Page 113 of Intrepid
With my attention fixed on Sera’s father, I didn’t notice Dane snatching up his own gun again until he had it pointed at me, and I alternated between aiming mine at him, and the man I had every intention of killing before night’s end.
“I thought you were in New York until Tuesday.” Sera’s voice, though tinged in disgust, quivered with fear.
“I was. Until my alarm system notified me that someone was in my house, and I watched you break into my safe.”
“I didn’t break into anything. You gave me access.”
“I did. Though, admittedly I didn’t give you credit for having the smarts to figure out what it belonged to. I also didn’t expect you’d come back home any time soon.” His fat lips stretched into a smile I’d have blown off his face, if not for Dane’s barrel pointed at my skull. “You must’ve felt nostalgic sitting in that office again.”
Though he spoke to her, his eyes remained on me, no doubt waiting for me to take the first shot.
“Fuck. You.” The venom in Sera’s voice told me something had happened in that office, only solidifying my plan to put a bullet in his brain.
“Step out onto the scaffolding behind you, my dear.”
“What?” Sera grabbed the edge, her eyes wide .
A spasm of pain struck my skull as I ground my teeth.
“Step out. Onto the scaffolding. Now.”
In the seconds she waited, he took a shot, kicking up the gravel beside her, and she hopped to the side with a scream.
My muscles flinched, finger tapping the trigger. Kill him, my head taunted. Kill him, and end it.
Her whole body trembled as she slid along the railing of the building, and the moment she looked over the edge, her fingers curled around the top of it. “Please. Don’t do this.”
“Let her go. I know where you’ll find the ledger. Let her go, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“That’s … romantic. But no. I’ve got plans for both of you.”
Another shot just missed her leg, pinging as it ricocheted off the concrete behind her.
She startled again, and I lurched forward, stopping at the sound of Dane racking the chamber of his gun. “Shit!”
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said.
Tightening her robe, Sera lifted a shaking leg over the edge of the wall and, on wobbly legs, climbed onto the scaffold, gripping tight to the metal frame attaching it to the building. The whimper she let out told me she’d begun to panic.
Kutscher swung his gun toward me. “Now put down your gun, or I will surely put a bullet in her chest, and she will fall—what? Almost twenty stories to her death?” The way he spoke the command so easily told me Sera meant as much to him as a wad of fucking gum stuck to his shoe.
“You’re a heartless bastard. You’ve always been a heartless bastard,” she gritted out as she sobbed. “That’s why you threw Shawn away, right? Handed him over to some sick piece of shit that you defended in court!”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but it failed to peel his stare from me.
“Shawn. You mean … the one who cut your face and tried to kill you? Now why would you hold even a small measure of sympathy for him?” He glanced toward her and back. “Oh, that’s right. You have no self-worth. It’s why you ended up with Romeo over here.” He waved his gun toward me. “Who I’ll ask to put down the gun one more time, before he makes me do something impulsive.”
With two weapons trained on me, I lowered mine, my mind scrambling for a solution.
“Now walk.” Kutscher jerked his gun, motioning me toward the north side of the building.
Dane swiped up my gun as I passed him, holding both barrels pointed at me like some gimp cowboy as he hobbled along.
We came to a stop beside an empty oxygen and acetylene cage. My gaze trailed to the top, where the crane’s hook had already been attached to the lifting eye, and their plan crystalized before me. The only building in the city with a tower crane—the reason Dane had chosen to meet there.
A pop from behind ripped through my bicep with a burn, and I looked down to where Dane had shot me in the arm. The pain felt like the white hot flashes of slag I’d endured when welding.
“That’s for shooting me in the arm, fucker.”
