Page 48 of Girl, Unmasked (Ella Dark #28)

Ella had never put much stock in hunches. She was a creature of cold, hard facts, not flights of fancy or wild stabs in the dark. But as she stared down the gun barrel at Ezra Borgman's twisted grin, she couldn't deny the feeling of rightness that settled in her gut.

Drago LaChance was completely innocent. The real killer was right in front of her.

In that moment, Ella knew two things with the kind of crystalline clarity that only came in the throes of a life-or-death situation: one, Ezra Borgman had to be stopped, and two, the stupid son of a bitch wasn't going to go quietly.

‘I won’t tell you again,’ Ella shouted. ‘Drop it.’

The look on Ezra's face was almost comical – shock giving way to confusion, then a sort of perverse glee. Like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar who decided to smash the damn thing anyway.

Ella quickly catalogued the details. Ezra Borgman, janitor extraordinaire and serial killer poster boy.

Kirsten Lawler, bestselling author and current damsel in distress.

One knife, pressed way too close to a carotid artery for comfort.

And about a hundred civilians caught in the crossfire, all gawking like this was dinner theater gone horribly wrong.

She took a step forward, then another. Slow. Easy. Like she was trying not to startle a rabid junkyard dog. The distance to the stage yawned like a canyon. Too far to rush him, too close to risk a wild shot. One wrong move and Kirsten Lawler would be penning her memoirs from beyond the grave.

‘Ezra. I need you to stop and think about this.’

She was locked in a staring battle with him, but there was no flicker of reason or conscience or remorse in that gaze. Just the feral hunger of a predator interrupted mid-kill.

‘I’m finishing what I started,’ Ezra yelled back.

So he had a voice. That was a start. And Ella counted her blessings that he hadn’t already gutted Kirsten and opted for suicide by cop.

‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘That book is fiction. It means nothing. Drago doesn’t want any of this.’

It was a gamble, and for a second Ella thought it had backfired spectacularly. Ezra's face twisted as he tightened his grip on Kirsten, who let out a strangled whimper. A thin line of red appeared where the knife kissed her throat.

‘Yes he does. After this, he’s going to have a following. I’m giving him the fame he couldn’t give himself.’

Ella took another careful step forward. ‘I'm listening, Ezra. Tell me what this is all about.’

‘This is my gift. To the man who saved me.’

‘Ezra,’ Ella tried again. Almost to the stage now, close enough to see the crazed glitter of Ezra's eyes. ‘We have Drago locked up in the cells. He thinks he did this. If you carry on, you’re going to kill the man who saved you.’

He twisted the knife, and Kirsten let out a sob, tears cutting through what little remained of her foundation. Sirens dopplered in the near distance – Ella’s insurance in case this went south – but they might as well have been on Mars for all the good they'd do.

Ella's fingers itched on the trigger. She could take the shot. Probably. Maybe. But at this range, with Kirsten playing unwilling shield... no. Too risky. One twitch, one miscalculation, and she'd be explaining to the director why she'd turned a hostage situation into an impromptu execution.

Think, Dark. There had to be a way out of this that didn't end with blood on the floor and another notch on Ezra's angelic bedpost.

Her eyes darted around the theater, searching for anything she could use to tip the odds.

Ezra had positioned himself perfectly. Hunched behind Kirsten with her as his human shield.

He towered over her by at least a foot, but he'd angled his body so that only the top of his head was visible above hers.

Any shot would have to thread through a space no bigger than a playing card, with Kirsten's skull serving as the backstop if she missed by even an inch.

At this range, with a hostage who kept sobbing and shifting, the shot was impossible.

But there there.

Hanging above the stage.

A projector, squat black and mounted on an old accordion rig. It was suspended right over Ezra and Kirsten's heads, held up by a web of fraying cables.

He towered over Kirsten by at least a foot, so it would be his head that took the impact. Hopefully, it would break the momentum enough to leave Kirsten injured but alive.

A plan began to form in Ella's mind. It was risky, borderline insane. The kind of Hail Mary play that got you either a commendation or a psych evaluation. But with Ezra's knife inching closer to Kirsten's jugular with every second, it was the only card left to play.

‘Okay, Ezra,’ Ella said, loud enough for the whole auditorium to hear. ‘Why don't we just both put our weapons down and talk about this like adults?’

Ezra watched her, suspicious, but she could see his arm relaxing infinitesimally.

‘You first,’ he said.

‘Fine.’ Ella began to lower her gun. ‘See? I'm putting it down. Now it's your turn.’

Ezra's grin widened. ‘You think I’m stupid? You think I’m going to…’

Then, quick as a viper striking, Ella brought her gun back up.

But instead of aiming at Ezra, she pointed it at the ceiling.

Her gun exploded three times and the auditorium erupted in a frenzy of screams, but Ella’s eyes never left her target, the bullet already in flight, screaming towards its destiny at 900 feet per second.

The rounds punched through the projector housing like it was tinfoil, ripping through delicate circuitry and sending a fountain of sparks geysering into the air. The whole apparatus lurched, teetered for a heartstopping second that seemed to stretch into a rubbery eternity.

Then, with a grating shriek of overstressed metal, the thing gave way. Ella saw the moment understanding dawned in Ezra's eyes. But it was too late. The projector plummeted like a black meteor of tubes and wires towards the stage.

And Ezra’s skull.

Ella saw it all in slow motion. The falling projector, Ezra’s last ditch attempt to protect himself by pushing Kirsten aside and cowering, the hundred-plus pounds of solid metal fury slamming into Ezra Borgman's skull and nearly knocking his head off his shoulders.

The projector, the heavy duty rig and all the supports attached to it bounced off his head and sent Ezra Borgman reeling.

She had him.

Ella rushed the stage. Ezra was topping from side to side, clutching his head, still with a blade in his grip. Blood coursed down his face from a gash in his forehead and his eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.

Time to get personal.

Ella didn't give him a chance to get his bearings.

She sheathed her gun, then barreled into him with every ounce of fury she had left.

The knife flew from his grip and skittered into the darkness beyond the footlights.

Ezra sprawled beneath her, dazed and bleeding, and for a moment Ella's fists clenched.

She wanted to beat him until her knuckles split, until every ounce of rage she felt for Sophie, Martina, and William had somewhere to go.

But then she thought of Austin Creed. Remembered sitting in that courtroom, watching him get sentenced to death, feeling that hollow victory settle in her chest. She'd helped put him on death row and it hadn't brought back any of his victims. It hadn't even made her feel better.

She could do it, but what would that make her? Ezra deserved it, but she’d just be another person dealing out pain because she could.

Let him rot in a cell for whatever time he had left. Let him watch his body fail him day by day with nothing but concrete walls for company. That was justice enough.

She lowered her fist.

It was over. The angel maker was grounded, permanently. No more halos, no more barbed wire, no more chapters written in blood. The curtain had come down on Ezra's magnum opus, and Ella was pretty damn sure there wouldn't be an encore.

She fished out her cuffs, rolled Ezra over and snapped them on.

‘Ezra Borgman, you’re under arrest for… crap that’ll take us years to sort out.’

As the adrenaline began to ebb, Ella became acutely aware of the silence that had fallen over the theater. She glanced out at the sea of faces, then almost on autopilot, she staggered over to the podium and leaned into the mic.

Now she was on the spot. Usually, she’d have no shortage of insights to throw out there, but right now her mind was blank.

She picked up a copy of Kirsten Lawler’s book that lay idly beside the mic. ‘You know, I always thought books were dead,’ she began. A quick glance back at Ezra’s lifeless body. ‘But words have power. They can inspire, heal, and sometimes they can kill.’

Right at the moment, Ella’s backup came bursting through the door.

Finally, game over.