Page 104 of The Boss

This idiot killed Shae?

I…

I grab the burner phone I tucked in the pocket of the bag and turn it on before I even know I’m doing it. My heart is making decisions before my head can catch up. Too late now, no going back. I smile at the siblings as they lead me out of the locked room. As soon as we hit the hallway, with false bravery and skills I don’t even really have, I pull out my gun.

I shoot a round of bullets at Vadim legs hoping to hit a knee, because they’re right there and I need him immobile. Vix pulls a gun but I’m too fast and she was too surprised. I aim for her side, shoot her in the shoulder and yell, “Vix! Everyone is a glass black bird. Run!”

But she’s already screaming Russian orders into her watch.

As I run down the hall to the exit, two men close in behind me but I focus on the doorknob. Shot after shot on the keyhole. I miss but hit, miss, miss, hit again.

I scream in Italian so the burner phone and any cameras in here can hear me, “Van, I don’t know who you work for but they better be as powerful as you say. Get me a chopper on the top of this building! Right fucking now!”

Please, God, get me out of this spa!

By the time I reach the lobby door, the glass shatters and when I press on the door it opens. It’s heavy, still wanting to be locked but the bolt is gone from my gunfire.

Push, Push, Luna, Push!

I use every bit of strength I can think of, channel all the anguish, fear, bitterness and bitter rage I can into the damn door. It moves. Outside there’s a guard but I use a few shots to take out one of his legs too. I am missing a lot because this is not the gun range and the targets are moving, but luckily I packed a lot of fucking bullets.

The guard curses and shoots me in the gut but Van’s kevlar vest takes the brunt. Still, the wind is knocked out of me. The guard falls, at least, but I know he won’t stay down if he’s had any kind of worthwhile training. I run out the Spa’s door into the hall.

I make a point of finding two things, a stairwell and a security camera. I find both around a corner. “Van!” I say to the camera. “Right fucking now!” Then I smash through the stairway door and up two flights. I bust out into the hall on the thirty-second floor and find the elevator.

“Come on, come on…”

Marlon is whining badly in my backpack but I block out the sound. He could be bleeding out. He’s such a tiny dog and one stray bullet…

Stop! You can’t help him if you’re dead!

The elevator is empty and I get in and get the doors shut but we only make it a few floors before it stops. I brace myself to have to shoot more guards as soon as the doors open. But it’s just a little old man in a suit. He takes five hundred and thirty five days to walk onto the elevator and press the button for fifty.

We only make it three more floors. I brace again.

Shit, two guards.

I use way too many bullets to take out their legs.

“Shit!” I say as fire burns through my left hip and right shoulder. “Motherfucker!”

The doors start to close.

OW OW OW!I feel woozy.No! Just keep moving! Keep moving!

I debate the stairs. I can't climb the stairs quickly enough with a busted hip. “Van,” I say to the elevator camera, “I’m hit in the hip, I can't take the stairs and I won’t make it to the top of this building unless you work some kind of miracle here!”

“M-m-my name is Ernest,” says the poor little man next to me.

“Hey Ernie, can I call you Ernie? We’re going to be fine. You’re not going to get shot. My boyfriend is part ofa secret superhero organization that better be fucking watching and listening right nowand they’re going to get us to the roof!”

Ernie faints.

“Fuck, Ernie, get it together,” I say because I’m trying not to sob. The Russians are stopping the elevator at the next floor. I don’t know if I can even lift my gun to shoot again. All my adrenaline is leaking out through my eyes. And maybe my bullet wounds.

But…

The elevator doors aren’t opening. It stops and the number lights up and the sound chimes but it doesn’t open.