I keep my gun trained on him, never breaking my resolute disposition.
“Go ahead,” he challenges, grimacing under the strain of his wound. “I can buy new legs too if I have to—you’re not getting the information, no matter whose life you threaten me with.” Somehow he never loses his smile, even though it’s heavily manipulated by pain.
“Not even your wife?” I press him, shoving the gun in the air toward him in emphasis. “Money is more important to you than your wife?” The anger inside of me is growing, bubbling to the surface.
He laughs lightly, grimacing as he tries to adjust himself within the chair, both hands gripping his thigh underneath the table. The second I notice that I can no longer see his hands, I leap onto the table in front of him, jutting out my leg and planting the sole of my boot into his chest, knocking him away. The chair skids backward just inches, and wobbles precariously on its two back legs before settling evenly on the floor.
With my gun still pointed at his head, I reach down with my free hand and feel around for the gun I instinctively knew was affixed to the underside of the table. Still crouched on the tabletop, I slide Pinceri’s gun down the length of the table where Nora stops it with her hand.
Pinceri just looks at me from the chair, still smiling, shaking his head. Blood soaks his pant leg and drips into a small puddle beneath it on the expensive marble.
“Answer my fucking question,” I demand, glaring down at him from my crouched position on the table, my finger on the trigger.
“Two billion dollars is more important to me than anyone,” he says without hesitation, without regret. “Even my wife.”
I grit my teeth.
“Victor?”
I wait for his response.
Victor
Turning away from the computer screen set up in Mrs. Pinceri’s home, I look at the woman standing in the room with an angry pinched mouth. Her gray-blond hair is fixed in curls above her shoulders. She wears a long cream-colored dress with a copper-colored scarf around her neck. In her tired, aged blue eyes is a look of vengeance. And pain. I’ve seen that look before, on women whose husbands have replaced them with younger, more vibrant companionship.
“What will it be, Mrs. Pinceri?”
She swallows, standing with her arms crossed as she stares only at the screen with the live image of her husband being fed through the camera hidden in Izabel’s face mask.
“Kill the bastard,” she sentences him with acid in her voice.
I nod and turn back to the screen.
Izabel
“Take him out,” I hear Victor say.
I smile and push myself into a stand before jumping down from the table. Pinceri’s eyes follow my every move.
Clock is ticking away, I remind myself.
“Sure you don’t want to reconsider your answer?” I ask, though I know he won’t.
“You can go fuck yourself,” he spits out the words. “And tell whoever your client is, they can do the same.”
My smile gets broader and I wish that he could see it.
Pressing the barrel of my silencer to his forehead, I say with satisfaction, “Your wife is our client,” and witness his smile drop before I pull the trigger and splatter his brains against the wall.
“Let’s go,” Nora says behind me with urgency.
We dash into the hallway and head for the stairwell near the elevator.
“Two minutes,” I say as she swings open the door. “I don’t think we’re gonna make it.”
“We’ll make it.”
I hope she’s right because if we don’t, if we can’t get through the rooftop door before the automatic alarm is activated, we’ll set it off and Pinceri’s men stationed on the bottom floor will likely be waiting for us outside by the time we make our way down the side of the building.
“Maybe we should’ve taken the elevator,” I say between strained breaths as we make our way quickly up the concrete steps.
“No, the elevators are too slow,” Nora says; the sound of our boots hitting the concrete echoes down the stairwell behind us, much louder this time. “I counted the time it took for the elevator to make it to the ninth floor when the guard from the surveillance room made his way up, as well as the time it took us on the stairs on the way down—we’re faster.”
She never ceases to amaze me. And make me feel like an amateur.
Just a few more steps.
Not knowing how many seconds we have to spare, when we make it to the top, I shove both hands on the door knob and grit my teeth, pushing it open with all my strength, wincing as I brace myself for the sound of the alarm.
It doesn’t trigger. We made it.