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Rodic. Where would he be?
She had a feeling he'd be upstairs. The street level was less secure. A couple of floors up gave you more chance to avoid stray bullets and unexpected break-ins and angry women arriving unexpectedly with a stolen gun.
The place was quiet, and she guessed that was because it was approaching prime time for the night's action in town. Everyone would be out and about at the brothels, managing their workers. That was why there was a skeleton staff here, and it was possible there were only a few women, if any, on the premises. So if Rodic was here, she could be in luck.
She crept up the stairs, keeping quiet, listening out. There were muted voices coming from a side room. She crouched by the door, ears straining. They were talking in a language she didn't understand. They might be guards, or else someone was having an audience with the boss. She didn't know.
Was he in there, or were those minor employees?
She crept forward some more, tiptoeing along the corridor. And as she walked, she had her answer.
Ahead was a thicker, solid, more ornate door. There was even a strip of carpet in front of it. Without a doubt, this was the high-standard accommodations, and that meant Rodic would most likely be behind this door. Plus, it was at the end of the corridor, which meant it was better placed from a security perspective.
She realized how lucky she’d been with the timing. A couple of hours earlier and she was sure this floor would have been crawling with guards. But for now, it was silent.
Was there anyone inside?
Cora waited, listened.
She didn't hear anything, but then she heard the click of keys on a keyboard.
Someone was inside.
And she was going in too. Stealthily. This was the last chance she had, her last opportunity to find Rose. It might not pan out, and she could walk away with nothing.
But she knew she was up against a dangerous kingpin, cunning and ruthless, with everything to lose, who killed as easily as he breathed.
It could get very bad inside there. Opening that door might be the last action she ever took.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Quietly, seeing if it would move, Cora turned the door’s latch. The handle turned smoothly. She pressed against the door, and it began moving inward. Great, so it wasn't locked, and she had a chance.
She couldn't hear any voices. That might be a good sign. It might mean that Rodic was in there alone, and that stacked the odds in her favor. She wanted to speak to him, not just to kill him. She wanted to annihilate this murderer, who ruined so many lives, but first of all, she needed answers from him.
This was going to be a precarious mission, and she had no idea if it would succeed. But she was going to have to try. To get the answers, she was going to have to take this all the way. Once she was in, she’d need to move. Fast.
Inside, the room was lit by a single lamp on a desk and by the bright glow of a computer keyboard. A tall man wearing a red shirt was sitting at the desk, typing, picking at the keys in the manner of someone who'd never learned to type properly and who was doing it because he had to.
She had time to see his craggy face, a man that might be in his forties. The gold rings on his fingers, the chain around his neck, which she saw through the open shirt collar, nestling in his chest hair. His dark eyes that she thought were flat, like a shark's, although to compare it that way was hugely insulting to sharks.
Now! She needed to act now!
And then, as she lunged toward him, her luck ran out.
He was all the way on the other side of the room, and she didn't have time to close the distance before his face changed, his expression turning shocked.
"You? Again?" he blurted out. And then, his hand moved, and a steel gray pistol was in it, the barrel swinging up to point at Cora.
Cora reacted instinctively, letting herself fall aside while raising her own gun and letting it fire. It was a maneuver she'd practiced countless times in the SEALs and the FBI. Dodge the bullet while returning fire.
Duck under the fire, but compensate for your own movement, adjust the grip on your gun, calculate where it needs to be to return fire and squeeze the trigger gently. Never, ever do it roughly because you want the action to be as seamless as possible, the gun to simply be an extension of your hand as if you were pointing while you fell and a bullet was erupting from your own finger. That way, you would be more accurate.
That was what she'd been taught, but now it had to go differently. Now she had to unlearn the training that had been drilled into her so intensively because now she didn't want to kill. She just wanted to wound.
She needed him alive to ask her questions.
As she fell sideways, his own gun and hers exploded at exactly the same time, and Cora moved the barrel of her gun ever so slightly, aiming for his shoulder, to give him a painful wound that would prevent him from shooting again, and would allow her to get to him.
