Page 30 of Break For Me
"Then who the hell carries him? You?" I look at his arms. Those thin, pale arms that probably couldn’t lift a bag of cement. "Garrett and I will take him. You keep his head stable and hold the drain."
"Your hand?—"
"My hand is mine. I’ll deal with it."
I call Garrett in. We position ourselves—me at Killian’s shoulders, Garrett at his legs, Adrian at the head with both his hands cradling Killian’s skull to prevent movement.
We lift.
The weight distributes between us. My left hand is a fist of pure fire clenched around Killian’s shoulder. The fresh blood runs down my wrist and drips off my elbow, marking our path across the floor.
We move through the front door, across the sagging porch, and to the back of the truck. The cold air hits my bare chest like a slap. Garrett had arranged a nest of blankets and sleeping bags in the back. We slide Killian carefully onto them. Adrian climbs in beside him, positioning himself cross-legged with Killian’s head resting in his lap. His hands are already checking the fresh dressing.
I stand at the tailgate, swaying on my feet. My chest heaves. The world tilts and steadies. My left hand hangs uselessly at my side, dripping steadily onto the gravel.
Garrett is already in the driver’s seat. The engine is running. Headlights are off.
Adrian looks up at me from the back of the truck. Killian’s head rests against his thigh. His glasses catch the grey morning light, masking his eyes. His hands are red with my blood and Killian’s blood. It has seeped into the lines of his palms like dark ink into paper.
"Get in the truck," he says. His voice is steady. "When we stop, I’ll fix your hand. Again."
I reach into the waistband of my jeans and pull out the Makarov. I check the magazine—six rounds left. I hold it out to him, grip first.
He stares at the gun. Then at me.
"If I fall," I say. "If I go down and I can’t get back up and they’re coming up behind us?—"
I push the heavy gun into his hand. His fingers close around the cold grip. They don’t shake.
"You shoot whoever comes through that back door. And if I’m the thing that’s slowing us down, you shoot me too."
He holds the gun the way a man holds something venomous—carefully, at a distance from his body. His index finger rests perfectly along the frame, not on the trigger. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
"Get in the truck," he says again. His voice is quieter this time.
I climb into the passenger seat. Garrett hits the gas. The truck lurches down the gravel road, tree branches scraping loudly against the roof. Behind us, the empty cabin sits in the clearing. A box with no one left in it to kill.
My hand bleeds into the seat cushion. The doctor holds a gun and a dying man in the back. And somewhere in the quiet woods, the Russians are closing the distance.
Chapter Nine
ADRIAN
The gun weighs two pounds.
I know this because the Makarov PM has a standard unloaded weight of 730 grams. With a magazine carrying six rounds—a detail I noted when I checked it in the darkness of the truck bed—it comes to roughly 790 grams. One point seven-four pounds. Round up to two.
Two pounds shouldn't change anything. I’ve held retractors that weigh more. I’ve held the dead weight of a failing organ in my palm and felt less than I feel holding this piece of steel.
I am sitting cross-legged in the back of a pickup truck, vibrating with the rattle of the old suspension. A dying man’s head rests on my thigh, his sweat soaking through the fabric of my trousers. A loaded pistol rests against my hip, the cold metal biting into my skin through my shirt.
The weight changes everything.
Rocco gave it to me. Not because he trusts me—trust is a concept that belongs to a species he doesn't recognize. He gave it to me because he made a cold, tactical calculation: if the worst happens, someone in this truck needs to be able to end things efficiently. He looked at me, at my shaking hands and myruined career, and decided I was capable of that specific kind of violence.
No one has ever looked at me and seen someone capable of violence. They see the glasses. The precise posture. The surgeon’s hands that are insured for more money than most people earn in a lifetime. They see a man who fixes things, not one who finishes them.
He saw something else.
