Chapter 17 #2
Probably the moment he stepped outside, guards in high towers would take him out. Luca just prayed Kira didn’t get caught in the crossfire.
Luca said, “You have to know that you aren’t getting out of here. Just put the gun down and let her go. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“I say she and I find a quiet corner and wait out the police.” Stuart sneered. “After I kill Jenkins, we’ll have time for some fun before I get thrown back in solitary.”
Luca moved just enough to let the door shut behind him before either of them could do anything about it, locking Jenkins in the room again.
Hector came at him, swinging his fists and forcing Luca to defend himself. Kira screamed, and he was aware of Stuart dragging her away down the hall, but there was nothing he could do about it until he dealt with this guy.
Hector grabbed his arm and twisted it back painfully.
Luca turned into the twist and punched the guy with his other hand.
Hector let go of his arm and came back at him, swinging his head forward.
Luca dodged the headbutt and punched the guy in the stomach, grabbing his shoulders and then kneeing him in the middle. Hector fell to the floor.
Luca raced away down the hall after Stuart and Kira.
Kira gritted her teeth. Stuart dragged her with that punishing grip on her arm, through the door back into the infirmary.
“Lock that door.” He swung her toward the far door. “If anyone tries to get in, I guess you’ll just have to deal with it.” His laughter followed her across the room.
Before she could shove the door closed, a tall man with a full beard shoved against it and came in. She froze, backing up from him. The guy turned and threw the lock over. Broad-shouldered, tanned skin.
A second later, three guys appeared in the window, which was crisscrossed with wire, rendering it almost unbreakable. They hammered on the glass and fought against the handle, the looks on their faces feral. They wanted to get in here with a desperation that drove them almost to insanity.
She shivered, backing up.
The big man with Middle Eastern coloring looked through her and said to Stuart, “I can take her off your hands.”
“Don’t think I need any favors from you, Sax,” Stuart said. “Barricade the door.”
The Middle Eastern guy seemed unbothered by that comment but did as the man asked. Sax?
Did that mean…
She kept her thoughts to herself. If this was Luca’s brother, the one he’d told her about, she should be safe with him. Right?
But there was nothing safe about this guy.
She whirled around to look at Stuart. “No more shooting.” She held up her hands, trying to come across as desperate—which didn’t take much with the dead body on the hospital bed on the other side of the room. “No more blood. Just stop.”
Stuart waved the gun around. “I’ll shoot whoever I want.”
Sax said, “You want someone on your side, I’m your guy.
” He slammed a hand against his own chest, over the white tank that showed off powerful arms. He’d taken his orange jumpsuit and tied the arms around his waist. She saw a lot of similarities with Luca, but also so many ways this man was remarkably different.
And far more dangerous.
She couldn’t let on that she knew this Sax guy was Luca’s older brother, Amir. Stuart would use anything against her, and she didn’t know if this other inmate would protect her. He might be here to do whatever he wanted while she had no way to fight back.
Kira huddled against the wall, thinking of Luca. Wondering if that guy from the cartel had killed him. Tears gathered in her eyes, the last thing she needed. These men would take any vulnerability she showed and exploit it for maximum carnage.
The phone started to ring.
“Check the window,” Stuart ordered.
For a second, she thought he was talking to her, but Sax strode to one of the tiny windows in a row on the far wall. Moving between two empty hospital beds, stepping on gauze packets that had been strewn across the floor. He looked out the window.
Kira glanced around. The pharmacy cabinet was open, and the padlock discarded on the floor. Stuart stood between her and the supplies. She could use any one of those meds to incapacitate him if she could get over there and prep a syringe.
The whole thing looked like it had been picked over. No doubt there was a group of inmates somewhere in the prison mixing meds and getting high on narcotics.
She bit her lip.
What they wanted to use for evil, she needed to use to save her own life. Maybe even Luca’s as well. Could she get over there?
Lord, show me when to move. How to do this fast so I can take him down before he shoots me or anyone else.
It felt so natural to cry out to the Lord in the heat of the moment, when she was facing death with no way to fight back.
But did she do that on ordinary days when there was no peril, or with a patient whose condition she didn’t know how to treat?
Even then, she relied more on her knowledge and less on the God-given wisdom that the Bible told her to ask for.
Give me that wisdom now, Lord.
When she got out of this, which she had to trust would happen, she was going to quit treating God like a friend she only called when she was in a jam and needed help.
Kira would start fresh and work on having a real relationship with the Lord.
One where she was in more constant communication with Him, about anything happening or nothing at all. Especially about her fear.
She had to cultivate a closeness with Him that she’d never had before, or she would be calling herself a Christian when, in reality, she was missing something huge about what her relationship with God could be.
Sax turned back from the window. “Hate to break it to you, bro, but the cops are here. SWAT teams. There are all kinds of flashing red and blue lights out there.”
“So they know something is going on.” Stuart shrugged, but Kira wasn’t all the way convinced he didn’t care that the police were here. “It was gonna happen. And now I can ask for what I want.”
“You think this is a situation where you have any leverage?” Sax pulled back the shoulder of his tank top to reveal an angry scar below his right collarbone.
A gunshot wound from a long time ago. “What do you think happens when they’re done talking and they decide you need to be taken out?
Good luck. I’m not part of that.” He shook his head. “I’m not here to get shot again.”
“Too bad, because I guess I don’t need you.” Stuart leveled the gun at him.
“What if you do?” Desperation tumbled the words from her mouth, and Kira suddenly had to find a plausible reason Stuart should care about this random inmate—or so he thought.
She cleared her throat. “He has family, right? I mean, everyone does.” She tried to shrug. “Maybe they’re important and you can negotiate with them. They might even be rich enough they can give you money. You never know. This guy could be somebody.”
“He’s new. No one knows much about him.”
“See?” Kira didn’t know what else to say.
“I kill him, it’ll just be for pleasure. Not for the paycheck.”
Sax reacted to that. “Someone’s paying you? Bro, get me in on that action.”
“I don’t need any more help. This is a solo operation now.”
Kira could see that. He’d killed the guard who’d helped him breach the prison in the first place and kick off this whole situation. The cartel guy was out in the hallway still, where he’d attacked Luca.
She couldn’t see through the window in that door, off to her right.
Was he out there? Was he hurt?
She sniffed back tears.
The phone on the desk beside the pharmacy cabinet rang again. Stuart swept his arm back and forth, aiming the gun at her and then Sax in turn. He backed up and used his free hand to hit a button on the phone. “What?”
“This is Lieutenant Rutherford with the Renegade Police Department. State your name.”
Stuart said, “I don’t gotta tell you nothin’.”
“I’d like to find a way to resolve this situation peacefully.”
Sax lifted one hand and tapped his shoulder, ostensibly reminding Stuart of the police’s idea of “resolving” situations. Kira wasn’t sure that was necessary. Why did he feel the need to warn Stuart? She would much rather he was taken down—and quickly—so they could get out of here.
Rutherford said, “Can you tell me who is in the infirmary with you?”
“I’m sure you’d like to know that, Lieutenant.” Stuart sneered the last word as if it was a slur. “I got a live one right here.” He looked at her. “Get over here.”
She didn’t move.
“Now!”
Kira stumbled, caught herself, and walked to him. Stuart grabbed the back of her neck, his fingers tangling painfully in her hair. She gasped.
“Say your name for the police.”
She swallowed. “Kira. Kira Yassan.”
“The doctor here will die if I don’t get Alden Jenkins in here in the next ten minutes.”
“It’s going to take more time tha—”
Stuart set the gun down and jabbed at the button on the display to hang up the phone. What he didn’t do was let go of her—or check that the call had ended—all while he maintained his punishing grip on her.
Kira grabbed for the gun.
He saw what she was doing.
Oh no.
He slammed down on her hand, his grip on the back of her neck tightening so that she cried out. White spots flashed at the edges of her vision.
He lifted the gun, her hand wrapped around the grip. His finger crushing hers on the hard metal of the weapon.
She gasped, tears running down her face. Think. But her mind refused to recall any kind of self-defense with all the pain swelling like bookends around her, pressing in and threatening to crush her.
“Stuart Parker, this is Rutherford.” His voice rang through the phone speaker. “Do not kill that woman. If you end her life, we will not hesitate to breach that room and take you out.”
His grip on her didn’t relax, not even slightly.
Kira gasped, and it sounded like a muffled cry.
“Let her go, Parker.”
He shifted, then kicked her away. Her fingers slid from under his around the gun, and she fell to the floor.
“Get me Jenkins.” He hung up the phone.
Kira took the chance to look at the door, but from the floor, she couldn’t see if anyone was in the hall.
She stood and turned so her back wasn’t to Stuart.
Not that it made her any less vulnerable to face him rather than have her back to him.
But at least this way, whatever it was, she’d be able to see it coming.
She straightened, pain making itself known in her hand and on the back of her head. “Why do you want him?” Her voice shook and she sounded scared. Small. Kira cleared her throat. “What do you want with Jenkins?”
Stuart looked at her like she was something smeared on the bottom of his shoe. “I wanna kill him. What do you think?”
As soon as he did that, he was going to kill her. That’s what she thought. But she said, “I thought you wanted Frankie.”
“Oh, she’ll suffer. Don’t worry.”
“You can’t hurt her if you’re in prison for the rest of your life.”
That’s what he would get if he carried on with this. A judge wasn’t ever going to let him out. How could he think this would end well for him? It sounded to her like the plan had a lot of issues. And yet, he seemed convinced it was a sure thing.
“It isn’t me that’s gonna pay her a visit. That’s the deal.”
She frowned. “Who did you make a deal with?”
He rolled his eyes. “So many questions.”
“You’re going to kill me.” She saw the other guy look at her, but didn’t lose focus on Stuart. Amir just stood there, watching everything. “What does it matter if I know why or if you explain what is going on? I think I deserve to know.”
He chuckled. “Good one.”
The low regard he had for women was distressing, to say the least. Stuart thought anyone who wasn’t male didn’t get respect or deserve to have an opinion or be considered.
“Who is paying you?” She had to ask, needed to know.
If the worst was about to happen, would Amir step in to save her?
“How should I know?” He looked bored more than anything. “It was anonymous.”
And he’d taken that deal? Getting paid to commit a crime in exchange for revenge. He would spend his life in prison, so how did that make accepting money a good idea? It wasn’t like he could spend the funds.
Unless Stuart was figuring he could spend the money when he got out. Eventually. He’d be old and gray by then, but it could be his plan.
The question was whether Kira would be alive.