Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
I nodded twice.
And every light in the club went out.
68
BRONWYN
Something you never really think about: there are no windows in a nightclub.
When the lights went out, it didn’t go dark, it went black. And for a second, it went silent: everyone in the glass-walled room froze in shock. The music had stopped, too, and my ears throbbed from the sudden quiet. Then the crowd downstairs began to scream and panic.
And then the shooting started.
It didn’t sound like shooting. More like a hard thud, and the sound of glass breaking, and a man crying out, all at the same time. I heard a body slump to the floor, somewhere behind Radimir. Then it happened again. And again. And again.
Spartak still had hold of me. He gripped my wrist so hard, I thought the bones were going to snap. I could hear him fumbling frantically with something and then suddenly there was light: he’d turned on the flashlight on his phone and was shining it around—
The light found a body lying on the floor. One of Spartak’s men, his chest ruined and bloody. A second body. A third. And then Radimir, rising from his knees, his face like thunder.
Spartak went sheet white. He hooked an arm around my neck and pulled me back against him, using me as a shield. There was another shot and another of Spartak’s men fell. This one toppled forward and fell through the glass wall, smashing a huge hole and then tumbling into the darkness. A few seconds later, the screams from the people three floors below turned full-on hysterical as he landed in the crowd.
I saw Spartak look around in terror: he only had one man left, now, and Radimir was marching towards him. He put his gun to my head, and I froze as the cold metal kissed my temple. Radimir froze, too.
Spartak looked around, then began dragging me backwards, towards the wall. Where’s he taking me? There’s nothing there! The only door was on the far side of the room.
But then Spartak pushed on one of the wall panels and it swung aside: a secret door. He pulled me into a cramped, dark stairwell leading down. He snapped his fingers at Liliya, ordering her the way you would an animal, and she hurried in after us.
“Kill him!” Spartak yelled at his last surviving bodyguard. Then he pulled the door shut and shot a heavy metal bolt across, locking Radimir out.
69
RADIMIR
The panel closed and I was in blackness again. I wasted precious seconds getting my phone out and turning on the flashlight, then ran to the wall and felt the wall panel. It was smooth, painted metal like all the others: if I hadn’t seen it open for Spartak, I wouldn’t have even known it was a door. I pushed on it like he did, but it refused to open: he must have locked it from the other side. My plan was falling apart: I hadn’t bet on him having a secret escape route. I’d glimpsed stairs behind the door, leading down. I had to get downstairs and find Bronwyn, now, or he’d escape with her and—my stomach flipped. I didn’t want to think about what he and his men would do to her.
First, though, I had another problem. The last of Spartak’s bodyguards had been fumbling with his phone, trying to get his flashlight on so he could see. But now I’d turned mine on, he was going for his gun instead—
There was no time to turn my flashlight off. I dodged, and covered my phone with my jacket, and we were in darkness again. A shot rang out and I felt a bullet hiss past me, horribly close.
I ran for where I thought the noise had come from, hoping to shoulder-charge him. But instead of whacking into him, I stumbled on and on...and then suddenly had to pull up short, arms windmilling, when I felt a breeze in front of me: I’d very nearly run straight out of the hole in the glass wall and gone plunging to my death. I stood there shaking and sweating for a second, trying to figure out where the bodyguard was. Then he slammed into my side, and we crashed to the floor together, rolling and struggling in total darkness.
Broken glass crunched under me. Then he punched me in the face, and I reeled, dazed. Another punch from the other side and now I was barely conscious: I couldn’t avoid them, couldn’t even see where they were coming from…
Bright white light suddenly washed across us. I could see the man straddling me as he looked up in surprise...and then there was a shot, and he fell backwards off me. Alexei stepped into view, just as coolly professional as I remembered him all those years ago.
I nodded my thanks, and something passed between us. My throat tightened, thinking of all the times I should have called him, over the last decade, all the times I could have made things right, and didn’t.