3. Zira
ZIRA
As Bauta deals with the call about the other heist, I excuse myself and make it back outside with my mask off just in time to throw up.
Bile pulls through my gut like the blade of a knife and I hurl onto the ground in three hot, desperate spasms. By the time it’s over, I’m sweating and shaking with no hope of calming down.
We did it.
We actually did it.
This was the third robbery Harris forced me to be a part of and that phone call about the ship means it’s over.
It’s all over. Peter will be free and we can go home and…
and deal with the fact that I led these assholes to my store and robbed the place where I work.
Facing those people again is going to be beyond brutal.
I breathe deeply, letting the cool night air invade my lungs, and then I hold it as if the sensation will help soothe my trembling or the guilt knotting up my stomach. It doesn’t, so I release my breath in a cloud and groan softly.
I need a drink.
Back inside the warehouse, I cover my face with the mask and glance around for Harris.
Both the mysterious Voltos are near the table poring over what we stole from the store while clapping each other on the back for a job well done.
It doesn’t make any sense to me how they can’t even feel a little bit of guilt for what they’ve stolen or the people we’ve traumatized.
Speaking of, our captive is near the back wall, hunched over with blood running down the side of his face. Seeing them kick the shit out of him when I walked in makes me feel even worse since I chose him, but as long as he goes home to his wife, that’s all that matters.
Searching the warehouse, I find Harris in the remains of the old office and tear off my mask. “Give me Peter.”
Harris sets his mask down on the old, rotten table and removes the lit cigarette from his mouth as he turns to face me. “Excuse me?”
“I want my brother back.”
“Why?”
“The fuck do you mean why? I did my part in this, okay? Your heist was a success because of me. You have more diamonds than you can dream of, more money than you’ll ever see again, plus the jewelry and gems stolen from my store.
That pays Peter’s debt tenfold, so give him back.
” My chest heaves as I speak, and another wave of nausea crashes over me like water against a rock.
Fighting the sensation makes me gag a little, but I keep my chin up.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” Harris meets my gaze steadily.
“What else is there?”
“Come on, Zira, don’t be like that.” Slow steps bring him closer to me until he’s a foot away, and I stand as tense as a board.
“I’m only here for my brother.”
“Bullshit. All this time together surely brought back some fond memories?”
Disgust curls in my gut. “No.”
“You sure about that?” Harris surges forward, but just as he reaches for my cheek, I lash out with my own hand and strike him right across the face.
“Don’t you dare touch me—ah!”
He slaps me back immediately, ten times harder than I hit him, and then he throws me down onto the desk and pins me there with the weight of his body. My mask slips from my fingers as I’m thrown, and every muscle in me recoils at his touch.
Anger burns hot in his voice when he shoves his face close to mine and grabs a fistful of my hair. “Who the fuck do you think you are, huh?” he snarls, shoving me harder into the wood.
Pain wells up across my face and blooms at my hips where the edge of the desk presses into my body. In a surge of panic, tears well in my eyes and I fight against the wood. “Let me go! Let me go, Harr—”
His hand slaps across my mouth, silencing me, and my fear spikes. Every nerve inside of me screams in fear, but just as I kick out at his legs, he shoves into me once and then releases me.
“Are you insane?” he growls. “There’s a guy out there and you’re trying to yell my name? Fucking cunt. I wouldn’t want to fuck you again even if I paid you. That foul thing between your legs will probably kill you. I was just giving you one last chance to look at what you lost.”
Every word is like the lash of a whip as I pick myself up from the table and stumble back away from him. Wiping my eyes with the back of my wrist, I don’t take my eyes off him, although I’m torn between attacking him to feed my anger and running for my life.
“I just want my brother back,” I choke out. “Then we never have to see each other again.”
Harris snorts, flicking his ruined cigarette at me.
It hits my chest and falls to the floor.
“You and your fucking brother,” he mutters.
“Fine. Take this.” Harris advances once more and with nowhere to go, I’m forced back against the wall.
This time he shoves his handgun into my hands and I stare down at it.
“What’s this for?”
Harris’s lips pull into a cold smirk, and he jerks his head out the door. “I need to make sure your little conscience won’t get the better of you and send you running to the cops once your brother is free, so you have to kill the hostage.”
My heart stops and I jerk my head up, staring up at Harris in horror. “What?”
“Do you need me to spell it out for you? Go out there and kill him.”
The gun turns to dead weight in my hand and almost slips from my fingers, but Harris is there to catch it and crush my fingers around the grip.
“It’s simple. Kill him or I kill your brother.
Make the choice, cunt. And before you think of turning that gun on me, if I don’t make a call at a certain time, your brother is dead anyway.
So be a good little girl…” Harris picks up my mask from where it fell on the floor and gently places it over my face.
“And go out there and kill the hostage.”
I can’t speak, so Harris takes my silence for agreement and shoves me out of the office and back into the main warehouse. Across the floor, the two Voltos are playfighting with one another and the hostage is staring directly at me.
I have to kill him?
I’ve never killed anyone.
I’ve never even hurt someone.
My stomach twists itself into a thousand knots and my attention drops to the gun in my trembling hands.
“Oi!” Harris suddenly yells from behind me, making me jump right out of my skin, and then he snaps his fingers, drawing the attention of one of the Voltos.
I don’t hear whatever is said, but one of them breaks away from the table and strides toward the man on the ground.
They roughly grab him and drag him to his feet, then Harris’s hand appears on my back.
“Hurry up,” he murmurs through his mask. “Or I might forget to make that call.”
My feet move without thought, and before I know it, I’m following the Volto and the hostage out of the warehouse and down the embankment to the river’s edge.
Water rushes past at high speed, taking almost all other sounds with it, and as the man is forced to his knees, I see the realization pass over his face and his brows knit together.
“You have your orders,” the Volto growls at me, then he walks off and waits up at the top of the embankment.
It should be easy. This man or my brother.
Everything I’ve done has been to save Peter.
What’s one more crime?
With trembling fingers, I reach for the hostage and gently remove his blood-soaked gag from his mouth, bracing myself for a slew of begging or hatred, but what he says instead brings my racing panic to a complete halt.
“My name’s Bradley, what’s yours?”
His name? Why is he giving me his name?
“I said my name is Bradley.” He speaks in a soft, low voice that rumbles so deeply, it’s more like a vibration than anything else, and when he talks his lips barely move. “Tell me your name.”
There’s almost a gentleness to it, and it’s enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Tremors move through me and settle in my hand as I clutch the gun.
I can’t listen to his name, can’t listen to anything he might try to tell me because it doesn’t matter.
He’s a stranger and Peter is my brother.
There’s no choice here. I didn’t go through all of this just to lose my brother because of a stranger.
“I’m sorry,” I croak as the tears soak into my mask. “I have to do this. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I promise I’ll send money to your wife. She won’t struggle to raise that baby.” It’s hardly enough to earn any forgiveness, but my share of this deal? It can all go to her for all I care.
“My wife?” Bradley’s jaw works back and forth and his dark brows curl together with a twitch. “I don’t have a wife.”
“Your girlfriend, then.”
“No girlfriend.”
“What? But—But the woman at the store, the pregnant woman you were with?”
His throat bobs as he swallows and a dot of blood darkens the corner of his mouth. The other two beat him so cruelly and yet he’s talking to me as if we’ve just bumped into each other at the coffee shop.
“She’s just someone who was there. I was doing the decent thing because she was pregnant and scared, that’s all. But it doesn’t matter.”
“No,” I reply weakly as my voice thickens with my distress. “I suppose it doesn’t. I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
I nod shakily and my head lolls to one side as I lift the gun. “I’m really sorry,” I gasp. “But I do.” Peter is all I have, and I won’t lose him. Not now.
It’s sickeningly easy to pull the trigger, and the gun bangs twice in my hand, sending shockwaves all the way up my forearm.
I yelp in fright and jerk my aim away as if that can change anything, but it’s too late.
Both bullets thump into the bound man and he groans in pain, then slumps down to his side on the grass and doesn’t move.
Did I do it? Did I kill him?
For a few long seconds, I can’t even move.
Rooted to the spot, I can only stare down in horror at the dead body lying at my feet.
Then, my stomach ripples and heat bursts up my throat.
I’m scarcely able to get my mask off before I’m throwing up what little is left in my stomach while the Volto standing watch hurries down the embankment.
Through my tears and retching, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse Bradley’s body being harshly kicked over the edge and splashing down into the river.
God, what have I done?