by Judy Jarvie
“I like portraiture. People,” he answers. “Faces can tell you so much without a single word.”
I’m telling him plenty right now.
Fuck off.
Raw hatred. That I know who he is. That I’m onto him. That I hate him beyond anything I’ve ever known in life. The devil incarnate. I shrivel inside in shame at being related to this monster of a man.
Only this staring game is real life with sky high stakes and no fun conclusion.
I lick my lips and watch Gonzales. “I think I’ve done enough small talk tonight already.”
“And is the big one for sale?” Donaldson asks.
“No. None of them are.”
“Then why display your work? Why come?”
I swallow hard. I feel a little strange and dizzy. It’s the heat, the pressure, and not knowing what to say or what not to say.
“I think we both know the answer. Coercion. It’s something you’ve built a career on, yourself.”
He’s staring. Eyes the very same color as my own stare hard back into mine. Then his lip curls slightly.
“Weren’t you even just a little intrigued?”
“Not at all.”
“You are a very beautiful woman. So much like your mother. In many ways also like me. I wanted to apologize—now, I’m not sure you deserve it.”
I can’t answer. There’s too much anger boiling inside me at him even mentioning my mother to me. The woman he hurt and mistreated most and chose criminality over family life.
She’s gone now and to a place he’ll never reach her.
“I can’t undo the past. But I can tell you that I do have regrets. A great many regrets,” he says slowly, deliberately.
I don’t want to stay here hearing this but, instead of supporting operations by being cool and in control, I’m an annoying AWOL emotions grenade about to blow.
Gonzales says the words, “The temperature is climbing steadily.”
It’s my sign to know that the team are inside the Mansion. That Katsaros has been taken down. I need put up with this farce no longer. We can clear out and go.
“Once a bad guy, always a bad guy in my book. It’s time I left. Keep the paintings. They mean nothing to me—you share that much in common.”
Gonzales is at my side in a moment, and we walk out of the room together. I’m shaking so much I feel my ankles wobble on my high stiletto heels.
“Over, well done,” says Gonzales in a whisper.
In a few minutes time there will be a swoop to capture Donaldson and arrest him. A nice dash of public humiliation to add to the melee. But Gonzales is tasked with protecting me and getting me out safely, sole objective.
I work to contain the pressing urge to scream, I feel sick. I hide behind my hands as soon as we’re in the lobby. I run for the back exit and Gonzales opens the doors for us to go and find our driver as pre-arranged.
Shots and screams fill the air in a terrifying cacophony of chaos that drills through me like tragedy unleashed. My shaking turns to terror.
“What’s going on?”
“Sounds like Donaldson’s fighting back. To be expected.”
I’m craning away, body pressed to the wall, tears running fast. My heart goes crazy with dread. A sustained volley from the main hall restarts, and I cover my ears. Not before I hear a woman’s screams.
Why doesn’t the bastard just give up, why does he keep hurting the innocent?
Who is shooting? Is it him? A booby trap, explosions, what? I need subtitles to decipher this action hero shit I have no smarts about.
Gonzales’ gun is out, and he’s backing up to get a view. Trained to intercept.
“Go back in there. Don’t stay on my account, just make sure he’s taken down,” I tell him.
“Only when I get you safely in the car,” he says. “That’s as we arranged.”
Another loud series of shots sounds from the hall. Some people are running outside but it’s surprisingly quiet, suggesting many are trapped inside.
“I’m going back in there.”
Gonzales opens the door and shoves me through, where the car waits, a driver already at the wheel. Ten seconds later I’m inside. “Zante—take her back to base. See you later, once this is handled.”
“Copy that,” says Zante.
“Stay safe, Gonzales,” I say softly as he nods and leaves. I climb into the car—it’s an overkill limo. Too big for the task, but it’s only then as the car starts to move, and I hear the click of a gun trigger nearby, that I realize we’ve messed up. Through the darkened screen beside Zante I see that we have company.
Messed up at the final moment.
“Good to see you again.”
I scream. I shut my eyes.
“Noooooo!”
* * * *
Dan
There’s a harsh male voice shouting in Greek in the next room. I can see running bodies through a nearby window and hear shots. One man hides behind a wall in the grounds, and he fires his gun repeatedly, bullets scudding off the building.
Then an explosion shakes the building—it has to be explosion because the noise is teeth-vibratingly loud. There’s more blasts and thudding. Then nothing. Quiet.
And I stare hard at where the shooting man is, and I’m pretty sure he’s now sprawled dead. But who is he—one of theirs? Ours? I can’t tell.
It’s like a seriously messed-up soap opera with no available clues.
“Get control center secured,” says Redman in my ear. It’s our route to capturing Katsaros—slamming the mansion’s systems into kaput on the way. I’m tasked with taking the control personnel down, to aid Timo in going for the top guy. The other agents are tasked with the safety of the women hostages—no loss of lives, and minimal harm inflicted.
“Do you copy? Over?” says Redman.
“Copy that.”
I kick down the door to the control room, then commence fire, managing to take out the two men on the desk.
Another guard has run in and now stands shocked and cornered. A couple of choice martial arts moves and he’s unconscious. I train my pistol on him at close range as I cuff him to his chair while he’s sprawled on the floor.
In seconds, another man’s hands are on his head and cuffs are on him too. Two dead—two captured.
Andreas runs down the hall.
“Timo got Katsaros?”
“Gone,” Andreas confirms. “Still searching.”
“The girls? Gone too?”
“Still here. Being taken out safely.”
Job done. So why the unease?
The instinct says loudly too easy. No Katsaros. What’s ahead?
It plagues me that these guys aren’t fighting hard. Like very confused calves in a too fast rodeo. No fight—like an exhibit at a petting zoo—and this gang are famed for brutality—‘the mad lions of the mountains’.
Tonight, not so much roar or bite.
“This is wrong,” I say to Rich over the mic link.
“You’re right.”
I won’t yet let out a breath of relief at the capture, until I know the girls are safe and out of there. But it pisses me off majorly that Katsaros has slipped the noose. It smacks of bodged aims. I’m wired and ready for more—willing an opportunity to appear. I watch the screens ahead of me, scanning every nook as if waiting for a trapdoor to burst Katsaros in front of me.
Click.
Trigger flex. Bang.
“We’ve been expecting you,” someone says with a heavy Greek accent.
A shot rings—it causes seismic, searing pain to my shoulder seconds after it fells me. The pain makes me stagger and collide with the wall then I slip to the floor. I land heavily on my side. There I lie. I didn’t see who’d delivered the reprisal—only saw the back view as Mr. Trigger-Happy shot his own cuffed guard through the chest.
I put my hand to my shoulder—scarlet, wet fluid coats my hand. It doesn’t scare me—all I’m aware of is heat buzzing inside me. Like I’m on a low electric current.
/>
I realize with sinking certainty that this mission is in dire jeopardy. Underlined balls-up. So why haven’t they hung around to finish the job on me? But, that doesn’t cause fear to grip me. This mission was beyond the individual.
I shout to Andreas—wherever he now is I’m not sure, “Don’t come after me—just get the girls out.”
And I know what Nathan felt—on the floor while I played ‘no talk’ with the bad guys, out to kick a confession from any part of me ready to bleed. He’d gone by the time I got back for him. Chest wounds—he hadn’t stood a chance. I stare at the dead man lying opposite me. It’s such a graphic tableau flagging up that I did not kill my partner. The job did.
Nathan would have done exactly the same.
“Save the girls. Do the job. That’s all that matters,” I say the words again. “And keep Katie safe.”
To myself. To Rich and maybe to Nathan.
I’m either getting what I’ve had coming to me—or I’m finally realizing the truth via taking a bullet to knock the knowledge in my head.
And as consciousness begins to flicker in and out like a dodgy TV screen, I wonder—will I ever see her again? Is she back safe?
I may not know her as well as I hoped—but I wish I’d told her what bright, burning potential she has. Like a stunning star. A vision of her at a graveside flicks into my head, and I realize it’s my burial.
At least she won’t lurk like I did at Nathan’s—feeling guilty that his family would figure the bad cop escaped—the great cop took the fall.
And I fall back on the floor, energy draining, as my own future draws to a steady, seeping close.
Chapter Eighteen
Dan
Somehow—through which means I’m not aware—I’ve been dragged bodily from the Mone Dunamis. I can’t tell you what happened—some legend cop, not.
It’s all a hazy and dark, confused labyrinthine journey—don’t ask me what the people around me were saying. I lost my grip on facts. But I remember gunshots and shouting and chaos in the mix and feeling like a loser. Yep, I remember that part—like a leaden lump of shit waste of space.
Like waking up in the midst of a war movie become real, but I can’t be certain what’s true life and what was dream. I blacked out due to blood loss, and my memory plays tricks like a meddlesome Medusa with a sabotage grudge.
So somehow, I was pulled to safety, out of the mansion, then roughly pushed onto a car backseat. I barely recall—but can testify to the rough pains in my ass and back from manhandling by someone strong with a point to prove. Who’s saved my life?
“You’re an asswipe low fucker, you know that?” Rocco’s face appears. Damn handsome bastard even when messed up in darkness.
“You like to go risking the whole mission because you’re too slow on the uptake to let me take center stage?”
I’d swear back but my mouth’s too dry. So, I grunt and that just makes him madder.
“Mother fucking asswipe dude.”
He lectures with lots of curse words, interspersed with the flow of angry shouting. At last I find my voice, though it’s low and gravelly as a coffin in a grave awaiting the hole-filler’s arrival. “You saved me.”
He slaps me right in the face. WTF?
“Yeah. I saved you. While you resisted, giving up the ghost and telling everybody to leave you for dead.”
“Thanks, Roc.”
Apparently, I’m an idiot and a good for nothing something or other with no cares for anybody else, and the C word was thrown in. Man, that’s bad—as bad as he ever goes. He should’ve killed me in the gym, apparently, as I wasn’t meant to be on maneuvers anyhow—he’s already told Rich this.
“Shoulda let you bleed out. You screwed up—not in there—in there you were great—took out three men, even as you lay with a chest wound. I’m talking about falling for the civilian and pitching us a curveball. She’s been taken hostage, by the way. Shoulda upped the game on covering her meet with Donaldson.”
His words spear me straight in the fresh wound with salt and acid, plus bleach afterthought. “WTF? Gonzales was to stick to her like glue. He dead?”
“All went off. Hostages taken. Shootout with five dead. Somebody took Kate and Zante, her driver, off grid, out of comms contact. GPS been blanked. Kate so does not deserve every sorry sad inch of you. Does she know you like the dark side? Sex in leathers with chains and flames? She got some kinda death wish with this?”
The very mention of Kate’s name has me full-on protective at what we’ve let happen on our watch. If I thought I was shit with Nathan this takes the pina colada cocktail of crapola.
Do I deserve the amazing woman I’ve fallen for? Shit, no. I can’t bear this.
“What’s happening now?”
“Redman, Warbie and Deano are on the case. You’re in no fit state to argue.”
“Did you carry me? You saved my life, you know that.” Whoever it was needed a manual handling refresher course urgently given my bruises but I’m not gonna complain about still being alive. “Thanks for saving my sorry ass by dragging me out of hell’s depths and preventing me from slowly bleeding to death.”
“We ain’t outta the woods on that one yet, bad boy. You’re still pretty touch and go with the blood thing. Gotta get you back to base. Let Medic Lekkas loose an’ he’ll be delighted—second bullet in a week. You like pain stuff—so does he. Should get you both off—win, win.”
“We got the girls out? Say we didn’t fail on that?”
“All out, no question. Andreas took Katsaros down personally. Payback for all the crap he’s had to take for months. He was hiding in a cellar hole. We got the girls out. You weren’t top of the pile, Bullet Man. Had to wait in line, don’t forget that. I did my job. Bullet holing you was just the extra bonus.” He forces out a laugh.
I don’t say more. Mostly because it’s only now I notice the driver is ex NY Interpol, Nicos. The sight of him hits me as bad as the bullet. Nicos was a good friend of Nathan’s. Just seeing Nicos makes the guilt surge, especially caught here in another mess.
Nicos turns to watch me. “Hey. Let’s get you back to base and stitched up, bro. Mission’s completed but you’re the casualty of the day.”
“And Kate.”
“Crazy bastard, always blaming yourself for things out with your control. You made the right call. Tonight and with Nathan. Quit the torture,” he says in a low tone.
“And you know this because, as well as a sharpshooter, a driver and a big mouth you also have a hotline to heaven?”
“I know this because Nathan was legend. But so are you. Give yourself a passport to get over it. He died doing what he loved—and you both do it by the book. Can you stop the chatter—you’re bleedin’ out and I’m not losing you because you couldn’t keep your tongue still, moron.”
I lie back. Back at the mansion I’d experienced exactly what Nathan had. I hadn’t blamed my team. I want to close my eyes and just sleep but Rock Man is shouting things to make me keep them open and I just want to throw him the bird. But it’s too much.
All that’s foremost in my mind as I lie on the back seat willing my eyes open is words for my ex-partner.
“Love you, bro. Would’ve swapped given the choice,” I say to no one but my ex-partner’s angel. “Keep Katie safe. One favor is all I need.”
I see him beside me. Nathan’s face with his fair eyebrows rising as a reprimand. He’s handsome in a halo and wings.
“Cool wings, bud!”
Rocco says somewhere far off. “Hallucinating. Hey—gun the gas, man.”
“I’m finished but I have an angel buddy to guide me now,” I tell them all.
“Who says you’d get in, jackass? You really think you qualify?” Nathan’s angel apparition answers then chuckles as the lights start to dim.
* * * *
Kate
I’d gulp down my fear, but my throat won’t work, so instead I try to swallow without choking. Zante is driving, but doesn’t say a word or move. Fr
om the dark corner of the unlit passenger side of the limo Ivan appears, no smile, no lines, just menace and a gun. He’s been hiding too low to detect.
“We meet again, Kate Joseph. This time no cameras to complicate things.” Ivan’s gun is trained on Zante, and his shitty gaze on me. He has another pistol pointed straight at me. Ivan fake smiles, and it makes my spine crawl. It’s a twitch of pure ‘ha, I’m an evil bastard and I’m winning while you’re screwed’, thrown in.
“No cameras maybe. But you don’t think Troika will let you get away. Despite what you think, you’re not that clever, you missed half the cameras the last time.”
“No reason to think they can stop me. Considering I know all their tactics. Already have the GPS disabled, so we’re flying free of Troika dweebs already.”
Inside, I’m on fire with injustice and hatred. Ivan’s my dad recast in shoddy metal that deserves to be smelted down and made into an ugly ass spade to dig a grave to bury the thing in.
Bent cop. Evil cop. Worst kind of lowlife bastard.
“What’s that smell?” I answer. Not very cleverly, but under this pressure it’s the only insult I can summon. “Oh. It’s rat cop stench. You’ve been mixing with the wrong people, so I’m guessing money means more than principles or catching bad guys. You stink of bad shit, Falco. Your family must be so proud.”
His eyes screw up with menace. “Sweet. You’d break my heart if I cared. Bet Bullet Man will be gut-speared I’ve trumped him with his squeeze. Your dad and me go way back. Your dad would hand pick me as your future date.”
“If you’re allied with my dad, then I’d die before I’d ever listen to either of you. He’ll screw you in the end. He does that, old habits die hard. He’ll fuck you over and leave you bleeding. He’s that kinda guy.”
Ivan’s smile returns and this one is smug central. “Your dad’s just escaped Gonzales. Your cop bodyguard may look great in a suit, but outnumbered he sucked. You can maybe send flowers to his family and a note that you were the last one to see him alive and send him in there. Duff move, babe.”