Chapter 15 Faina
FAINA
Cian subtly winks at me and our plan moves into motion.
Our target, Hawk, steps over the body on the ground and strides toward the bar on the opposite side of the room with a few guards trailing after him.
Those who stay behind deal with the dead body and within five minutes, it’s been dragged out of the room and the blood swiftly cleaned up.
It’s alarmingly fast and would be impressive if I didn’t harbor so much hatred for this man and his organization.
With Cian keeping an eye on Hawk, I switch to a freshly filled tray of appetizers and widen my smile while insisting it’s one per guest. They’re laced with strong laxatives, but any more than one and people will be shitting themselves in the ballroom rather than leaving for the bathrooms.
I pass Cian as he moves adjacent to me with drinks and we briefly touch elbows, a touch of comfort while praying that our cobbled-together plan is enough to get Hawk away from his security.
Time ticks by painfully slow but one by one, guests start to leave the room with urgent panic on their faces.
Even two of Hawk’s guards excuse themselves and bolt from the room while clutching at their belts.
This is our best chance. Cian disappears from the crowd toward the kitchen while I weave myself closer and closer to Hawk, keeping one eye on him while maintaining a natural circle of the room.
When I’m a couple of feet away, the distinct scent of smoke tickles my nose.
A second later, the ear-splitting shriek of the fire alarm blares to life through the building, igniting panic in the remaining guests.
Cian darts out of the kitchen and flashes me a quick smile, signaling that the fire is well and truly underway and no one will be putting it out quickly.
The crowd around me surges toward the exit and I make my move.
Hawk isn’t as panicked as the rest of the guests.
If anything, he’s much more annoyed and it shows in the way he grumpily shoves past a couple trying desperately to reach the door.
Slipping between them, I grab Hawk by the wrist and jerk him backward with all my strength.
He immediately overbalances in surprise with a cry that cuts off as I slam the heel of my hand into his jaw.
His head snaps back in the opposite direction of where I’m dragging his arm and he overbalances.
Quickly placing one foot between his legs, I twist my body and drag his arm upward with me, then curl my other leg around his thigh and throw myself backward to bring him down hard.
He swiftly hits the floor with a grunt and as I fall, I twist my body and slam my knee into his face with my full bodyweight behind it.
Dazed and disoriented, it’s then easy for me to drag him upward.
Cian appears at my side and together we drag Hawk away from the surging crowd and toward the servers’ entrance.
As we rush toward the staircase that leads upward, a warning yell rises from the crowd behind us.
“Shit,” Cian gasps. “That guard!”
“You got him?” I ask while tucking myself under Hawk’s floppy arm and supporting his bodyweight.
“Yeah, you take Hawk. I got this guy.”
Luckily, Hawk is disoriented enough that he doesn’t question my dragging him up the stairs and down a short hallway to the room we prepared previously.
It’s not much but it’s enough to buy us some time.
Once inside, I throw Hawk to the floor and deliver several sharp kicks to his abdomen to keep him there.
He’s torn between hugging his guts and cradling his bleeding face.
As he curls in on himself, the door opens and Cian storms in with the unconscious bodyguard in tow. “Couldn’t leave him on the stairs. He saw our faces,” Cian mutters as he drops him by the foot of the bed. Then he immediately draws his gun, and I lunge forward to catch his wrist.
“Cian!”
“What? We have the fucker right here. Why even bother wasting time?”
His urge to kill, his desire for revenge, it’s all stronger than any logic I can provide, but I still try.
“Listen.” My voice shakes with how hard my heart races. “I know you want to kill him, but we need to confirm he’s the right one. Sure, he’s high up in Hexagon, but there’s nothing to say he’s the one who gave the order. You want to kill the right one, right? You want to cut off the right head?”
Anger blazes in Cian’s eyes as he glares down at the writhing man on the ground. Every muscle in his arms under my hands is rock hard like he’s coiled to strike, and his jaw is so tense that every sharp edge of bone is visible along his cheek.
“He doesn’t deserve to live.”
“I’m not saying he does, but we have to be sure. Right? Look at me.” Placing my hand on his rigid cheek, I force his eyes to meet mine. “They deserve for us to send them the right bastard, don’t they?”
He glares at me like he doesn’t recognize me for a few seconds and a strange sadness settles in my gut at the sight. Then, very slowly, Cian nods.
“You’re right.”
“I know I am. So, we get him out of here and then we find out the truth.”
Cian nods and very slowly holsters his gun again. “Fine.”
I turn back to Hawk, who has finally shaken off the daze from being kneed so hard in the face. “What the fuck?” he gasps, trying to push himself up onto his knees.
I immediately kick him in the shoulder and send him back to the ground, then I pull the gun from my waist and aim it at him. “If you don’t want to die right this second, then you’ll think twice before getting up again.”
“The fuck?” He spits blood and speaks thickly with a broken nose. “Do you have any idea who the fuck I am?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of the fucking point,” I snarl as I grab him by the bicep and haul him upward.
“Now either you start walking or I’ll start testing how many bullets I can put in your internal organs before you can make any more stupid remarks, understand?
” I press the barrel of my gun against his kidney and he flinches and raises one hand.
“Alright, alright! Fucking psycho—” That earns him a solid punch from Cian, and Hawk reels back into me with a wet gasp. “Stop hitting me in the face!”
“Then don’t fucking speak,” Cian growls, then he turns to see that the bodyguard on the floor has woken up.
Dazed, he rubs one eye and then stares at the two of us with wide eyes.
“Fuck. We better bring him.”
“We could just kill him,” Cian mutters as he grabs the bodyguard by the scruff of the neck and hauls him upright.
“Not here,” I warn him. “We don’t want to draw attention. Not yet, at least.”
Together, while keeping our weapons trained on our respective captives, we use the fire escape to make it down to the ground.
Twice, Hawk tries to make his escape, and twice, I get him in a headlock and threaten to throw him to the ground.
I’m not against dragging him unconscious, and since I overpower him each time, he quickly believes that I’m capable.
“You’re gonna die for this,” Hawk spits through another mouthful of blood as we make it to the busy street below.
The street is flooded with people from the hotel as well as curious onlookers from the surrounding area. Given the panic in the crowd, it’s easy for us to force Hawk and his bodyguard to keep walking until we make it across the street and into the mouth of a dark alley.
“Ain’t that a concern?” Hawk glances back at me with a cold glare. “Or you got a fucking death wish?”
“Shut up,” I snap, shoving him forward hard enough that he stumbles over himself.
“Death wish it is, then.”
“Keep talking,” I warn him. “And when we get to where we’re going, I’ll start with the fun pliers.
Maybe then you’ll say things I wanna hear and we can have a nice conversation.
Until then?” Raising my gun, I shove it between Hawk’s shoulder blades as we exit the alley and head toward a stone bridge that crosses over a waterway. “I like silence.”
Just behind us, I hear the impact of a fist against flesh and turn to see Cian flooring the bodyguard in one punch. “Walk!” Cian yells as he drags him back up to his feet.
“He doesn’t wanna do that.” Hawk makes it to the middle of the bridge and turns to face me. “Gonna shoot me?”
“I only need your mouth working. I don’t need anything else.” In a flash, I lower my gun and shoot Hawk directly in the foot. He falls with a scream and his beaten face twists in pain while he clutches at his wounded leg.
“What the hell? You crazy fucking bitch!”
“Like I said, I don’t need all of you. In fact, maybe that’s how we’ll start our conversation.
Did you know you don’t need all these limbs in order for me to get what I want?
I can cut them all off and the more you piss me off, the less I’m inclined to give you the brief, sweet relief of the unconscious sleep blood loss might give you. ”
“You bitch—”
We all flinch suddenly as an enormous explosion rips through the hotel we were just at.
From the bridge, the hotel sits inward from the waterway and several streets away, but we have the perfect view of the entire building exploding in several balls of flame that stretch upward into the night sky.
My heart stills in my chest as the explosion spreads outward and consumes the closest streets in sweltering heat, fire, and debris.
Did… did we do that?
All those people in the street… there’s no way they were all Hexagon, but the fire department, the people who ran to help, even the waitstaff… all those innocent lives. There’s no way our fire caused that, did it?
As my stomach writhes with panic, heat from the explosion finally reaches us along with waves rushing past in the water below from the force of the explosion. It’s enough to force me to take a step backward. There’s no way anyone close to that hotel survived.
I stare at the inferno until my eyes burn and then a throaty, wheezing rush of laughter catches my attention. Looking down, Hawk holds onto the railing of the bridge and laughs roughly in between wet coughs and groans.
“What’s so fucking funny?” I snarl, raising my gun to press the barrel between his eyes. Before he can respond, a yelp of pain rises to my right. I spin and my heart leaps up into my throat.
Cian’s on the ground grappling with the bodyguard and he’s losing. As Cian punches him and sends him backward, he rolls to try and get back on his feet but the bodyguard lunges down and grabs Cian by the hair, then he drags him up and swiftly gets him in a chokehold.
“Cian!”
The bodyguard suddenly freezes and his eyes slide to me. “Cian?” he repeats.
My gun snaps back to Hawk. “Let him go or I’ll blow your boss’s brains out!” I yell, shoving the barrel of my gun into Hawk’s cheek. “Let him go!”
The bodyguard merely smirks and casts his attention back to Cian.
“Tell him to let him go!” I yell at Hawk who, for some strange reason, is still laughing.
“Should I tell you to let him go, Boss?” Hawk laughs, then blood catches in his throat and he coughs harshly.
Boss?
Wait a second…
Coldness grips me from the inside and I slowly raise my gaze back to the bodyguard as he kicks Cian’s weaker leg and forces him to his knees. Our eyes lock and a chill grips my heart in a frozen fist.
Boss…
“Cian Gifford?” The bodyguard gazes down at Cian and twirls his gun between his fingers, then presses it to the back of Cian’s skull. “Well I’ll be damned.”
It hits like a ton of bricks.
The broad-shouldered bodyguard with the scar down his face and the slight Australian twang to his words isn’t a bodyguard at all. Hawk isn’t bleeding at my feet.
This chatty bastard is only a decoy.
Fuck!