“What the actual fuck?” Ringo murmurs from beside me, his jaw lax. “Should we call him Rambo now?”
I chuckle, watching the dust floating down to the ground, revealing James standing at the front of the mass grave, casting his eyes across his victims. He lets the machine guns fall from his hands, and they hit the ground with a thud.
I slowly push myself to my feet, helping Rose up too, before guiding her to a chair and sitting her down, giving her a thorough checking over. I pull up her sweater. Check every arm and leg. Her face. Stunned. I smile and kiss her. “It’s over,” I say roughly.
“You . . . you . . . you both planned this?” she asks, looking completely spaced out.
“Of course.”
“But . . . I . . .” She shakes her head. “What the fuck, Danny? How did you know it was Perry?”
“I told four people I’d be skiing yesterday at various times. My jet ski blew up at precisely twelve twenty-one. I told Perry I was out on the water at noon every Saturday. He had my father’s lover working for him, so I followed her to a building he worked from when he was running for mayor.”
She can only stare at me in shocked silence. I feel the same. I’m so fucking stupid for not seeing it. I didn’t trust him, not at all, but . . . The Bear? It’s almost laughable.
I look past her to the others. All look as blindsided as I feel. “Everyone good?” I ask, getting silence in return. No doubt I will be copping the wrath of each of them. But the job’s done. Or nearly done.
I turn and face James, finding him holding his shoulder, where his hoodie is bloody. “Feel better?” I ask, lighting up a cigarette. He wipes his brow roughly and looks for Beau. She’s in shock, her body a statue, her face a picture of disbelief. “Good to know you trust me,” I quip, getting her attention. I accept what’s coming, bracing myself as she walks slowly toward me and lands a stinger of a slap across my face.
I grit my teeth and slowly take a drag of my cigarette, exhaling. “You’re welcome,” I murmur, recoiling when she lands me with another. That one, I definitely didn’t see coming. “I’m in a tolerant mood, Beau, given the circumstances,” I say quietly.
The nostrils of her small nose flare, her eyes blazing, as she swings around and marches toward James. Like me, he braces himself, widening his stance and anchoring down. She belts him so hard, I flinch harder than when she cracked me one. Just let her have her moment. Let her be rid of the anger. Eyes closed, his head to the side, James visibly cracks his jaw back into place. “Is that all you’ve got?” he asks seriously, and I laugh under my breath as she reaches forward and rips his zip-up open, revealing his vest. Then she launches herself at him, wrapping every limb around his frame and clinging on. “More like it,” he says around a hiss of pain, holding her as he walks to a rock and perches on the edge, having a moment with her.
A stirring on the ground gets my attention, and I wander over to the only body showing signs of life. He’s on his front, so I wedge a boot into his side and push him to his back, growling down at him, taking in the bullet wounds just north of his knees. “I did say I’d kill you if you called my wife a whore again.” I drop to my haunches as I take a long drag, blowing it into his face before stubbing out my smoke on his cheek, snarling as he yelps and weakly fights me away. “Nothing to say?”
His dribbling and moaning is pitiful, and really fucking annoying.
“I want to kill him,” James says from behind me.
I look back, finding he still has Beau stuck to his front. “No, I want to kill him.” I stand, joining him. “We agreed. You play Rambo, I kill Adams.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” he says firmly. “Me.”
“No, me,” I retort.
“No, Danny. I get to do the hon—”
Beau releases James’s shoulders, turns, takes my gun, aims, and blows out Adams’s brain before dropping the weapon and resuming her position, hiding in James’s neck. We stare down at Adams in disbelief, James with his mouth open, me with my smoke hanging limply out of my mouth.
“Well, that’s solved that little conundrum,” Brad says, helping himself to my pack of Marlboros and lighting up.
James smiles, and it looks good on his murderous face.
“I think I need a vacation,” I say as Rose joins me, moving into my side and hugging me close.
“I wouldn’t mind a holiday too.” James tries to put Beau on her feet and fails. “A bit of sun on my face.” She looks up at him and smiles. It’s the first smile I’ve seen on her that’s true. Real. Happiness.