Page 21 of Tied Over

“We have to move,” I announced.

“Yes,” Crouse agreed, and I lifted my arm so he could loop his beneath my shoulder. He bore my weight as he pulled me to my feet.

“You’re a pain in the ass,” I told him, trying not to scream with the pain.

“I imagine the pair of us must look like an old-time double act,” he said, grinning as we stumbled like a pair of drunken lovers toward the door. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears, my heart beating furiously inside my chest.

“You able to shoot?” he asked. “I can’t carry you and do both.”

“I’ll kill anyone who gets in our way,” I promised him, raising the muzzle of the machine gun, ready to fire.

He stopped moving suddenly.

“No,” I nearly whined. “Keep going.” I wanted out of that apartment so bad.

“That bastard Petrov is cowering in a room somewhere.” He grimaced. “I say we go find him and end this.”

It was the right thing to do, but the voice inside my head told me to say fuck that. I was badly hurt, and taking the elevator to the lobby, to where Bodhi was, seemed like the smarter move, and even more importantly, it was protocol. If a marshal was in any way compromised, be that mentally or physically, we were supposed to stand down.

Instead I said, “Yeah.” If anyone else was still alive, hopefully Crouse and I would be able to neutralize them.

Moving through the wide-open space, I looked everywhere, as did Crouse.

Leaving the main room, we walked toward the kitchen, then beyond, to where an enormous marble-and-wood dining room table was, my finger tensed on the trigger, ready to double-tap any lurking targets, but found none.

We cleared the butler’s pantry and wine cellar, and then I saw the breakfast nook facing out toward the patio. Crouse caught a glimmer of movement to his left and swiveled around. I arched my gun sights across the space as we moved toward the sliding glass doors.

Once we were outside, we saw Burian Petrov cowering beside a heavy wooden Adirondack chair. In the same beat, Crouse saw the blur of motion at our three o’clock. He spun around to a guy standing midway across the patio, his rifle pointed directly at us.

“Kayson, you fuck, you did this to me!” Petrov shrieked at Rasha’s ex. I was hoping she was on her way to protective custody with Washington by now.

“Die!” Kayson yelled at me.

Bad guys always announced their intentions. I never understood that.

I fired in that half-second. Kayson had just enough time to register a look of dumb surprise as he heard the two rapid cracks of my machine gun before he could unleash a couple of rounds of his own. He dropped his machine gun and fell backward, his arms flailing as he flopped to the ground, blood pooling around him.

“Get up, you fuck,” Crouse demanded of Petrov.

Petrov rose. His oily slicked-back blond hair and five o’clock shadow made him look like a nineties porn star. But hiding out took a toll on a person, and he’d been evading law enforcement for months. He looked leaner than the last time I’d seen him, and his eyes were hollow. He held his hands up in surrender.

“I give up.”

I kept a bead on Petrov, finger on the trigger as Crouse put me in the matching chair to the one the mobster had been crouched beside. Frisking him fast, Crouse shoved him back, away from him but didn’t move, just held his gun on him.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

Crouse slid his gaze across to the Russian. “Change of plans.” His expression tightened. “Now fucking move,” he growled, waving the Glock at Petrov as they made for the balcony.

“We’re going the wrong way,” Petrov said, his voice cracking.

“No, we’re not,” Crouse replied tonelessly, marching him toward the edge of the terrace.

“What the fuck is going on?” he howled.

As soon as they reached the guardrail, Petrov turned around. Crouse kept just enough distance to see the sweat bead on his brow. Petrov looked at Crouse in stark terror registering on his face when he saw the Glock pointed at the spot between his eyes.

“You can’t do this,” he croaked.