51 - Jocelyn
~ 51 ~
JOCELYN
Somehow, through the smoke and chaos, we managed to find Andre. There was no time for discussion when we stumbled upon him. I grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him along.
Corridor after corridor we ran, away from voices whenever possible. There were more gunshots, more sounds of fighting. We stopped short at the sounds of booted feet, just as a group of men sprinted past us. I recognized them as Foley’s men. They ran directly across the next corridor with terror in their eyes, but they kept moving.
Bishop?” Andre demanded.
Kayden shook his head as we ran. Another explosion assailed our ears, shaking the windows on either side of us. I felt my teeth actually rattle. The air smelled abruptly metallic, like something bitter mixed with gunpowder.
“To hell with this,” Andre declared, taking the lead. “We need to get outside.”
Eventually, we spilled out into the ballroom. The place was straight chaos compared to how nice it had been set up only hours ago. Tables were knocked over, and chairs were in pieces. One of the back doors to the garden hung off its hinges, the glass shattered.
The boys pulled me in that direction, but I pulled back. Eventually we all skidded to stop.
“We can’t leave without Bishop!” I pleaded.
“Don’t worry, we’re not,” Andre shot back. “I know where he is, and it’s not—”
He stopped talking so abruptly I knew it couldn’t be good. His scowl deepened, and his eyes went wide. I turned my head to look, but both of them had shifted protectively in front of me.
“Fuck…” Kayden said in a low, broken voice.
Men spilled into the room from behind us. Roman’s men. They fanned out along the walls to surround us from three directions, the fourth being the shattered entrance into the garden.
And they were all sporting weapons, leveled directly at us.
“Finally!” Roman boomed, stepping past his men. As he’d probably done for his entire life, he stomped his way into the dead center of the room. “The few people we didn’t actually suspect… gathered together, all at once.”
His men looked exactly as I’d imagined, after hearing all the commotion. They were bruised and battered, their once perfect dinner suits shredded in places, and dirtied in others. They looked and smelled like they’d been through a firefight. Many of them, I noticed grotesquely, were covered in blood.
Just then Bishop showed up, hands raised, marched into the room by the man I knew as Morris. My heart sank when I saw the shotgun jammed into his back. Roman’s crooked grin spread even wider.
“Pretty sure one of you is responsible for this,” he said, pulling out the beige brick with the dangling wires, again. “I guess it doesn’t matter which one, because you’re all dead anyway.”
He grunted at one of his men. “Someone grab Raif, get him down here too. Might as well kill all the birds with one stone.”
“Raif’s gone,” said Andre.
The man in the center of the ballroom looked momentarily confused. It was over quickly, as he replaced his confusion with a forced look of amusement. But it still happened just the same.
“Gone?”
“I cut him loose,” Andre said matter-of-factly. “He’s halfway to Mykonos, by now. Unless whatever’s left of Foley’s men get to the dock first.”
Roman tried covering his bitter disappointment with a sneer of contempt. But I caught that one too.
“Fine then,” he spat. “Nothing wrong with tying up loose ends one by one.”
My heart was pounding as he nodded at Morris.
This is it.
I was strangely calm as Morris racked the shotgun with an up and down motion. Maybe it hadn’t hit me yet. Maybe I refused to believe what was about to happen.
This is how you go out.
Morris stepped forward. Swinging his arm in a smooth arc, he handed the shotgun to Bishop…
Bishop?
I couldn’t comprehend at first. Not until Bishop nodded at Morris, then leveled the shotgun on Roman. For a long moment, everyone remained utterly frozen. Then Morris snapped his fingers, and everyone in the ballroom turned their weapons on the one in the middle.
Roman’s eternally smug look vanished in a heartbeat. It was replaced by a split-second of bewilderment, and then, vengeful anger.
“So it’s like this?” he snarled.
In the ensuing silence, his eyes scanned the circle. They shifted from man to man, looking for solace, searching for any small semblance of what could be considered an ally. But there was none.
“I’m afraid it’s exactly like this,” said Morris, solemnly.
Roman Wynter grimaced, and then spat on the floor. “You traitorous piece of shit.”
But Morris only shook his head. “We’ve had it with your bullshit chaos,” he went on, completely ignoring the mercenary captain. “You’ve driven Blight into the ground, destroyed any integrity it once had. Everything you’ve done has been self-serving. Especially the part where you divided us, kept us fragmented. All so you could more easily maintain control.”
Roman continued staring down his former men. A few of them looked at the floor, still intimidated by their ruthless ex-boss. But most of them returned his spiteful gaze with an icy stare of their own.
“I gave you everything!” he growled. “I took a handful of half-assed soldiers and—”
“You did nothing of the sort,” Morris quickly cut him off. Crossing his tattooed arms, he stared back at him coldly. “And you have a lot more to answer for than you think.”
With that, Bishop took three steps forward. Still clutching the shotgun, he stood toe to toe with the mercenary captain.
“Do you know who I am?”
Roman stood up a little straighter and snorted. “You’re the fucking kitchen staff.”
“Yeah, sure. And what about him?”
He pointed, and Andre broke the circle. He moved to join Bishop, until the two of them stood side by side.
Roman looked them both over and smiled. “No fucking idea,” he scoffed.
“Do you remember Tafilah?”
Long seconds of silence ticked by. The mercenary’s face changed.
“ That clusterfuck?” he finally sneered.
“That clusterfuck,” said Andre.
“That clusterfuck you created,” added Bishop.
Roman grinned, showing off his alligator-like teeth. “You’re still on that? All these years later?” He waved his hand dismissively. “That was nothing. A few too many rebels. Your men were green, untested. They didn’t know what to do, and it showed. If I hadn’t—”
Andre struck, fast as a viper. He punched the man square in the jaw, so hard that the huge mercenary actually fell down.
Holy shit.
He got up again quickly though, and returned to the same spot, refusing to budge an inch. Bishop, I could see, was practically vibrating with the need to hit him as well. Roman saw it too.
“Easy,” he growled, wiping the blood from his mouth. “You only get one of those.”
Bishop gnashed his teeth and looked away in frustration, and for a brief instant our eyes met. In that moment, I didn’t convey anything. I couldn’t have robbed him of his vengeance even had I wanted to, and I didn’t want to.
Eventually, the fist Bishop was clenching opened ever so slowly. Sensing an opening, Roman chose to address the room directly.
“Is this what you want?” he boomed, flinging his arms open. “To be led by cowards? To let Blight shatter into a thousand pieces, all because the rest of you were too weak to hold it together?”
More silence. More stares. No one budged an inch, though.
“Victor Knox is dead,” Roman went on. “He and Foley’s men are gone. It’s up to you, now. You get to choose what happens next.”
One by one he stared them down, but not one man lowered his rifle. There were, however, multiple clicks of safeties being switched off.
“Looks to me like they have chosen,” smirked Morris.
Roman hissed and spat again. To his credit, there still wasn’t a hint of fear or panic in his stark blue eyes. But his skin was turning red now, like some giant demon.
“What you still don’t realize,” added Andre, “is that your own shit choices have put you in the situation you’re in right now.”
“And what situation would that be?” growled Roman.
Casually, Bishop took the barrel of Andre’s shotgun and guided it just beneath the mercenary captain’s chin.
“This one.”
Roman gritted his teeth, and held his breath for a moment. The barrel remained there even after Bishop let go of it, jutting into the underside of the man’s jaw.
“The dildo of consequences rarely arrives lubed,” Bishop grinned.
For a long moment, the entire room remained uncomfortably frozen. I found myself inching closer to Kayden, who slid his arm around me. I could tell he was just as shocked as I was.
“You’re stupid,” Bishop went on. “I mean you’ve always been stupid, but over the years I think you’ve gotten worse.”
“Stupid?” Roman repeated disdainfully. “You think—”
“Yes,” Bishop cut in, acidly. “You’re stupid, Roman. Radical, but dumb. Immoral and callous, but totally unthinking.”
“It’s a bad combo,” Andre agreed.
I noticed his finger was still on the weapon’s trigger. Roman’s nostrils flared wildly.
“In the end, you don’t inspire loyalty,” said Bishop. He pointed around the ballroom. “As you can plainly see.”
Roman’s eyes shifted around the room once again. This time though, he laughed.
“Don’t pretend to take the high ground on loyalty,” he scoffed, the underside of his chin flexing uncomfortably around the shotgun’s barrel. “You’re all mercenaries. Your loyalty is bought and paid for.”
“To the client, yes,” Morris spoke up. “But true loyalty — brotherly loyalty… well, that kind of loyalty doesn’t need to be bought.” He curled his lip in disgust. “You wouldn’t know about that, though. It’s the sort of concept you’ll never grasp.”
For once, Roman Wynter had nothing to say. He inhaled deeply, then let out a long, heated breath.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Morris added, bitterly. “I stole this company out from under your nose while you weren’t looking. It should’ve been harder than it was, but it turns out everybody despises you.” He added a short, involuntary laugh. “You’re done making stupid decisions. For both yourself, and Blight.”
It happened lightning fast: Roman’s hand reaching up, sweeping outward, grabbing the barrel of the shotgun in the time it took to blink. He yanked violently hard, in an effort to take it away and reverse the weapon on its wielder. But Bishop’s grip was just too strong.
Bishop kicked outward with all his might, catching the man square in the chest. Roman Wynter went sprawling, still reaching for the gun he would never have. He was still reaching when the room exploded in gunfire, as eight or ten of his best men unloaded their weapons on their ungrateful, near untouchable boss.
Morris was shooting too, and then Bishop, and then even Andre. I squinted through the cacophony of smoke and noise as he took the shotgun from Bishop, pumping the slide forward and back and firing until it was empty.