“Well, that’s one down, and three more to go,” I mumble to myself. One of the guys has ducked for cover back in the hallway that I’m assuming leads to Meg’s bedroom and bathroom. The other actually seems to have run back out the door since he was standing pretty close to it when this all began. He didn’t look like much of a fighter anyway. And Mr. Nyx is crouched down behind a couch.
I decide to lay down some cover fire and head after the goon in the hallway when I hear a noise at the door and turn my gun in that direction, thinking it’s probably that other guy coming back. But it’s not. Thank God I’m as quick to stop my trigger finger as I am to pull it or else Ethan would be pushing up daisies later this evening.
He rushes in, firing his gun at Nyx as he says, “Hunter! I heard there was an incident.”
Always the funny guy… With him here, I continue on my way toward the hallway. “See if you can help Meg!” I shout and head for the guy in the back bedroom, knowing Ethan and his Glock will be fine as long as it’s just him and Mr. Nyx in the room, but I wouldn’t be surprised if more of his guys show up.
I run toward the back bedroom, and before I even crest the corner, a barrage of gunfire comes my way. I wait a moment and then, once he’s confused about where I am, I duck around the corner and quickly open fire. He’s standing in front of Meg’s bed, and when the bullets connect with his torso, the asshole falls backward, spraying blood all over her blankets.
I’ve always wondered what her bedroom must look like, and I’ve thought about being in this room many times, but more gunfire from the living room tells me I don’t have time to stand here and fantasize about what it would be like to take her in her own room. Satisfied that this guy isn’t going to be any more help to Mr. Nyx, I head back to the living room.
In the kitchen, Ethan is returning fire from Mr. Nyx, who is across from him, hidden almost completely by the couch and an overturned side table. I want to sneak around the other side and take him out, but before I get a chance, more gunfire sounds from the doorway.
Two more armed men in suits and a woman who looks even more deadly than the other two, even though she’s wearing a skirt and pumps, come flying in the door, ready to defend their boss.
I take the first guy out quickly enough, sinking two or three bullets in him, but the other two fan out, and one of them, the other man, has his sights set on the kitchen.
“I don’t fucking think so,” I say. Even with the female firing at me, I duck down behind a chair and unload on the motherfucker just as Ethan does the same. He only makes it a few steps before he falls to the ground, his face landing in one of the holes that Mr. Nyx and his assholes have left in the floor of my apartment complex.
The woman is firing without fear as she comes at us, rotating between Ethan and me as she approaches. I don’t have time for this shit. I need to get to Mr. Nyx. He’s the real culprit here, and even though I don’t like having to hurt women, it seems clear to me that this one coming at me is a murderous bitch.
A ton of broken planks of wood litter the ground. I decide to get creative and throw a bunch of those, along with the sawdust that’s now covering my new shoes, in the woman’s face as I duck behind the chair. She’s doing a good job of pinning Ethan and me so that neither one of us can get a good shot off without jeopardizing our cover, but when the debris from the floor hits her in the face, it’s not the same as getting hit by a bullet, but it’ll give me a second.
One of the larger pieces of wood hits her in the nose, bloodying it immediately. She screeches in anger and unexpected pain, but then, as the tiny pieces of sawdust fill her eyes, she begins to blink, tears streaming down her face. Then, she must realize she can no longer see us to keep us pinned down, and one of us is going to pop out to kill her, so the brave bitch who came in firing with no reservations drops to the ground, trying to take cover behind Meg’s coffee table.
It’s not enough, and as she lies there, wiping at her eyes, both Ethan and I hit her with bullets from opposite sides of the room. She goes down, bleeding from the head and the side, and I have a feeling, no matter how tough this bitch is, she’s not getting up again.
Now I just need to take out Mr. Nyx. He’s been awfully quiet since this last set of assassins came in, but now that they’re all down, he’s up again, firing first at me and then at Ethan.
My pistol has never failed me yet, but as I take aim at the fat face peeking out from behind the couch, I realize it’s either jammed or out of ammo. “Son of a bitch!” I shout, feeling in my pockets for more bullets. I seem to be coming up short.
I hear Mr. Nyx laughing from behind his entrenchment. “So I guess Mr. Stone is about to crumble, huh?” he asks.
“Fuck you!” I shout. I prefer fists over guns anyway, and when I kill Waylen Nyx, I’d just as soon do it with my own two hands. After everything he’s put Meg through, the fucking asshole deserves it.
Ethan continues to fire at Mr. Nyx, which gives me the opportunity I need to launch myself across the room at the bastard. Though my bouncer has to aim more carefully now with me moving in front of his gun, I trust my guy completely.
Waylen Nyx looks up at me with wide eyes as I barrel across the room, slamming into the couch and knocking it backward on top of him. He shouts in surprise, having never expected that move, but I think it’s clear to him now that he’s pissed off the wrong Fixer.
I easily climb over the couch, and seeing that Mr. Nyx has lost his gun when the couch fell on top of him, I drop down onto his stomach and begin to punch him in the face. Hard. He tries to fight back, but without his trusty cane or his revolver around, he’s really nothing more than a miserable, nasty old man.
“What the fuck makes you think you can just come in here and take what doesn’t belong to you?” I shout at him as I jam my fist into his nose. Blood sprays up, covering my shirt as he groans and gasps for air. I see his hand moving toward his cane, which is only a few inches from his reach. I’m not going to give him a chance to pick it up and hit me with it, though.
“You always were soft when it comes to love,” Mr. Nyx says to me, his speech slurred from the constant hammering of my fists into his face. “You don’t have what it takes to be a strong businessman anymore, Hunter Stone.”
I stop my punching long enough to listen to him, but I’m not sure why. He’s just bullshitting me now, trying to get me to be more lenient so that I don’t kill him. Either that or he’s stalling so that his assholes can get here from other parts of the apartment building and shoot me before I can kill him, possibly drawn by the rounds of shots fired.
But he knows me better than most people, so those words sting a bit, more than they would if someone else was speaking them. “Shut the fuck up, Waylen!” I tell him, but he only chuckles at me.
“It doesn’t surprise me one bit to hear you deny it.” I punch him again, this time in the side of the head, and his eyes roll backward a bit before he’s looking at me again. “You love the girl, and you want her more than you want the cash, even though the money is more important in the overall scheme of things.”
“If you think that money is more important than the people you care about, then you’ll be dancing with the devil in just a couple of seconds, you bastard,” I say.
I don’t know how he’s laughing while I’m punching him in the face over and over again so that his entire head looks like tenderized meat, but he continues to chuckle, as if this is all a big joke and I’ll get off of him without beating him to death, but that’s not the plan. I will kill him.
Moving down to his body where his vital organs are, I throw a right hook and then a left jab. That takes his ability to laugh away. Now he’s grimacing. I should probably pick up his pistol that’s lying nearby and finish him off, but beating the shit out of him is so much more fun.
“Hunter!” I hear Meg shout from the kitchen. Worried that she’s hurt, I turn my head, and that’s when a sharp pain radiates down my skull, and the room begins to twirl. Darkness fills my periphery, and I’m fighting to stay upright.