Page 47 of Femme Fatale
“…fucking monster,” Zeke was saying. “You could’ve let us go, but you can’t stand not owning everything you touch.”
Jack’s reply was pure ice. “You think you’re better than me? You’re just a shittier version. I should have drowned you at birth.”
I slid the safety off and waited for my heartbeat to slow. There was another noise—a faint, metallic click. I pictured Zeke chained to a chair, the desk between him and the window, Jack circling like a coyote. For a second, I just let myself feel the heat in my chest. Zeke was alive. Hurt, probably close to broken, but alive. It was more than I’d hoped for.
I reached for the knob, took one last breath, and kicked the door in. I didn’t know if I was walking into a trap or a family reunion. I didn’t care. The only thing left was the kill.
Jack stood at the far end, half-shadowed by a desk lamp, the gun already in his hand, arm outstretched and eyes fixed on the gap. Zeke was alive, upright, and bleeding from chest wounds.
I froze, just a blink, but that’s all Jack needed. He smiled, that shark’s sneer, and said, “Hello, darling.” He reached for the desk drawer.
I barely processed the words. My mind stuttered on the image of Zeke, blood running from his lip, one eye swelling shut, but alive, alive, alive.
That blink cost me.
Jack jerked the drawer open, fished out a pistol so polished it shone in the lamplight. I saw the movement, muscle memory kicking in, but the angle was wrong and Zeke was in the line of fire. Jack leveled the gun at me, finger curling, lips parting for a quip or a curse. And then Zeke moved.
He must have picked the cuffs, or Jack had never locked them right. Zeke’s left hand came up, holding a .45 so hard against Jack’s side that the muzzle dimpled his suit. Zeke didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger.
The noise in that little room was cataclysmic. Jack’s eyes bulged. The slug caught him in the ribs, tearing through flesh and silk and bone. For a second, he just stood there, mouth working, blood already welling up and soaking his shirt. Then his legs went out, and he collapsed onto the desk, the pistolclattering harmlessly to the floor. The blood was so red it looked painted. It sprayed the wall, the chair, and the edges of the desk.
For a beat, nothing happened. Just Zeke, standing, gun still raised, breath ragged. Jack’s body slumped, limp and leaking. The wolf-head necklace swayed, pendulum on a crime scene.
Then the door behind me blew open, and two men barreled in. Both big, both wired for violence, both carrying sidearms. I didn’t even think. I spun, dropped into a crouch, and fired three times. The first shot took the lead man in the eye. The second tore through the other guy’s cheek. The third missed, but it didn’t matter; both were already falling. They landed hard, skulls popping against the fake marble.
I stood, gun up, chest heaving. Blood pooled under the men, oozed out from Jack’s collapsed chest, and spattered across Zeke’s face and hands. I could taste it in the air, metallic and raw. The place looked like a fucking bloodbath.
Zeke looked at me, blinking away the shock. I wanted to run to him, wanted to wrap him up and bury my face in his neck, but there were still two loaded guns in the room and a dead man who’d spent his whole life cheating death.
I limped over, bent, and checked Jack’s pulse. There was none. His eyes were open, but what was behind them was already gone.
I stared at him for a long second. Then I looked at Zeke, who was still holding the .45, arm extended. He shook all over, blood leaking from his own wounds, but his grip was steady.
“Did you mean to do it?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he lowered the gun and looked at me with something like relief, and something else, darker. “You got shot,” he said, voice broken.
“Just a graze,” I lied.
We both stared at the ruin we’d made. It looked like the end of the world, and maybe that’s what it was.
Then I heard the footsteps again, outside, and knew we had a minute, maybe less, before the rest of the security team woke up and decided to finish what Jack started.
I took Zeke’s hand, warm and sticky with blood, and squeezed. “Can you walk?”
He nodded, wordless. I squeezed harder, and for the first time in years, I thought I might cry after all.
But I didn’t. I just chambered a fresh round, shoved the door with my shoulder, and pulled Zeke behind me. Time to go.
The corridor outside Jack’s office echoed with panic and the smell of gunpowder. I’d barely pulled Zeke into the hall when Stephanie appeared at the stairwell, gun drawn and eyes wide with murder. She took in the mess, including me limping, Zeke, covered in blood, and the ruined wall behind us. Her face shifted from shock to a calm that bordered on religious.
“You did it?” she asked.
I nodded, but she’d already pushed past me. She ducked into the office, stepped over the bodies, and met Zeke’s eyes. The two of them exchanged a look I couldn’t decipher, one that was equal parts mutual disgust and ancient understanding.
Stephanie set her pistol on the desk, then grabbed one of the dead men by the ankle and hauled him, casual as moving a sandbag, into the center of the room. I grabbed the other, ignoring the shooting pain up my leg. We worked in silence, stacking them against the radiator and using a throw rug to mop up the worst of the blood. Jack’s body didn’t move, but his face sagged into something softer in death, almost normal, almost human.
Nines slipped in through the side entrance, phone pressed to her ear. She had a half-eaten candy bar in one hand and a backpack slung low across her body. “Cameras are reset,” she said. “Our entrance is erased. Security’s on a ten-minute loop, so we’re ghosts until the next shift.”
