Page 25 of Love Me (Touch of Death 3)
Pressing my back to the wall beside the door, I palm my gun in one hand. With the other, I tentatively push the handle down and snatch back my hand. Long-unused hinges let out an ominous squeal as the door drifts open. Holding my breath, I listen for a sound, the slight shifting of a floorboard underfoot, an inhaled breath, the clicking of the safety on a gun…nothing. I round the corner, ready to shoot. There’s no one there, and the muscles in my shoulders slowly relax. As I make my way through the penthouse, moonlight pours through the window, casting a silvery glow over the dark rooms. I cross through a kitchen diner and into a corridor. The low hum of a television can be heard, and it puts me on high alert once more. At the end of the corridor is a huge living room, the windows stretching over two floors. In the center is a leather couch, and a single guy sits on it. He throws his head back, laughing at something on the screen.
My footsteps are silent, like a cat stalking prey. The man tips a bottle of beer up before laughing once more. As I get closer, I see his weapon discarded on the table and almost pity him. He’s so incompetent it’s pathetic. These are the men Fonzo has protecting him? There was a time when taking out a mafia boss was a challenge. Taking out a Russian one certainly is. Others call The Elite an extreme measure while placing their lives in the hands of men like this. Ridiculous.
I strike like a snake, slamming my arm around his throat and wrenching his head to the side with my free hand. The distinctive crunch of his spine splitting echoes through my mind. A clean kill is always satisfying. His body sags, twitching as he slumps over to the side. I check my watch. Eight forty-seven. Fonzo should be here any minute. I do a quick scout of the remaining rooms in the penthouse, finding no one else here. Then I pull the guy off the sofa and drag him across the room, his arms trailing out behind his hefty mass. By the time I get him to the cupboard in the corner of the room, I’m out of breath. I need to work out more. I’m still not fully fit from getting shot back in Russia.
Now it’s just a waiting game. Which will happen first: Fonzo coming back, or the guard I stashed under that desk in the security room waking up? Of course, I could have killed him, but I’ve always had a morality issue with killing innocent people. Those who work for and associate themselves with this sordid underworld we live in, well, they signed up for this life. The average guy working his job, he didn’t. If I have to kill them, I will, but I avoid it. As each second ticks by, I start to feel the foolishness of that decision in the pit of my stomach.
I take a seat in one of the chairs in the living room, facing the door. I screw the silencer to the end of my pistol and wait there in the darkness. My breaths even out, and my heartbeat slows. Anticipation usually spikes a man’s pulse, flooding his veins with adrenaline. I’ve always found the anticipation before a kill to be very calming, a strange void of icy focus where nothing but my prey and me exist. His body and my bullet. Nothing more. It’s almost peaceful.
I wait for over ten minutes before I hear the quiet beep of the access card being swiped across the door. Several voices reach me from the hallway, and I get up. I place my back to the wall beside the door and wait, listening, assessing. Three, no four men. They drift away from me, toward the kitchen, and once I’m sure they’re gone, I move. Raising my gun, I glance around the corner and see a single guy standing there, his brows pulled together in concentration as he stares at the screen of his phone. He doesn’t notice my presence, so I palm the handle of the knife and throw it. The blade embeds straight in his throat, and I rush forward to catch the body before he hits the ground. Choked gasps slip past his lips, possibly even louder than the subtle pop of the silencer would have been. I pull the blade out and embed it in the base of his skull, severing the spinal cord. Air hisses past his lips, and he dies almost immediately. Blood spreads over the pristine white tile, and I step back before it reaches me.
I creep toward the kitchen, using the darkness like a cloak. Closing my eyes, I listen to the sound of their voices, each footstep over the tile floor. In my mind, I build a picture of where each of them is standing in the room, their proximity to each other and me. Then, palming my gun, I round the narrow strip of wall. They don’t even notice me for a good two seconds. The first man has hit the ground, and the second’s head snaps back from the force of the bullet before Fonzo even sees me.
