“Yep,” James says.
“You clearly like living on the edge. How’s your girlfriend. After she was shot?”
Fuck.
Another cop is about to be squashed, and it won’t be me firing the punches this time.
“I heard she and Burrows have been getting friendly again.” Collins raises the phone to her ear, and I ask myself with true wonder if she realizes who she is poking? What he’s truly capable of? Or does she really think she’s above us because she’s holding a badge? This one isn’t fitting in our pockets, that’s for sure.
“Incoming!”
The guys at the bar all dive off their stools, and James rugby tackles me from the side, taking me off my feet. I look up, stunned, dazed, fucking confused.Fuck!Volodya and a gang of heavies are forming a line that spans half the space, and they are all armed with machine guns that start spraying the club.
“Move,” James hisses, crawling combat style to a nearby booth and getting himself behind the wood, sitting up and pulling his gun.
“That looks rather insufficient.” I join him, arming myself, and peek out, popping off one of the brutes. I have a quick scan. A very alive Collins has found her way to the end of the bar, her gun poised, ready to take a shot. It’s a crying fucking shame. Volodya could have done us a favor.
“Danny!”
I look toward the other end of the bar and see Mason. He holds up an AK47 and then slides it across the floor to me, followed in quick succession by another. I don’t know where the fuck they’ve come from, and in this moment, I don’t care. I toss one to James, load, and lean out, firing on the fuckers on a roar. I watch three drop and the others scatter like ants, and I retreat to reload, just as James takes my place and starts popping bullets.
There’s a brief pause in noise, and I hear a door open. I look up and see Brad. His shoulder still strapped, his good hand holding a harpoon. A fucking harpoon. “Get back in there,” I warn.
“Fuck off.” He fires, and I follow the arrow’s path until it ploughs straight through one of the Russian’s eye sockets, pinning him to the wall behind him.Jesus Christ.Brad retreats behind the door and James gets up on his knees, resting the tip of his gun on the top of the booth seating.
“Where are the others?” I ask, joining him, scanning the place. Ten men walked in. There are only six lying on the club floor, and none of them are Volodya. “Pray do tell me they’ve not left, because I need that fucker deadnow.”
My phone dings in my hand, and a message from Otto appears. A link to a live stream. I click and see the club fill my screen. “They’re in the round booth nearest the door.”
“Give me a cigarette,” James orders.
Good idea. I fish them out of my pocket and light one for him, putting it between his lips before sorting myself out. I breath in the nicotine. Breathe it out. “Ready?”
“Yep,” he exhales, moving out, creeping across the club, heading for the round booth by the door. I follow, my eyes split between the screen of my phone and where we’re heading. They’re reloading. James looks back at me and jerk his head, sending me to the other end. We crouch behind the booth. Then he holds up two fingers. Drops one. Then another.
I nod, we stand, and point our guns over the top. “Hi.” I smile, my cigarette between my teeth, and we start raining bullets down on them, watching through the plumes of smoke before my eyes as their bodies jerk and jump and pieces of foam from the plush padded seats pop up into the air with beads of blood and chunks of flesh.
I don’t ease off the trigger until it starts clicking, pulling on my cigarette and breathing out, relaxing. “I promised my wife today was just meetings.” I sneer, pulling my pistol and putting a bullet straight between Volodya’s open eyes. “That’s for making me break a promise to my wife.” I pop him again. “That’s for turning me over three years ago.”Bang!“And that’s for good fucking luck.”
“I think he’s dead,” James says, setting his gun on the table of the booth, gazing around the club. “Everyone good?”
Three heads pop up from behind the bar, followed by Mason.
“Do you get asked for an AK with a dirty martini often?” I ask.
He shrugs, assessing the state of his bar. All things considered, it isn’t too bad. “I might need a hand sorting this if you want us to open tonight.”
I wander over to the bar and check the others, finding them all brushing glass shards gingerly from their clothes. Goldie has a few nicks on her face. I don’t address them. She won’t appreciate it.
I walk to the end of the bar and find Collins still on her arse, still armed. I bet the fucking chamber is still full too. She didn’t want the Russians dead. “I’d say that was an unprovoked attack.”
She gets to her feet, her eyes assessing the club, the bodies, the mess. “I’d say you’ve just given me”—she nods around the club, counting the bodies—“ten more reasons to arrest you.”
“Really?” I ask tiredly. I should let James at her. But killing a cop is a whole different ballgame to killing ten Russians. We can lose the Russians and they won’t be missed. It’s trickier to lose a fucking cop. More of a headache. So, we need to think hard about how we handle this since, technically, we really have just given the cocky bitch ten reasons to arrest us. We’re in the state of Florida. If I’m going to die, I’d rather it not be by lethal injection.
I look back at James as I take a final drag of my cigarette, asking him silently if he has any suggestions. His mild head shake tells me no. A few grand isn’t going to cut this. But a few million could. I drop my cigarette butt in a nearby empty glass and—
Bang!