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But her voice vibrated louder and quieter, WAH wah WAH wah, as her body jolted every time my feet hit the steps.
I had my Glock out by the time I reached the third landing.
Students had been looking up towards the fourth floor in frightened curiosity –
But as soon as they saw my gun, they screamed and scattered.
I glanced down the central open space of the stairwell.
I only saw people fleeing down and not up –
Which was good. Only a mercenary or a policeman would be fighting his way against the crowd.
So I kept going down, and Lucia kept screaming as she bounced on my shoulder.
Two men raced into the stairwell from the second-floor doorway, pistols drawn.
I almost shot them –
Until I realized they were Terancio and Nino, the Widow’s men who had gone to search for Lucia.
“What’s going on?!” Nino shouted.
“Shooter on the fourth!” I yelled. “Go take him out!”
Both Nino and Terancio stared at me like I was insane.
Hell NO, we’re not going up there!
They were younger than me, which meant they probably hadn’t worked as foot soldiers for long. And the Widow hadn’t had any real competition in Venice for more than a decade, so they’d probably never faced a situation like this.
Too fucking bad.
It was their job to protect their boss’s family. It’s what they’d signed up for.
“GO!” I screamed as I blew past them down the stairs.
A burst of gunfire chattered above us –
BRATTATATAT!
And Terancio’s white shirt exploded with red.
Nino panicked, raised his gun, and started firing blindly up the central stairwell.
“FUCK!” I shouted as I kept going down.
When I reached the ground floor, it was pandemonium.
People were running and screaming in every direction.
Manfredo and Arnoldo came racing up, battling through the panicked crowd.
“What’s going on?!” Manfredo shouted.
“Shooter right behind us!” I yelled. “You wait at the edge of the stairwell and shoot him when he comes down! Arnoldo, clear my path to the boat!”
I knew that if there was one mercenary on the fourth floor, there were bound to be more – which is why I needed Arnoldo to go ahead of me.
