I ducked behind the rusted skeleton of a car, my heart drumming, my pulse alive with adrenaline.
I could easily end him with one shot. His aim was good; mine was better.
One shot, however, was too easy for such a big betrayal.
I wanted it to hurt.
“You’re not going to kill me,” Kage called out. I saw his reflection in the windows of the car opposite me. He’d taken cover behind a truck near where’d been standing, but his gun and a sliver of his jeans peeked out from behind the old metal frame. “Not here. I know you. You’re probably thinking up ways you can torture me right now.”
I didn’t take the bait. I wasn’t going to shout across a junkyard like some B-list actor in an action movie.
My phone buzzed with a new text.
I would’ve ignored it given my current…distraction, but a warning instinct tugged at my senses.
Something’s wrong.
I flicked my eyes down at the screen for a millisecond.
Brock: 23, District Cafe
My brain automatically translated the company code into a full message given the context.
Incapacitated, need eyes on Stella ASAP. We’re at District Cafe.
Panic like I’d never known coiled my spine and spiked in my blood.
Something happened to Stella.
He didn’t say it, but I felt it. The same warning instinct that’d compelled me to check my texts in the middle of a goddamned gunfight rang the alarms so loud they nearly drowned out Kage’s voice.
“It’s not going to happen,” he continued. His voice was harsh with excitement and a tinge of regret. “Only one of us is making it out of here alive, and it’s not going to be you.”
I made my decision in an instant.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I stepped out from behind the car frame.
Kage left his hiding place and aimed his gun at me, but I pulled the trigger before he could fire.
The gunshot echoed in the empty junkyard, followed by three others.
One to his chest, one to his head, and one to each kneecap in case he survived and foolishly decided to continue the fight.
He staggered, then toppled to the ground.
I kept my gun aimed at him as I walked over. The soft rustle of grass gave way to the crunch of gravel until I stood over him.
Eyes blank and wide open, mouth agape. Blood pooled beneath him in a growing puddle and stained the ground with dark crimson.
I didn’t have to check his pulse to know he was dead.
A decade together gone in minutes, all because he’d resented me for his choices.
I stepped over Kage’s dead body and returned to my car.
I didn’t have the time or capacity for more sentimentality. Anyone who betrayed me was dead to me, literally and figuratively.
By the time someone, if anyone, found Kage, his body would’ve been picked apart by wild animals.
Kurtz was the only person who might be a problem, but he wouldn’t say a damn thing. A dead Kage was useless to him, and he wouldn’t risk his own neck to point police in the right direction.
Since I was Kage’s employer, I would have to figure out a good story to tell the authorities and the rest of the company, but that wouldn’t take long. I’d figure out the details later.
23.
Brock’s message replayed in my head as I gunned it out of the junkyard. My panic spiked again, mixed with a healthy dose of fear.
When I hit the main road, I’d already forgotten all about Kage.
The only thing that mattered was Stella.