Page 204 of House of Cards

“Guess we finally agree on something,” Smith deadpans as he pulls the door closed behind him.

Smith

Another shot goes off as I race down the stairs. I feel too exposed in just a pair of cashmere blend slacks, but there’s no time to waste. Thank fuck they’re taking their time, else everyone would already be dead, that room a slaughterhouse.

Troy is already stationed at the door of the entertainment room when I arrive.

Muffled laughter reaches us through the doors. A woman screaming.

I already checked the AR-15 I took off Miguel’s body. I raise it to shoulder height, crouching.

“Ready,” I murmur to Troy.

He nods, switching to hand signals.

YOU’RE LEFT, I’M RIGHT.

STAY BEHIND ME.

Troy slips inside, knees and elbows bent, his silenced Ruger switched out for a camo painted AK-47 he must have taken off another cartel soldier. I follow close behind, using his body as a shield.

Elonzo’s men don’t even see us coming.

They’re all facing the pool table on the left, where a guy has one of the villa’s serving women pinned. He gets a bullet in thehead courtesy of Troy’s rifle. Several of the armed men nearby turn to the doorway, raising their guns, but it’s already too late for them. Troy squeezes off a half-dozen head shots in short, lethal bursts.

“Everyone down!” I yell, already focusing on the right side of the room to pick out my targets.

Thankfully, many of the hostages hit the ground as soon as they saw us coming into the room. The rest fall down at my command, hands over the back of their heads. Elonzo’s men, of course, don’t.

I take down two of them before they’ve raised their weapons.

Me and Troy scramble to take cover behind a sofa. Hand signals flash between us, then we’re both peeking out from different ends of the furniture, picking out the easiest targets.

Where the fuck is Ricky? The last thing I want is to gun him down accidentally. My quick scan can’t find a glimpse of his sports jacket anywhere. But I can confirm that our security team was the first to be executed. None of them are alive.

One of Elonzo’s men decides he’s going to be spiteful and shoots the closest hostage point blank in the back of the head. I take him out with a hail of bullets that hacks out huge chunks of his skull, leaving only a bloody stump of a neck behind.

Bullets thump into our sofa in retaliation, and bits of upholstery and stuffing snow down on me as I’m forced to take cover.

Troy peeks out, shoots off a few rounds, drops back down again. Flashes me a hand signal.

Four men left, but they’ve taken cover and they’re trying to reach the door to escape.

But I’d rather die than let them leave this room alive. Not if there’s a chance they’d go upstairs and find Zoey.

Christ, Zoey.

A painful ache spreads through my chest. Grief so harsh and sudden, it’s like she’s already dead and I’m mourning her.

She might as well be.

I saw the look in her eyes. The confirmation of everything she thought true about me. That I always thought true of myself.

I’m not the man for her.

I’m not even a man.

I’m a fucking beast who kills on instinct. Selfish, brutal, irredeemable.

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