Page 158 of Hush

“You’re amonster!” Tom roared. “What you’ve done. And Mike—” He gasped, his heart seizing, and fresh tears rolled down his cheeks.

Pasha’s eyes turned ice cold, Siberian cold. “Come with me, or youwilldie.”

Snarling, Tom reached for Pasha, clawing at his face, trying to gouge out his eyes. Pasha twisted, and Tom jerked back, ripping himself from Pasha’s hold. He crawled across the kitchen floor, heading around the island, and tried to hide.

Damn it, he wasn’t brave. He wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t like Mike, who could probably karate chop Pasha with his eyes closed. He was a lawyer, he was pathetic and weak and hewasn’ta fighter.

Pasha chuckled, and Tom heard him stand by the kitchen table. “Tom… you don’t want to do this.”

“Fuck you, Pasha!”

“Do you really want to die? Is this how you want to end your life?”

Footsteps, slowly coming closer, creeping over the wooden floor. Etta Mae scratched and scratched at the door, her whimpers turning to mournful howls.

Tom thunked his head against the oak cabinet and closed his eyes.What do I do? What do I do?When he opened his eyes, his gaze landed on the sink.

He’d chopped a tomato last night for the burgers.

Pasha’s measured steps came closer, and he stepped on the creaky board, the one four feet from the kitchen island that he’d always had to avoid as a child whenever he sneaked in for a midnight snack after his parents went to bed. “I’m going to fuck you again before I kill you.”

Tom scrambled around the side of the kitchen island. He breathed in. Counted to three. And lunged.

The knife he’d used the night before was still in the sink, an oversized chopping knife he’d had to sharpen before using. They’d left the dishes, not caring about the mess, more interested in getting into bed. Thank God.

He heard Pasha rushing for him. He had his back to his former lover. Former lover, and now Russian spy, co-conspirator of a mass murder. How had it all come to this?

Spinning, Tom gripped the knife handle in a fist, raising it high over his head. Pasha was only a foot away, lunging for him, his face twisted in a lecherous sneer, hands outstretched—

Tom plunged the knife into Pasha’s chest, just to the right of his sternum. He felt bones crunch and crack as the thick blade slammed through his ribs, plowed through cartilage, and entered Pasha’s lung. In his long career as a prosecutor, Tom had seen his share of stabbings. And stabbings to the chest, he knew, were most often fatal.

His first love. His first murder.

Pasha’s eyes went wide. He stared at Tom, and then down at the knife. He reached for Tom again.

Tom heaved the knife from his chest and stabbed him again, lower. Again, the crunch of bones, the slice of soft tissue. Pasha coughed. He stumbled back, clutching at the knife, falling to his knees as he reached for Tom.

Etta Mae howled, wailing inside the bedroom, scratching frantically at the casing.

The front door burst open, banging off the wall. “Pasha!” Barnes shouted. “What the fuck is going on?”

Pasha’s gaze landed on Tom. His eyes watered, and he stared at Tom wistfully. He opened his mouth, croaking out a pained grunt.

Tom heard Barnes curse, heard him start to run.

Jesus, he had to move. He had to escape. He had to get out of there,now.

Tom stepped over Pasha, racing for the backdoor, fleeing to the porch and then over the railing, into the tangled brush around the creek. Behind him, he heard the backdoor swing open again, and then Barnes shout his name. He kept running, heading for the cover of the forest.

A gunshot cracked the air, splitting through the forest, and a tree trunk just to his right spat bark and debris as a bullet slammed into the side. Another shot. Tree bark and wood splinters sprayed him from the left.

Tom turned deeper into the thickening woods.

Villegas peered through his binoculars as he lay in his blind on the mountainside, watching Brewer’s family cabin below the bend. He was wearing camouflage and had set up a small blind in the trees and boulders, obscuring himself from the road below.

He didn’t have a perfect line of sight on the entire place, though. There was a giant boulder by his right shoulder, digging into his side, and beyond the boulder, a drop-off into a ravine that gouged into the mountain. He was as close as he could get without being seen, and as far over as he could get without plunging into the ravine, but he still couldn’t see the far side of the cabin, with the rattlesnake ditch.

Who in their right mind would keep a ditch full of rattlesnakes?