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Victor shoots.
With a slap as loud as the bullets that kills him, the guard slams against the terra-cotta tiles.
Jerking his weapon from me, Cold Eyes shoots Victor. One, two, three times in his naked torso. Victor falls against the curtains, grasping at the velvet gold panels. They slip through his hands, as he slides down to the floor, leaving behind a bloody mess.
Even as I’m see this happening, I’m throwing my knife, strong and true at Walid.
With a greater sense of self-preservation than I give him credit for, the man I have hated nearly all my life drops down, slamming his knee against the marble coffee-table with a crack that saves his miserable life.
“Don’t move,” Cold Eyes orders, his gun back on me.
I don’t move. The room goes still.
Slowly, achingly slow, Walid stands. With a vengeful, twisted smile on his face, he hobbles toward me.
That sick smile tells me all I need to know. I’m going to die in pain.
Now would be areallygood time for that poison to kick in.
Sensing a gun at my back, I brace my feet and spread my hands wide, as if offering Walid a target. Actually, I’m distracting him. Pickpocket style.
Walid’s eyebrows raise in shock as he stops and grunts. The knife in his hands drops. He reaches up, fumbling fingers clasp his shoulder and my knife jutting out like an insult.
Cold Eyes realizes Tony stabbed his boss at the exact same time Tony is vaulting over the back of the couch. The gunshots ring out.
Tony drops behind the couch and out of sight.
Walid curses, a bloody rumble like mountains crumbling to stone, then crashes to the floor, vomits, and begins to convulse.
Cold Eyes jerks his weapon at me as Walid’s other guards burst through the doorway.
Adrenaline brings my impending death into slow and detailed focus.
Bam! Bam! Bam!One of the people in the doorway shoots.
Cold Eyes jerks with each shot and falls.
My brain does not compute.
I look again at the doorway. My heart leaps. Not guards. My man, Sandesh, has busted in with Gracie and… USA Ballcap?
Striding in, Sandesh shoots at Cold Eyes until he’s dead, dead, dead, then he turns his weapon on…
Tony? Relief surges through me when I see my brother uninjured, then my stomach plunges. Tony has a weapon in his hands. He must’ve grabbed the gun from the guard Victor shot. Tony and Sandesh have some serious weapons pointed at each other.
Guttural choking noises issue from Walid, whose nervous system is closing up shop as he convulses on the floor, a knife stuck deep in his neck.
Before my brain can assemble all the pieces and put words to them, Gracie struts past USA Ballcap.
“Stand down, big guy,” she says to him.
Now that she points it out, I notice USA has his gun on Sandesh.
“But…” USA starts, then trails off at the look on Gracie’s face.
Keeping her own weapon trained on Tony, Gracie shakes her head. “Go keep an eye on the door. This is between family.”
My brain is definitely not working right, because USA just nods and says, “Yes, ma’am,” before moving to the door, standing halfway in and out of the room.
