Page 126 of Dirty Hearts

“Fucking bastard.” Jude frowned.

I looked around trying to see where Claudius was but got nothing.

Nothing except footsteps. They sounded everywhere, all at once. Then I realized it wasn’t just him who came. There were more people.

“Jude.” That was Dante.

“You’re outnumbered Jude.” That was Gio.

“Vastly, outnumbered.” Luc. That was Luc.

A guy with spiky black hair rushed up to us. He was the guy that came through the window.

“We’re surrounded. There’s at least ten of them.” He spoke in a hushed voice.

“Where’s Joe?” Jude asked.

The man shook his head. “No one’s responding to my calls. I think they know Goliath’s dead.”

Goliath dead.Claudius. He must have done it. He did it.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel that some form of justice had been served with his death, but look at me. Look at the situation I was in.

“Go to the front and cover me.” Jude ordered once again tightening his grip on my arm. It hurt so much.

The man readied his gun and snaked down the aisle opposite us while we continued toward the back of the place where it got darker.

“Jude, let her go and come and face me like a man,” Claudius screamed.

We got to a door. Jude tried to open it but it seemed like it was locked from the outside.

“Shit.”

Bullets sounded and then a desperate cry of terror. Jude pulled me behind a shelf that had boxes of all different shapes and sizes.

A noise shuffled behind us and Jude whirled around.

Claudius stood there holding out two guns in front of him. His face was worse beaten and bloody than earlier. Beaten and swollen.

Luc, Dante and Gio came into view, behind him. Guns up.

Jude laughed a cynical laugh and pressed his gun to my temple hard, holding me tight to his chest. So tight I thought he was going to crush me.

This was the fourth time now that I’d had to fear for my life like this.

The fourth time, and from the way things looked, it might be the last.

“Let her go, Jude,” Luc ordered. “It’s over.”

“You prick, you couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” Jude cried

Claudius wasn’t saying anything. It meant he was infernal mad. Like a volcano minutes before it erupted.

“Bastard, we all trusted you. You were playing us this whole time,” Luc continued.

Dante and Gio glared at him too. Disappointment on their faces.

Jude pulled the trigger back, and I thought this was it for me.