word and let Laurel live, or are you going to break it like you did last time?”
The question stung Sara, who’d always thought of herself as a person of honor. She considered her severing of their truce as an anomaly, one that was spawned by desperation and fear.
She released Laurel and lowered her weapon. “I won’t hurt her, ever.”
As Duke was herding Tanner toward the door with a gun pressed against the back of his head, Laurel called to him.
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 86