Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 138334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 692(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 692(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
He struggled and sank to his thighs. The leopard stopped, those eyes never leaving his face. Very slowly, so as not to trigger the large cat’s instincts, McGregor put the binoculars down and reached into his jacket for his gun. He’d barely managed to pull it out when the leopard was on him, his teeth clamping around his arm, crunching down on his bone, sawing through skin, muscle, bone, everything, so he screamed in agony and dropped the gun. The leopard backed off, although the eyes never stopped staring at him.
McGregor watched in horror as the leopard contorted, the muscles and head shifting and moving until he was no longer looking at a leopard but at a large, very muscular man. He recognized him instantly. Gedeon Volkov casually pulled the pack from around his neck and dragged on a pair of drawstring trousers.
“You came out here to kill me, McGregor. Not only me but my woman as well. That wasn’t smart. Hawkins is too arrogant to do any research into who he’s hiring, but you’re smarter than that. You wouldn’t have your reputation and you wouldn’t have stayed alive this long unless you knew what you were doing.”
McGregor was too horrified at what he’d just witnessed to respond. Yeah, he’d done his research. He’d thought about walking away, but the temptation to kill Gedeon Volkov was too much to give up.
“Those women you killed for Hawkins, you want to tell me where you buried them?”
“Fuck you, Volkov,” McGregor snapped, trying to think of how he was going to get out of the mess he was in.
Gedeon was a few feet away from him one minute; the next, he was so close, McGregor could smell the leopard in him. Volkov moved so fast, he was a blur. McGregor’s clothes were in tatters, strips floating in the air as the leopard tore them from him in a fury. His skin was next, long rakes, deep, his chest and back, his neck, those terrible claws sinking into him and ripping through his flesh.
Gedeon was on him in a flash and gone just as fast, so at first McGregor thought he’d gone crazy, that the man hadn’t morphed into a partial leopard and ripped him into pieces while the ground held him captive. Looking down, he saw that it was true. The pain was excruciating.
That wasn’t even the worst. Tiny flies and other bugs found their way into the open wounds and began to feast. He felt as if he was being eaten alive. He looked down at the floor of the island. The leaves had come alive with ants. They formed bridges and crawled up his legs to find their way into the wounds. Beetles joined them. He heard the flutter of wings and found large birds with thick curved beaks and shiny eyes staring down at him from the branches above him. He was surrounded.
“Just kill me, for God’s sake,” he yelled at Gedeon.
“Why would I show you one ounce of mercy, McGregor? Did you show those women any mercy? Any of the victims you murdered, did you show them one moment of mercy?”
“Kill me.”
“Where are they?” Gedeon persisted.
In the end, McGregor made up several locations before he told the truth. Gedeon moved fast, using his knife to make the kill, opening the jugular, not wanting Slayer to make the kill. He made his way back to Meiling, afraid she would reject the man he was. She saw him at his worst, when the monster was out, but she simply put her arms around him and held him before asking him to take her home.
* * *
* * *
HAWKINS,” Gedeon greeted. “You look smug sitting there reading that text from your number-one man, McGregor. Looks like he found Laverne and took care of her and Edge for you right along with my woman, Meiling, and, of course, me. But then, if he did, how am I sitting here in your grandiose bedroom that’s more for show than for reality?”
Hawkins slowly lowered his tablet and stared at Gedeon as if he had two heads. He looked around the large room. “It is ostentatious, isn’t it? I hire designers and this is what I get.”
“It’s always someone else’s fault, never your own,” Gedeon said. He held up McGregor’s phone. “Your man missed this time. You should have done your homework before you sent him after me and mine. I spotted the shadow the very first night. I knew then I was going to kill him. And then I was going to kill you.”
Hawkins chuckled. “I don’t think that’s necessary, Gedeon. I’ll be the first to admit I could have made a mistake about you. There’s always room for negotiation.”
“We can negotiate pills or knives. Either is acceptable. There are a couple of pills on your nightstand. You can take one now and we keep talking. Or I can slice a knife across your belly, not too deep but enough that you feel it and we keep talking. Your choice.”