Page 46 of Femme Fatale
I stood, forcing my legs to hold. The wound under the vest had soaked through to the bandages taped beneath. The pain was nothing compared to the hate. “You’re wrong,” I said. “You don’t win. Not this time.”
He stood, walked around the desk, slow and deliberate. “Every time I looked at you, I saw myself. I hated it. But I trained you anyway. Like a pit bull. Too bad you turned out to be a mutt.”
I let him get close. I wanted to see the whites of his eyes when the bullet finally left the chamber. But I didn’t raise the gun. Not yet.
His hands were behind his back, always hiding something. I waited for the punchline.
It came in the form of a knock—soft, then louder. Jack raised a finger, and the door opened. Kane stepped in, eyes darting between us, unsure which one of us was the bigger threat.
“Boss,” Kane said. “She’s coming. Selene. She’s alone.”
Jack smiled, teeth shining. “Let her in,” he said, and Kane nodded, disappeared.
Jack turned to me, his whole body vibrating with anticipation. “This is your chance, Zeke. Last shot. You want to die a man, or you want to die a coward?”
The gun was still heavy in my hand. I wanted to lift it, wanted to end this. But all I could do was breathe in and out, letting the hate ride its circuit one more time through my body.
He came close, whispering now. “When she walks through that door, you get one choice. Kill me, or watch her die. That’s it. That’s what men do. They choose.”
The world slowed. I watched Jack’s face, every pore, every wrinkle. I watched the glint of the wolf necklace in the lamplight, the gun barrel shining with oil and fingerprints.
A shadow crossed the surveillance screens. It was Selene, riding hard, dust rising behind her, headlamp slicing through the Nevada dark.
Jack turned, arms open, messianic. “Let’s finish this,” he said, and the smile he wore was the same one he’d given me when I was five and he broke my favorite toy just to see if I’d cry.
I didn’t cry. Not then. Not now.
Chapter Tweleve
Selene
Itook the last two turns at sixty, brakes screeching, engine howling like a caged dog. The air had cooled, but the blood in my ears stayed hot, a percussion of memory and hate. Every bump in the road shot fire up my leg, but I white-knuckled the throttle and leaned into the pain. The lights of Jack's place, so gaudy they looked radioactive, rose over the last ridge and bled into my vision. Even from a quarter mile out, you could see where he’d thrown his ego. Neon wolves leering above the entrance, gold-tinted windows, the whole thing built to look like a billionaire’s wet dream of Versailles. The parking lot was full of SUVs, black on black, every one of them aftermarket and armored. I aimed for the back entrance, never once letting off the gas.
I killed the engine in a gutter between two loading bays. For a second, the only sound was the tick of the cooling block andmy own ragged breath. Then I heard voices, footsteps, the static crackle of a walkie. I climbed off the bike, let my weight settle evenly. My left leg was shot to hell, numb and burning, but the rest of me felt tuned to a finer frequency. Every sense awake, every muscle coiled.
The right here and now was a culmination of everything I’d been through in life. It was time to put up or shut up. I wasn’t the shut-up type.
Two guards were posted at the employee entrance. They wore navy sport coats and sidearms big enough to ruin a man’s whole night. One carried a clipboard, the other a twelve-pack of muscle and nothing behind the eyes. The old Selene would have found them attractive; the new Selene found them repulsive.
I walked right at them, gun already out and down at my thigh. They didn’t flinch at first. The clipboard one frowned, like I’d tracked blood onto his nice clean concrete.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” he said, voice bored.
I didn’t smile. I just raised the Glock, finger on the trigger. “Step aside or die,” I said, keeping my voice low. “You work for Jack, you know how this ends.”
The clipboard guy stared a second too long, weighing his next move. The other man, the big one, reached for his holster. I shot him through the knee, and he went down hard, screaming, hand spasming open and shut.
Clipboard man stepped back, hands high. “All right, all right. I don’t get paid enough.” He dropped the clipboard, eyes flicking to the bleeding guy on the ground, then back to me.
I kicked the door open, dragging my leg, and entered without looking back. I heard the clipboard man say, “Fuck this, I quit,” and the sound made me want to laugh, but I didn’t have time.
Inside, the casino was dark and too quiet. No slot bells, no drunk laughter, just the low drone of ventilation and the wet slap of my boots on the fake marble. The carpet had been rippedup in places, and the half-assed repairs just made it look more like a crime scene. Every so often, a bulb flickered, illuminating a painting or a potted plant covered in dust. Jack ran his businesses like he ran his life. All shine on the outside, rot at the core.
I kept to the edges, gun out, eyes adjusting. The adrenaline made the edges of my vision glow white, but I could still pick out the shapes—shadows moving in the bar, a pair of girls in cocktail dresses hiding behind the roulette wheel, a body slumped in a chair near the craps table. The only real sound came from up front, where the high-roller suites overlooked the floor. I recognized the cadence, even muffled. Jack was barking orders at someone. And another voice, deeper, broken by pain. I froze, then moved closer, pulse cranked up another level. The second voice was Zeke.
The stairwell to Jack’s office was supposed to be guarded. Tonight, it was just an open corridor, the carpet sticky with dried blood and puke. I went up two steps at a time, favoring my good leg, until I reached the landing. Here, the wall was covered with framed magazine covers of Jack on the front of Forbes, Jack shaking hands with a senator, Jack at the opening of some doomed Vegas restaurant. I resisted the urge to smash them and instead kept moving.
At the top of the stairs, I pressed my back to the wall and listened. Jack was pacing, boots hard on the tile, ranting about something. I heard a wet cough, then Zeke’s voice. It was shaky but alive.
