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I press my ear against the door that Gil disappeared behind and hear the sound of a television. So he could still be awake. And if he is, he’ll see me coming.
What else is new?
At least this time I know he’s there.
I draw my gun and barge into the room. Gil jumps off the bed, wearing jeans and a towel around his neck. I shoot. He hides behind a chair. I shoot the chair. He throws it at me. As I duck, he hurls himself against the window. The glass shatters.
I run to the broken window just in time to see him land on the grass. I shoot but miss as he rolls out of the way. He runs back into the house.
Oh no. He’s not going to get away this time.
I jump down and go back inside through the open window I think Gil went through. As soon as I’m in the room, he kicks the gun out of my hand. I try to get in a punch to his upper body, but he moves behind me and wraps his towel around my neck. He squeezes it and my throat constricts.
Fuck.
To make things worse, he starts punching my arm. I ignore the pain and try to kick his legs. When I fail, I grab the towel around his neck, bend my knees and throw him over. Pain shoots through my side but I ignore that, too.
Gil falls on the floor. I’m about to pounce on him, but then I hear gunshots from upstairs.
Allie.
In that moment of delay, Gil picks himself up and goes for the gun on the floor. I jump behind the furniture.
The bullets rain, giving me a sense of deja vu. I jump from armchair to bookcase to table to avoid them, but one grazes my cheek anyway.
Fuck.
Finally, Gil runs out of ammunition. I jump out from behind the table to try to wrap the towel in my hands around his neck, but he jumps back and then starts throwing punches at me. At first, I deflect them with the towel, then when I get the chance, I wrap the towel around his wrist. I twist it, pull him in, and send my knee into his stomach, right where I remember stabbing him. He makes a choking sound.
I turn him around and push him down on the floor. Just as I’m about to wrap the towel around his neck, he turns. He pulls on the towel and our foreheads collide. As I recover from the blow, he pushes me down. My back hits the floor and I wince.
Gil reaches for the knife I have hidden in my boot. I see a pencil on the table from the corner of my eye. As Gil holds my knife above me, I grab the pencil and stick it into his carotid.
Blood spurts. Some of it ends up on my cheek.
Gil’s face freezes. Fear coats his eyes. My knife clatters to the floor as he moves off me. Then he falls.
I kneel beside him as he bleeds out. I want him to look into my eyes as he dies.
“Your name is Gil, isn’t it?” I ask him.
He manages a grin. “You’re… supposed to… be… dead.”
“That makes two of us. You should have died years ago, the same night you took my brother’s life.”
His grin vanishes. “You… took… my father’s.”
His father’s?
“In… the… house.”
The house? The Espositos’ house?
“You mean Damian Esposito?”
He nods.
I frown. Has he been after me this whole time because he thinks I killed Damian Esposito when in fact he was already dead when I found him?
“I didn’t kill your father,” I tell him. “I swear. His throat was already cut when I got there.”
His eyebrows furrow.
“But he… said…”
He stops and gasps for air.
“Who said?” I demand to know.
Who set him after me?
“Sergio Bianchi?”
He shakes his head slightly, then grimaces in pain.
I pull the pencil out and press my fingers against his artery to stop the bleeding.
“Who?” I ask him again.
Gil looks at me. “The man… with the…”
Just then, I hear the whirring of helicopter blades. The noise blocks out all other sounds.
Fuck.
“What did you say?” I press my ear against Gil’s mouth.
“The…”
He gives another gasp and then stops breathing. When I look at his face, his lifeless eyes stare back at me.
I bite down on my lower lip in frustration as my free hand clenches into a fist. I beat it against the floor.
Fuck. I remove my bloody fingers from his artery and sit back. I lean against a chair as I catch my breath.
I’d run to Allie’s side but I’m exhausted from the fight. My side hurts. My arm hurts. Maybe I’m getting too old for this.
Besides, I can see the Chandler Corp. chopper starting to land, which tells me that Allie is safe.
We won.
I won. It doesn’t feel like a victory, but at least I avenged Antonio’s death. I finished the job.
