Karl had his back to me, struggling to get his arm free from Hugo’s jaws. He still had his gun in hand, but Hugo wasn’t letting go. With the amount of blood dripping out of Hugo’s mouth it was no wonder Karl couldn’t aim well enough to fire at anything else.
Even though his voice was raised and he was presently being mauled by a gigantic pissed off English Mastiff, Karl’s demeanor was still relaxed, as if he and Hugo were playing tug with a length of rope instead of a human appendage. Karl groaned like he was growing bored with their game, and was just pulling out his trusty knife when I saw Charlie lying there, whimpering in pain on her side and covered in blood. She wagged her tail when she saw me, and tried to get up.
I felt a flush of rage and cracked Karl across the shoulders, which got him to drop his knife but had little effect on his disposition. “It’s you!” he said joyfully, shifting Hugo around so he could turn and greet me. He raised his arm with Hugo still attached and aimed his gun. Hugo barely had time to get out of the way before I knocked the gun from Karl’s hand, the bullet tearing through the edge of my jacket instead of my body. I swung hard into the side of his knee, finally forcing him to the ground. Hugo came back for more, attacking Karl’s legs while I went for his head.
Karl blocked most of the blows, his arm bleeding, teeth marks down to the bone. He caught hold of the branch and tugged me on top of him, still kicking at Hugo but nevertheless grinning at me as he grabbed me by the hair and started pawing around for the knife.
I struggled against him, panic rising as I tried to get free, armed with only man’s best friend. I drove my fist into his diaphragm, which winded him even as he laughed, and he hurled me backwards by my hair, slamming me into the dirt and winding me back. He reached for me and I grabbed his arm with both hands, using Hugo's teeth marks as finger holds to tear the skin down to his wrist.
He howled in pain and swung with his other arm, backhanding me to the ground. There was the gun! I kicked at him to buy some time but ended up getting Hugo instead, giving Karl enough leeway to come at me. I punched him in his big commie face only to have him catch my hair again and repeatedly shove my face into the ground. Bright lights. Not darkness. I was up for another round.
He screamed suddenly and wrenched Kiki off the side of his head, tossing her several feet away like a stuffed animal. I pulled free from him, diving for the gun but having a vicious hundred and fifty pound dog flung onto me before I could reach it. I shoved Hugo off and grabbed a rock instead, launching it at Karl’s head and missing completely.
The dogs were circling us, barking and lunging at him, but he just crawled toward me like he’d forgotten all about them. I threw another rock, this one bouncing across his shoulder and making him smile. The gun was now just as close to him as it was to me, and I scooted away from him, inching closer to it, hoping he hadn’t realized it was there.
What I hadn’t realized was where he’d dropped Frank’s knife. Karl picked it up and said, “This is for you,” his mouth full of blood like it had been back in Silva’s garage.
“And this is for you,” I said since we were obviously exchanging gifts, and I shot off the top of his head. Karl’s expression drooped and his arms collapsed under his weight, sending him face first to the dirt. He was still breathing, but I could see that the life was gone from his eyes.
For a second I thought the laughter was coming from him, until I realized I was the one cackling, and I had to hold my filthy hands over my mouth just to stop myself. The side of Karl the Russian’s skull was in the trees, and I was the last man standing. Well, sitting.
I stood up and took the knife from his hand, his fingers still gripped in a loose fist. Lifting him by the hair, I stabbed the knife into his skull hole like a candle on a cupcake. “Let’s see you survive that.” I tugged it back out with a squelching noise and put the knife in my pocket along with my new gun. Then I carefully set Charlie over my shoulders, picked up Kiki, and whistled for Hugo to follow. He was covered in blood. And wagging his tail.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
They walked side by side in silence, their hands on their heads. Malkolm could be fucking anywhere. Where was Casey? They couldn’t risk being seen disobeying his command. Apparently the little girl was important. Where the fuck was Casey?
“On your knees,” Malkolm called out from somewhere behind the trees.
“In this dress?” she scoffed. It may have been just a nightgown, but it was still Versace.
“Bell,” Frank muttered.
They both sank to their knees. Her legs were trembling. Malkolm came into the clearing. He held the girl as a human shield against the gun he didn’t know Frankie was carrying. She looked terrified but unhurt. Bella almost sympathized with her when she saw what a cute outfit she had on. The girl had taste. She was someone’s daughter, even if that someone was the missing link. “Keep your hands on your heads.”
“Aye, we got that part.” Where was Casey?
“Shut the fuck up, cunt,” he said, his gun against the girl’s temple. She was crying. No makeup to smear.
“Since when are you a fucking kidnapper, eh?” She wanted Frankie to fucking shoot him already. They needed to find Casey.
“Since the opportunity presented itself.” He tossed a pink envelope to their feet. It was addressed to Vincent in large looping handwriting with huge illustrated hearts. Bella could smell the perfume on it from there.
“And you were worried about me using a credit card?” she muttered to Frankie.
“It’s not a good time, Bella.” Frank was right about that. Casey was walking into the clearing with a gun. There was blood all over him. He was shaking. She looked away. Shooting Malkolm in the foot sure as fuck wouldn’t stop him. Neither would missing him altogether.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Maggie nearly shot me when I tore open the front door. “Oh, my good lord!” she screamed. “Honey!” She dropped the gun and ran to hug me like the dog over my shoulders was just a fur stole.
Holding my hand up, I forced her away from me. It was only her and Gideon in the house. “Where did they go?”
“Frank’s taking care of it, you should sit—”
I grumbled, ready and willing to strangle her if I only had the time. “I just killed someone that Frank couldn’t, so tell me which direction they went and I can go and save your fucking son. Please.”
She opened her mouth to speak, probably to say Well, I never but it was Gideon who pointed out the way. “Thank you.” I handed him Karl's gun and lifted bloody Charlie off my shoulders, setting her in Maggie’s arms. “Work your magic, Mags.” I grabbed our rifle and gave my best unaffected action superstar smile. “And I’ll work mine.”
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Frank diverted his gaze from Casey as he snuck up behind the unhinged assassin, a gun raised in his trembling hands. Part of him wanted very badly for Casey to fire, but mostly he wanted him to get the hell out of there before Malkolm turned around and murdered him. Casey kept getting closer. And closer. He pulled the trigger, the sound of it clicking back empty seemingly louder than all the previous gunfire. Malkolm turned. Before Frank could fire the gun he'd pulled from his ankle, blood splattered across Casey’s face. Bella screamed. Casey dropped the gun.
Malkolm’s body fell, landing on top of the unloaded pistol Casey had been carrying. “Sorry, Case!” Vincent called out, and Frank looked back just as Vincent lowered the rifle. Poor V looked like he had been dragged behind a truck, but he smiled lasciviously nevertheless, as if the only thing on his mind at that moment was getting a blowjob.
“Hello, Gorgeous,” Vincent said with a shit-eating grin. Had Frank been standing, he very well may have ravished his husband right then and there regardless of witnesses. Alive, armed, and downright filthy, Vincent had never been more exquisite.
Sophie came running into Vincent’s arms, completely bowling Frank over and nearly knocking her savior off his feet. His savior, too, though he would never admit it. V’s ego did
n’t need any further inflating.
Vincent turned his head away while she sobbed against him as if he was still at the age where girls were icky. Frank smirked and left them to it, quite confident that there could not be a more appropriate reward than getting mauled with affection by a thirteen-year-old girl. Frank joined Bella on her way to comfort her traumatized boyfriend.
“I’m never kissing you again if you got any of that in your mouth,” Bella scolded, roughly wiping his face with the train of her nightdress. “Why the fuck did you get so close?”
“I didn’t think I’d hit him otherwise.” Casey’s voice sounded like he had not breathed at all in the previous ten minutes.
“You didn’t hit him.” Frank turned Malkolm over with his foot to make sure he was dead. It was a safe assumption, his face was half gone. Not that there had been much of it left to begin with.
“I didn’t?”
“Casey, the gun was empty.”
“Oh. That’s good.” He smiled a little, and abruptly stopped. “Deaglan’s dead. And another guy. And my hat.”
“Take him home.” Frank was relieved that Casey had been struck blood simple from the events more than he was concerned over his wellbeing. If he could handle losing a child he could handle the death of men who had earned it.
Vincent pried Sophie away from him, aiming her toward Casey and letting her cement herself to him instead. He beamed as Frank approached, like he could not wait to be praised as a hero. “You’re knife, monsieur.” Vincent presented it to him with a bow.
Frank's jaw dropped and he glanced over Vincent's shoulder towards the trees, half expecting, and almost hoping, to see Karl come walking out to retrieve his present. Frank was supposed to be the one to kill him. He deserved to kill him. And Vincent would never let him live this down. He turned up his nose at the gore coating the blade before reluctantly removing it from Vincent’s outstretched hands. “Is that…brain?”
“Mais oui. I would’ve cut his heart out for you, but I was kinda in a hurry to save the day.”
He wiped the filthy blade on his pants and pocketed it, as if hiding the evidence could make Vincent any less smug. “I don’t know who taught you to fight with your face, but it sure as hell was not me,” Frank said sternly.
“And if I catch you kneeling before another man again, I’ll cut out your heart.”
“Don’t get lippy.” He pulled Vincent into his arms and sighed deeply, feeling the warmth of V’s body against his. Once he held him it was several minutes before he was able to speak again. Or breathe again. “You okay, killer?”
“Charlie took one for the team.”
“She all right?”
“We’d better get her to the vet.”
Frank stroked his face, his hair cemented to his skin with blood. “How’s your head?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“Whether it’ll get me out of grave digging duty,” Vincent said hopefully.
Four corpses. He wanted to keep Maggie out of it, and Casey was not an option. Bertrand could help. Possibly Gideon. Bella was technically still on bed rest, but she could bury her ex. Maybe. Frank’s broken foot did not even come into the equation. “How is it really?”
Vincent sneered. That settled it. V was adorable when he sneered. Doing so with a bruised face only made it that much harder to resist him. “You had better fake it back at the house if I’m going to ask for help.”
“They never believe me.”
“You look believable.”
“Carry me?”
Adorable. And utterly spoiled. “Be convincing,” Frank said, and slung him over his shoulder.
Chapter Ninety
The phrase be careful what you wish for came to mind as Maggie finally stopped treating me like a little boy at the worst possible moment. “Bella is not digging. She shouldn’t even be out of bed,” Maggie said sternly. Bella didn’t even have to play the too-grief-stricken-by-Deaglan’s-death card before Maggie came to her rescue. “And you’re faking it.”
“Am not!” I scoffed, rubbing my temple for effect.
“We’re not burying Deaglan,” Casey said, scrubbed clean although he still had the expression of someone who’d had brains splattered all over their face. That’s the least he deserved for shooting my husband. “Not here.”
“Casey,” Bella said, stroking his hair. “He’s dead. We have to bury him.”
“He didn’t want to be buried in France.”
“He doesn’t have a choice,” Frank said. I figured it was more out of practicality than still holding a grudge against the recently deceased Irishman, although death was certainly not a guarantee of forgiveness.
“Deaglan saved my life.”
“So did I.”
Casey ignored me. “It was his last request. I’m not letting you bury him here.”
I raised my eyebrows. Letting us?
“For fuck’s sakes,” Frank sighed. “Casey, kiddo—”
“I know I’m just the silly artist with an unloaded gun, but you’re not burying him in France.”
“Germany’s close,” I said.
Casey gave me a dirty look. Or at least the dirtiest look he could muster.
“I’ll drive him to Belfast,” Bella said, giving Casey a kiss on the cheek. “It’s the least I can do.”
Frank put his head in his hands. “Drive him? To Belfast?”
“Aye,” she said, now officially determined to do so since Frank obviously didn’t approve. Driving a corpse across several international borders in the trunk of a Maserati sounded like a great idea to me! It would make a terrific sitcom.
“I’ll make some sandwiches,” Maggie said. “We’re coming with you. That sweet man was a hero and I am attending his funeral.”
We? Her and Gideon? Then who was going to help Frank dig? There was always Bertrand if we could pull him away from his traumatized daughter. Apparently absence had made Sophie’s heart grow fonder, and after not seeing me for several months, she’d written me a billet-doux declaring her love for me. Lest the hands of fate or a strike at the postal service try to keep us apart, she delivered the love letter to the apartment herself.
I’d been checking our security cameras three times a day for months without even a glimpse of our enemies, or anyone else we knew for that matter. And even though I’d missed a few days with Bella in the hospital, when I got caught up that morning there was still nothing. But sure enough, eighteen minutes after I logged out of the system, Sophie turned up on video trying to climb our gate.
They must’ve been staking out the place the entire time, just waiting for someone to make a mistake. They got more than they bargained for with Sophie, who despite carrying a perfumed love letter and wearing a frilly pink dress had the balls to refuse them the information they requested. Instead they just took her phone and called her dad, then followed him right to our door. It somehow made all of this my fault, even though Casey was the one who led them to our apartment to begin with, and Sophie disobeyed direct orders by going there to woo me.
Now the poor kid was asleep in the library with Kiki and Hugo and two glasses of wine to calm her down. Charlie would be at our neighbor’s until tomorrow morning. Thankfully they’d be so busy patching her up that they wouldn’t have time to come investigate who else might’ve been shot.
Bertrand came into the kitchen, carrying Sophie in his arms. She looked pretty buzzed, and it was quite obvious that he had no intention of setting her down to help us with funeral arrangements.
“You’re leaving?” My whine was directed at Sophie’s father, but she took it as a declaration of longing and purred “Au revoir, mon amour” as her father took her out the door. “We only have one shovel,” I reminded Frank optimistically. He shot me down with a glare. “But I killed two of them! Isn’t that enough?”
“It’s great, V!” Frank had a way of making great sound anything but, even without sarcasm. “You can bury two of them.”
Chapter Ninety-One
/>
Bella wrapped a silk Hermes scarf around Deaglan’s neck, tucking the ends underneath his body in the trunk. Her emotions were still erratic from her hormones, but thinking of Casey safe and unharmed kept her tears at bay.
Deaglan may not have ever understood her the way Casey did, but he had tried. When she’d told him once that she couldn’t steal a pair of Gucci boots she desperately wanted, he’d taken her on her first armed robbery so she could afford to buy them. He’d loved her. “Thank you,” she said quietly, giving him a kiss on the cheek. She hoped that wherever he ended up, Silva would be there to look after him.
“Are you sure about this?” Frankie asked, limping up behind her. He really should’ve turned that limping up a notch. She didn’t doubt he could get Vincent to dig all three graves if he really put his mind to it.
“I called him here.” She knew Deaglan would come when she told him about the baby. He always came when she called him. Except when it had truly mattered to her, when he'd married someone else. It mattered this time. And he came. “Deaglan saved Casey’s life.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.” She’d traveled with a corpse before. Drove with a body on the back of her motorbike, holding onto her with rigor mortis. That body loosened up and fell off in Silva’s yard. He wasn’t pleased, but the timing couldn’t have worked out any better. She hadn’t meant to kill him. She was just supposed to bring him in for questioning. And to be killed slower.
“If you get arrested, at least you’re traveling with a lawyer.”
“I know,” she said. Casey’s father. Dad. A road trip with Casey’s family and Deaglan in the trunk. It could be worse. At least she was dressed for it. But Casey had better not ask the fucking customs agent for a stroll. “Goodbye, Frankie.”
“Goodbye?” he balked. Bella knew that she hadn’t always been the best at saying goodbye, but his reaction was a bit overdramatic.
Les Recidivists (Chance Assassin Book 2) Page 42
