by Olivia Harp
Hiding the pain was the best thing she could do right now, keep her head down, try to negotiate.
“I’m gonna fucking kill you!” He said with his rat voice, red with anger.
She couldn’t help but laugh, “weren’t you going to, anyway?”
He smacked the side of her face and she just started laughing. He had the motherfucker in her pocket. No way he could threaten her any longer.
When they arrived, he took his computer out, put it in front of her and sat her at the dinner table, threatening her, trying to make her download the files from her email folder.
She wouldn’t budge.
“I’ll let you go,” he said, almost pleading, “we can do something about this. Just leave New York city, flee, hell, I’ll even make a deposit on your account. One million.”
One million dollars. Her life would be settled. She could buy a house like this, and put it for rent. She could decorate it with the most expensive furniture.
She held back a smile. This is the comfiest chair I’ve ever sat on.
The table was top quality, too. The way she paid attention to such details was just too funny. The rugs, the smells —old wood— the big windows, the gardens on the front and back, the trees surrounding the house. The big driveway. It was a beautiful mansion. And it would be her end.
She didn’t reply. Oscar needed the info to see what he could do about it. To see what kind of damage he had to deal with. He could manipulate the numbers again, to his advantage.
But if the brothers went to some other expert and they confirmed she was right, he’d be fucked.
“I wanted to do this the easy way,” he said, “Theo, tie her up.”
“With what?” he asked.
“Find something!”
The bodyguard opened a few drawers on the shelves behind the long mahogany table she sat at. He found nothing, went to the kitchen, then to another room. It’s not like they have rope available for situations like this.
Oscar looked outside the door, to the main hallway, waiting for him to come back. He had his gun down, no longer pointing at her.
For a second she thought about trying to escape. No.
This man was much less constrained than his thugs. He’d just shoot her, then cry about it and blame her for his stupidity.
She had to play their game.
“Found this,” Theodore said, brown packing tape in his hands.
“Great,” Oscar said, “great.”
Theodore didn’t have to say anything, just raised his hands and grabbed hers, and tied her wrists behind her back.
“I’m going to ask again,” Oscar said, pulling a lighter out of his pocket “or I’ll start working you up until you talk, understood?”
She didn’t move. He’s going to torture me. He’s going to burn my face.
A cold shiver ran down her spine, she held back tears, her throat felt swollen and tight.
“And believe me, darling. You’ll talk. Everybody talks, in the end.”
“Fuck you,” she whimpered, no longer believing she had the upper hand.
I’m on borrowed time. She repeated the mantra again and again. She found herself and knew she was much braver and smarter than she thought. They made her see that.
And she had found real love.
She wasn’t afraid to die. Not anymore.
But it was the working up to it that scared her.
The empty silence of the room was broken.
“What the fuck was that?”
She had never heard anything like it, like a lonely firecracker going off in the distance, but she knew what it was: a gunshot.
It was like angels coming down from the heavens to rescue her.
Theodore pulled his gun from the holster, “wait here,” he said, and bolted to the main door.
Oscar began to shake.
“They’re here!” He yelled, pulling up his gun, pointing it at her, “what the fuck did you do?”
She almost laughed.
They might have come to save her, but Oscar was a coward. Someone who thought guns and money make the man.
“Pathetic,” she blurted out.
If he was going to kill her, she might as well let him know she wasn’t going to die scared.
Oscar cocked the gun and raised it to her forehead.
“You fucking bitch,” he said with his ratty voice, “you just signed your death sentence.”
CHAPTER 42
LUCIAN
Lucian moved through the bushes and trees on the side of the house. Red hot fury welled up inside. He blamed himself.
You dumbass. It’s on you if she’s already dead.
Back home, instead of immediately looking for her, he didn’t act. He thought she was fine. Of course this would end up badly. Money problems like this are never coincidences.
I’m going to skin that motherfucker alive.
Oscar had been stealing from them. Stealing from his father. They treated him like a king, giving him access to their accounts, their businesses, and this is how he repaid them.
His hand throbbed. He’d been gripping his gun so hard for so long, that for a moment he thought he was going to crack the handle.
He took a shot at Earl, Oscar’s right hand man, from where he stood. It would make them come out to find them.
The door opened and someone else peeked from behind. Theo. They hadn’t seen him yet, the trees provided great cover.
Theo broke a window and opened fire at the trees, not really aiming. He lay down, away from danger.
They didn’t shoot back with a mere pistol, though. He underestimated them. The repeating fire of a submachine gun blazed through the leaves around him.
These guys were professionals. But it didn’t matter. He and Crow had the element of surprise on their side.
He moved back through the trees, keeping his head low, always looking over his shoulder, tying to keep them in sight.
The two bodyguards held their position inside the house, he could see some movement but the twenty yard distance from the tree line to the house was too large for him to open fire and take them down.
He was going around the house. Not all the way to the back, though.
“I’ll do it,” he had told Crow, “I’ll bring them out.”
“We’ll do it together,” his brother said.
“No. You know what to do.”
If he died saving her, he would die a happy man. Nothing mattered but her safety.
There they are.
He saw one of the bodyguards, couldn’t really tell who, move on the side of the window. Someone else ran behind him. He was about to take another shot but held back.
They were looking away. He took his chance.
This side of the house had smaller windows, the front and back ones covered the walls almost from floor to ceiling.
He ran as fast as he could, trying to make sure they weren’t looking out when he did.
This fucking house. He bought it himself, four years ago. It was worth $1.2 millions more than the price he originally paid.
He always thought it was a good investment. It was, it really was.
But guilt filled him. He wanted to burn the house down. He hated it. He couldn’t stand the fact that Oscar stepped in it. That the man who betrayed them used it. The house was worthless to him now.
He heard movement on the other side of the wall. He went stiff and lowered his head, looking up at the window just by him.
The smell of flowers reached him in the damp evening. He stepped on them. This is what he’d done. He’d found something beautiful and fucked it up. Killed it without even wanting to.
Movement.
He leaned on the yellow wall, and just five feet away from him, a figure hid behind the window, peering outside, trying to stay hidden.
Theo.
He was looking outside, to the tree line. Hadn’t seen him yet.
Lucian was a patient man, he could wait for years until it was the right moment to act. Patience was his virtue.
He’d grown his business because of it.
But he had no time for that shit now.
He jumped away from the wall, aimed at Theo and shot three times.
The crashing noise of bullets passing through the glass filled his ears, Theo shot back at him almost instinctively, seven or eight machine-gun bullets hit the ground right next to him. The whole exchange took two seconds.
Fuck.
He wasn’t sure he hit him. If he didn’t, now they knew his position.
“You fucker!” he yelled, “I’m gonna kill you!”
He heard steps and ducked just in time before another hail of bullets whizzed a few inches above his head.
Lucian couldn’t move away from the window. He was pinned down. He’d have to wait for Crow to act. Hoping he’d bought him enough time.
CHAPTER 43
CROW
He’d never been so quiet in his life. And that’s saying something.
The sound of the SMG on the other side of the house made him act faster. He wasn’t sure Lucian could deal with that kind of firepower by himself.
He lay just outside the window and peeked inside the lonely, silent room. A small office with a hearth to the right. No one was there, the idiots fell for it. Lucian led them to the other side of the house.
He opened the window and slid in, careful not to make any noise.
Footsteps ran from one room to the other, just across the hall. He’d been in the house a few times, now he needed to find her.
He needed to make a decision, fast. He either looked for Lexie on the first floor, or went upstairs.
“You see? You killed them!” He heard Oscar yell on a room to his left.
“Stop it!” Lexie cried, “Please! I’ll tell you!”
His heart stopped, her voice, even if almost broken by fear, was music to his ears.
She’s alive.
He wasn’t a very religious man, but he muttered a thank you.
They were down there, on the first floor, to his left. He’d have to play it safe.
A pistol went off outside the house and the two bodyguards cursed and yelled shit between them. Funny how pretend tough guys turn into cowering bastards when the chips are down.
And the chips are down, fuckers.
They really fucked it up this time.
“To the left!” Earl yelled, his machine-gun going off, tap-tap-tap-tap, like fireworks.
He didn’t think about it, this was his moment, before they stopped shooting. He ran out the door and into the next room, the bastards didn’t see him.
Lexie was mumbling something, thirty feet away, on the dining room. Gray light came into the back of the house, through the big glass door that opened to the back garden.
Another couple of shots from outside.
“Fuck!” someone yelled, “he got me! The fucker—”
“Shut up!” said Earl, “you’re fine! Take this gun!”
He heard Lucian fire four more shots, he still had eleven left before having to reload.
He needed to move faster.
“That’s it!” Oscar said, “that’s it!”
Crow peeked into the dining room. He saw her and his heart sank.
CHAPTER 44
LUCIAN
Just a few bullets left. He’ll make them count, the magazine in his pocket felt like burning. In the back of his mind, he knew he needed to reload, but he didn’t want to take his gun away from the window.
I got Theo. I got him right below the shoulder.
That didn’t put him out of the action, but at least he made him unable to use his SMG.
He heard Earl shout and heard someone running. Lucian fired a couple of times, not really aiming at anything but the inside of the house and ran to the front door.
“Fuck you!” Earl shouted, ducking behind cover, unable to see him.
He’d gone way past him, and was just turning around the corner into the front door when he heard him rapid-fire at his past position.
They were scared now, they knew how to flash their guns and pretend to be tough guys, but were scared shitless on a real gunfight.
The door was half open. He moved right next to it and peered inside.
The unlit hallway stretched all the way to the back of the house.
“Boss!” Earl yelled, the sound of a magazine hitting the floor told Lucian enough. He was reloading.
He had five bullets left.
Shit.
He couldn’t see Theo. Where the fuck is Crow?
“Fuck you!” Earl yelled again, firing half his magazine outside, then came back, running to the dining room, his back to Lucian.
“Boss! We need to go!”
Lucian slipped through the door, but it creaked open so loudly he might as well have shouted his arrival.
Earl turned around, the barrel of his UMP-9 —he finally recognized what gun he had— exploding rapidly in front of his eyes, lighting the hallway for a millisecond, showing a face full of sweat and fear and anger.
Lucian launched himself forward, bullets wheezing half an inch away from his head, his mind focused in this moment. He raised his hand and pressed the trigger as fast as he could. The gun vibrated, trying to recoil away from his target, but he wouldn’t let it.
When he hit the ground, silence was king.
CHAPTER 45
CROW
Lexie was covered in bruises and sweat, her face red with blood, some of it dry. Oscar leaned down into the screen, gritting his teeth. A 9mm semi-auto on his left hand, his woman’s hair in his right.
Lexie looked up and saw him. Her eyes went wide. She began to shake her head when Oscar turned up and saw him. The color drained from his face.
He was looking down at the barrel of the biggest handgun on the market. Just one of these bullets could split his skull open and paint the wall with his brains.
“C-Crow,” he stuttered, his face full of fear.
“Sh-she’s the one—”
“I don’t give a fuck. Step away from her.”
Suddenly Oscar realized his predicament. He tightened his grip on her hair and pulled back, bringing his gun against her temple, her yell made him blind with anger.
“Boss!” Earl yelled, his voice closer than a few seconds ago, “we need to go!”
Loud explosions filled the corridor behind Crow, but he didn’t even twitch. His eyes were fixed on the motherfucker that betrayed him and his brother.
The motherfucker who dared touch his woman. Our woman.
They stared at each other in silence, until Oscar’s cold, black eyes suddenly twitched away.
“Tell them to stand down,” said Crow, “or we’ll all be dead in five seconds.”
“Fuck you,” Oscar replied, “you always thought you were better than me.”
Crow could get him, but it was too risky. It only took a finger movement for Oscar to shoot the love of his life dead.
“You’re wrong,” Crow said, “you were always like family.”
“I own this business! I made it what it is.”
“You’re the manager. That’s your job.”
“And what do you do? What the fuck do you do, Crow?”
“I build it, expand it, take care of it.”
“Fifteen years, Crow, fifteen—”
His voice cracked, his eyes began to well.
“Everything was going so well,” he said, “but no! You had to bring her over!”
She yelled as he yanked at her hair. It almost made Crow shoot him right there.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing!”
“Look at me you fuck. What. Did you. Do?”
“You didn’t even know! Now you suddenly care!”
Crow got it. He embezzled the money. All those years, Oscar didn’t give a fuck about him, or Lucian, or the organization.
“If you needed more, you could have asked.”
“I don’t need to ask,” he said, swiping a tear from his eye, releasing her for an instant.
“Stop crying,” Crow ordered, “I fucking hate criers.”
Lexie looked at him, surprised. Oscar twitched, trying to understand what was going on. He said that to Lexie, how could Crow know? Oscar tried to regain his grip on her, but Lexie threw herself to the floor, giving Crow the split second he needed to press the trigger once, twice, three times.
Each bullet connected in Oscar’s body, the deafening explosion coming out of his gun filled the air around, the smell of gunpowder overpowering his senses.
The wall was painted in red now, his dead eyes still fixed on Crow, reflecting the last shreds of fear and doubt he carried to the other side.
CHAPTER 46
LUCIAN
“Crow!” Lucian yelled, walking through the corridor, waiting for Theo to spring out of the room. Any second now.
“She’s here!” his brother replied. He had to use all of his remaining will power to prevent himself from running to see her, to see if she was safe.
“She’s okay!” Crow yelled, and he felt every muscle in his body relax. He didn’t realize he was shaking with anger, maybe no one would’ve noticed, but he did.
Things are fine now.
Theo never jumped into the hallway. Lucian slowly peeked into the room they were shooting at him from.
There he was, lying on the floor, with his back against a book case. A bullet wound just below his left shoulder bled profusely. His gun lay next to him, his arms limp, he looked dead.
His eyes moved, turning to him weakly. He stared for a moment, then turned to the floor, as if in shame.
I got him.
Crow appeared at the edge of the corridor, his gun pointed forward, then upwards.
“You okay?” He asked.
Lucian nodded in silence, walking toward him.
“Where is she?
He finally saw her, in the back, Crow was protecting her.
She was so beaten up he thought he would die. The sight almost made him want to kill himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said, holding back tears as he went to embrace her, “I’m so sorry.”
He thought she would hate them, she would not want to look at them, or touch them. They put her in danger, it lurked right under their noses and they didn’t notice until it was too late.
