Chapter Six
There were a lot of people that had their attention on the handsome couple, but only one narrowed his eyes. His hand went instinctively to the knife in the waistband of his uniform, patted it twice and resumed walking through the crowd.
Mia, he thought, she’s the key.
If he got rid of her, the voices would stop, they told him so. She wasn’t his anyway, they told him that two. She was from the devil.
He was a slender man, but he managed to pad his suit and stuff his cheeks with cotton to fool the security guards. Only the staff didn’t get padded down and he’d been watching the beauty Lietha Wards 134
since early afternoon. Although he hadn’t had a chance to get close to her, he would tonight.
He reached up and scratched an area under his fake moustache. He’d dyed his hair to. It had long since gone grey in prison. Actually he was quite impressed with his disguise after being in prison for eighteen years. He thought he did a good job. His eyes guided to the Thaddeus who was celebrating his birthday and part of him wanted to kill him too, but the voices said that he wasn’t responsible. His eyes went back to Glenda, and the big man beside her. He knew he’d have to take out the man because of the way he was looking at her, he knew they were together—Glenda—no, no—that was Mia, he fought for control. Those stupid drugs they filled him with in prison were still swimming in his skull. Only he stopped taking them several weeks ago when he knew he would be released on parole. He became an expert on how to fool the doctors.
Before long Dorothy got up and gave her speech to Thaddeus which was followed by a round of cheers and applause. Then it was Thaddeus’ turn. Danny took that opportunity to weave through the crowd toward the girl hardly hearing what he had to say. Stupid fool! He thought. He was going to get rid of her and the old man couldn’t stop him. Just like he did Glenda but he took his time with her. She didn’t confess that she was responsible for the voices so he had to force it out of her. Finally in the end, when he brought out the baby she did. She screamed it from the rooftops, right before he gutted her.
He actually didn’t expect such a large crowd, but it did him good for the camouflage it gave him. His eyes focused on the couple with determination as he made his way slowly toward them. It was obvious from the way he was looking at her and the way his arm was around her waist that coveted her, much like he did his Glenda until he found out it was her that planted Mercenary’s Conquest 135
the voices in his head.
Danny frowned, the man would die next to his so-called daughter because he didn’t know what kind of spell she could weave. It was obvious that he was already bewitched.
He moved closer as the General stood up on the stage and proudly announced his granddaughter’s engagement causing Danny to pause not a hundred feet from them through the applause of the crowd as the young man bent and kissed the woman. It was a kiss of ultimate love and fiery passion and for a moment he had a flash of him kissing her mother, Glenda.
He paused again reaching under his waiter’s jacket to seize the hilt of the knife. Glenda was beautiful and looking at the woman in the middle of the dance floor bent over the man’s arm while he kissed her made him remember how beautiful she was. Even when he was going to kill her and she knew he was going to she kept telling him how much she loved him, but the voices told him that she was lying. His expression darkened. She was lying.
He reached up and gripped a clump of his hair as the voices started again telling him that she was the last and if he killed her they would stop.
Moving quickly he made his way on to the dance floor just as the man was straightening up and lifting his hand to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd while the beautiful woman’s face was scarlet tinged and smiling shyly.
Several more feet and he’d take the large man first, then the woman with precision accuracy. Like the war, he’d planned the kill down to the last step, but then something caught his eye.
The man turned enough so Danny could see the wire of an earpiece and as he noticed it he stiffened and whirled toward him. It was too late for him to stop, he was too close and pulled the knife.
It was so quick that it took Mia and the other’s too realize Lietha Wards 136
what had happened when Gage suddenly released her and turned to a man behind them. Then she saw the knife right before it embedded itself in Gage’s shoulder.
"Gage!" she screamed and she wasn’t the only one. People were screaming everywhere.
Gage managed to backhand Danny but he didn’t release the knife. When he flew back he took it out of his shoulder and Gage could feel it scrape bone as it left his body causing more pain than it did going in. He didn’t yell though, he was trying to focus. "Mia get behind me!" he hollered at her not taking his eyes from the other man. As it was she was standing stunned off to the side but between the both of them as Danny crouched low ready to spring again. That warning brought Danny’s eyes to Mia and Gage didn’t miss the deadly look there. He moved toward her but Gage was quicker and positioned himself between the two. F*ck his shoulder hurt, but he needed to stall the man until John and Rene got there. Blood was pouring down the front of his tuxedo pulsing out of the wound.
Danny’s eyes flicked back to the other man, "She’ll put a spell on you to." He said in a low emotionless voice.
Gage didn’t answer him, he knew the man was too far gone to listen. It was the look in his eyes. It was hollow, cold.
"I’ll whittle you away piece by piece if I have to." He added lunging for him.
Gage evaded the jab and brought his elbow down on the man’s arm but he was too skilled to release the knife. All he did was duck and roll and come to his feet easily as if he was born to it. Gage had been well trained in hand to hand combat, but it was obvious to him that Danny was too despite. Despite his age and his imprisonment, he’d kept up his skills. Time seemed to drag on forever as the two fought hand to hand, one with a weapon and one without, yet it was only seconds.
Mia fell to her knees weeping. She could see the other man Mercenary’s Conquest 137
moving with ease and skill that matched Gage. Twice more he was able to sink the knife into him and she turned her head no longer able to watch.
Gage could feel himself weaken along with the hot bath of blood seeping down his side and his leg from the other two wounds, so he played it. He acted weak and when Danny moved again he took him down.
Mia turned her head back to see her father leap on Gage and raise the knife to plunge in his chest she screamed, "Dad—NO!" he paused and looked at her. She saw a cloud of recognition in his eyes for a nanosecond before he grunted and fell over.
Gage had pulled the knife from his ankle strap that he always carried and sunk it into Danny’s side and ended it with a violent twist. Then he laid his head back and closed his eyes feeling the pain of his wounds all the way through to his teeth.
"Gage!"
He could hear Mia’s wrenching voice but he felt so tired. He could even feel the softness of her hands running over him along with the pleading in her voice not to leave her.
John and Rene burst thought the crowd with Bruce closely behind them. He’d seen Danny in the surveillance monitors and warned Gage the moment he’d seen him.
Thad was kneeling beside Mia putting pressure on Gage’s wounds. She started screaming and he told John to get her out of there. There was a lot of blood, and if Gage was going to be a bastard and die right then and there, he wouldn’t let his granddaughter be witness to it.
"Gage you son of a bitch, you hold on." He said tersely as sirens were heard in the background. He felt some satisfaction at the grunt he got in response from the man on the ground. Rene whipped off his belt and was wrapping it around Gage’s leg where one of the other wounds was. It was the abdominal Lietha Wards 138
wound that frightened Thad. It was bleeding too much and he couldn’t stop it.