AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If you were a better leader,” Fuller snarls in return, “perhaps we wouldn’t be where we are right now.”
“If you were a better agent,” Banks counters, his voice deep and pained, “if you were smarter. Stronger. More driven. You’d have lived.”
“More driven?” Fuller takes out a silver gun and flips the safety off, the sound of metal-on-metal as he cocks it loud in an otherwise quiet building. “More driven?” he demands. “I’m about to run the whole fucking country, old man.”
“You can’t even run your own life,” Henry chokes out. “Gambling debt left you desperate. It left you vulnerable, and it was my mistake allowing you to stay on the job and work beside my son. You could have been somebody,” he rasps. “You could have worked your way up the ranks and really achieved something. But instead, you fucking failed. And you dragged my boy down with you.”
“Because he quit, didn’t he?” Amused, Fuller smirks. “You wanted a new powerhouse Special Agent Banks, and in the end, he walked away and left you in his past.”
“I’m approaching your doors!” Drake shouts from somewhere outside, his voice stealing my breath and instantly pulling my attention from the loaded gun pointed toward the older man. “I’m armed,” he adds, “since you didn’t say I had to leave them behind. I’m wearing my usual two. No more, no less. I have Malone with me.”
“It’s time to start.” Fuller turns his back to me and with a flick of his hands, has his soldiers relaxing. “Come on in, brother.” His voice shakes, almost like he’s genuinely nervous and excited to see his friend. “Slowly. I wanna trust you,” he continues. “But we’re on opposite sides of a war right now. I hope soon, we’ll stand side-by-side.”
My stomach heaves with nausea. Terror. Anxiety. But with anticipation, too. Because I want to see Drake. I want his eyes on me for the first time in too long. I’m desperate for his focus. His touch.
Because if I’m going to die today, the least Judy Jinx could allow would be for his face to be the last thing I see before I go.
But when he comes into view and crosses the threshold with Archer Malone on his right, his eyes meet mine, and his expression falls. When I’m so used to the adoration in them, or challenge, or desire, all I see now is disappointment.
Horror.
“Let her go.” He drags his eyes from mine only to look at the man on my right. His face pales, and his chest caves in a little. “Gord,” he breathes, weak with exasperation. “What have you done?”
“I have men outside this building,” he answers instead. “If you brought Detective Fletcher with you, consider him dead already.”
“We ditched him,” Archer inserts, drawing Fuller’s focus his way. “He’s still at the station working our murder board. Though the board has become somewhat useless now. What with Vallejo’s face all over it.” He lifts his chin in curiosity. “Is Vallejo’s body in your casket, Fuller? Is that what happened?”
“Needed a body,” he answers. “Paine was able to work some paperwork magic and switch a few things up. Fredericks was placed in Vallejo’s grave. Vallejo was placed in mine. I got to walk away and put things into place invisible to, well… everyone,” he adds proudly. “No one suspected I jumped the picket line.”
“How do you think this will all go down?” Drake questions. “Malone and I just… stop turning up to work? You don’t think there’ll be an inquiry? We’re both working on Vallejo’s case. We go missing. No one’s gonna be suspicious?”
“I know you have an M.E. on the take,” he looks to Malone. “You don’t marry a medical examiner unless it’s because you want one in your pocket. She’s your wife, which means she’s part of this too. Her husband dies in the line of duty. She’s grieving. Sad, sad. How horrible. She switches out patient files. She attends your funerals. We’re ghosts, and the case dies with Vallejo. Remember,” he smirks, pacing a little closer, though still an easy thirty-feet from the massive hangar doors, “Gordon Fuller was never here. Once you’re deemed dead, you join me. She follows, or you pop her since her job is done.” He lifts his shoulders and grins when Archer’s jaw tightens. Rage, pure and feral rage. Though he’s skilled at hiding it. “Soon, we take Cordoza’s empire, and we become the most powerful men in the country.”
“Fucking useless,” Henry sighs, dropping his head in disgust despite the rope biting further into his skin. “You had a family, Gord. You had a good life. And in the end, you blew it on slot machines and dopamine hits.”
“Shut the fuck up, old man!” Fuller twists his torso, gun raised, and shoots off a round that booms through the warehouse, startling me so I jump and knock the platform I stand upon. The bullet slams into Henry’s leg and out the other side, embedding itself in the steel wall. The older man cries out in pain, the sound of anguish etching itself in my mind for life.
But Drake starts forward, his gun drawn and rage pulsing in every breath he takes. Before Fuller has a chance to turn back around, Drake presses the end of his gun to the man’s temple and startles his former partner.
His former best friend.
“Turn around, Good.” Behind him, Archer pulls his weapon and circles to keep Fuller’s two stooges in his line of sight. “Slowly,” Drake continues. “Put your gun on the ground, and I won’t have to kill you.”
Fuller laughs. Maniacal, he slowly rotates to look into Drake’s eyes, but he doesn’t drop his gun, and he doesn’t give up. “I don’t think you’re listening to me, Banks. We’re going to worktogether. We’re not enemies here.”
“We became enemies the moment you traded right for wrong.”
“Oh please!” he throws his arm up and points toward Archer. “He’s literally the fucking mob! Have you forgotten?”
“That he earned his badge?” he snarls, his shoulders and chest pumped full of adrenaline.
I twist my wrists behind my back, searching for a way to snap my bindings. Plastic cuts into my skin, burning and stinging the more I move. But I’m a sitting target up here, my neck strung up, my chest open and no Kevlar vest to keep me safe today.
“Malone knows dirty people,” Drake seethes, taking a step to the right, and drawing Fuller around with him. “We all know dirty people, Gord. Doesn’t mean we join them. You know that just like I do.”
“Life wasn’t created for men like us to succeed unless we bend a few rules, Banks. Going straight doesn’t cut it in today’s economy.”
“Going straight is the only way I know how to be,” Drake snarls. “It’s all I’ll ever be. Because I want to live my life. Free. As Drake Banks.”
