Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 86450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Mikhail grunts and sags, and I’m out from under his arm completely. I scramble backward, sucking air into a throat that feels crushed flat. He’s on his hands and knees with one hand pressed to his face, roaring, and somewhere between us in the dark are two guns. We both know it… know it’s the only way to finish this.
I see the shape of his weapon, closer to him, by the foot of the bed.
I don’t see mine, so I go for his.
I throw myself across the floor and my hand closes on warm metal at the same instant his does, his bloody fingers over mine on the slide. We wrench at it, both of us, and it’s pure animal instinct now. There’s no technique left in either of us, just two people who want the same six ounces of steel more than they’ve ever wanted anything in their lives.
Mikhail’s stronger by far, but he’s half blinded and sick with fury. He’s so much stronger and the muzzle is inching my way, right at my face. But my thumb is on the trigger and I push down on it.
The gun roars, bucks, and it’s enough to startle Mikhail and his grip loosens.
Not all the way, but enough that I’m able to make a last Herculean effort and rip the gun free. It comes loose from his blood-slicked fingers, and I roll away from him, smoothly coming up on one knee. I lift the gun in both shaking hands and point it at his chest.
Mikhail starts to rise, glaring at me from one bleary eye, the other swollen shut with a mangled eyeball behind his lid.
“Don’t.” My voice is a ruin, barely audible. “Don’t move. Don’t you move.”
He hears me and goes still, arms splayed out slightly. I can see he’s calculating another rush, but he’s a mess. Covered in blood, only one good eye, which stares at me over the barrel. There’s no fear there, but I can see he’s not stupid.
I have the gun and he’ll never reach me before I put a bullet in him. I don’t want to kill him because we need the man to put Voronin away, but I will if he so much as breathes funny.
“You won’t shoot,” he says, words thick with pain and blood. “You point it very nice. But you won’t. I have seen the ones who will, and you are not one.”
My finger is on the trigger. The gun is shaking. He shot Finn through the chest. His people put Finn’s boat at the bottom of the strait tonight and a woman with it. He came here to kill me and he doubts whether I’ll pull the trigger?
I want to shoot him just for posterity’s sake, but then the most blessed sound I could ever imagine filters up the staircase.
“POLICE!”
“Up here,” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Up here! Private security contracted with the FBI… I have the shooter contained, upstairs bedroom! The man down is the homeowner, he’s a friendly, he’s shot in the chest, get to him, PLEASE GET TO HIM—”
Mikhail flinches, looks like he’s going to lunge at me, and I snarl, “I dare you, asshole.”
He freezes.
Feet pound up the stairs, three uniformed officers swarming into the room with guns drawn. “Drop the weapon,” they yell at me.
I assess the officers and two of them have guns pointed at Mikhail.
That’s all I need and I lower my weapon. I lay it on the floor and hold up my hands.
“There’s a man downstairs,” I say, rising to my feet. The cop doesn’t lower his gun but keeps it trained on me. “He’s been shot.”
“He’s being attended to,” he says.
I nod at Mikhail. “That man broke into our home. Shot Finn. Tried to kill me. I’m with Jameson Force Security, and we’re liaised with the FBI investigating this man along with another in a federal sex trafficking case.”
The other two cops pull Mikhail up, cuffs go around his wrists without a struggle. It looks like he’s been drained of energy, his legs wobbly.
The other cop lowers his gun and nods toward the door.
I don’t decide to move. My body decides. I’m across the bedroom and through the door and down the stairs in a stumbling fall, catching myself on the broken railing.
The great room is full of people now, full of light, a paramedic already on his knees beside Finn. I drop down so hard my knees crack on the tile.
He’s so still.
His face is covered in blood and his lips are gray. I put my face right down next to his as the paramedic cuts and presses packing to the wound on his chest.
“Finn.” My tears are falling on him, cutting clean tracks through the soot on his cheek. “Finn, I’m here. I’m here, babe, I’m here. I need you to hold on—”