Chapter 19 — Im Not Your Currency #3
“I'm holding your financial life in my hand!” I shouted, raising the envelope. “If I don't give you this, you're a penniless fugitive. You need this more than I need my reputation.”
Richard laughed. It was an ugly, gurgling sound.
“You think this is about money, Elena? It's about power. It's about watching Gabriel Moretti break. And knowing I used you to do it... that's the best payoff.”
He aimed the gun at my leg.
“Throw the envelope. Or I shoot your knee. Gabriel will have to carry you out of here.”
This was it.
My thumb found the grenade pin inside the envelope, through the torn paper at the back that Gabriel had prepared.
“You want the envelope?” I asked, feeling an icy calm wash over me. “Then catch.”
I pulled the pin.
I threw the envelope at him with everything I had.
At the same time, I dove sideways, behind a concrete column.
“What the—”
Richard's shout was cut off by a deafening bang and a flash of white light that pierced through my closed eyelids.
The sound was like a punch to the chest.
BOOM.
I heard Richard scream in pain and surprise. His gun fired wildly, the bullet ricocheting off some metal beam above.
Then I heard another sound.
Fast footsteps running on gravel. And two dry, controlled shots.
Bang. Bang.
I opened my eyes, blinking to clear the white spots from my vision. My ears were ringing.
I peeked out from behind the column.
Richard was on the ground, clutching his face, his gun out of reach.
Gabriel stood over him, the Glock aimed at Richard’s head. He didn’t look like a lawyer. He looked like death.
“Gabriel!” I shouted, scrambling to my feet and pulling my gun from the small of my back, though I didn’t need it.
Gabriel didn’t look at me. He was focused on Richard.
“It’s over, Richard,” Gabriel said, his voice calm, almost soft in the silence that followed the blast.
Richard pulled his hands away from his face. He was blind, blinking, disoriented. Blood dripped from his ears.
“Gabriel?” he grunted. “You… you blinded me!”
“I told you.” Gabriel cocked the gun. “Nobody touches what’s mine.”
He was going to kill him. Right there. An execution.
And if he did, there’d be no going back. It would be murder. Life in prison if anyone found the body. The end of our life together before it even began.
I ran to them.
“Gabriel, don’t!”
He didn’t move. His finger tightened on the trigger.
“He deserves it,” Gabriel said. “He was going to hurt you.”
“He’s already lost!” I stopped beside Gabriel, placing my hand over his on the gun, feeling the tension of his lethal intent. “Look at him. He’s finished. If you kill him, you become what he wanted you to be. You become the criminal.”
“I’m already the criminal, Elena. I’m the monster, remember?”
“Then be my monster.” I squeezed his hand. “Not his. Don’t give him the satisfaction of turning you into a murderer because of him.”
Gabriel looked at me. The darkness in his eyes was deep, frightening. He was on the edge.
“He has the photos,” Gabriel said.
“The photos don’t matter if he’s in jail.” I looked at Richard, moaning on the ground. “We call the cops anonymously. Leave his gun here. Breaking and entering, attempted murder. Self-defense.”
“He’ll talk.”
“Who’s going to believe him?” I smiled, a cold, cruel smile I’d learned from Gabriel. “He’s a disgraced addict on the run who tried to kill his former partners. His word against ours. And we have the recording of his confession about Turkey to make sure he never sees daylight again.”
Gabriel hesitated. He looked at Richard, then at me.
Slowly, very slowly, he lowered the gun.
“You’re right,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Death is too easy for him.”
Gabriel crouched down and pulled Richard’s phone from the pocket of his ruined jacket. He threw it on the ground and stomped on it, crushing it to shards of plastic and glass.
“Let’s go,” Gabriel said, taking my hand.
“Wait.”
I walked over to Richard. He was trying to crawl away, pathetic.
I crouched down beside him.
“Richard?” I called.
He stopped, turning his blind face toward me.
“Elena? Please…”
I pressed the cold barrel of my gun to his forehead. He froze, sobbing.
“You said I was a bargaining chip,” I whispered. “You were wrong. I own the bank.”
I stood up and turned my back on him.
“Now let’s go,” I said to Gabriel.
We left the warehouse, leaving Richard Hale in the dark, bleeding and defeated, waiting for the sirens Gabriel was already summoning on the burner phone as we walked to the car.
The rain began to fall again, washing over the industrial yard.
We got in the car. Gabriel didn’t start the engine right away. He turned to me, looking at me as if seeing me for the first time.
“You put a gun to his head,” he said, his voice caught between admiration and horror.
“I learned from the best.”
Gabriel let out a laugh, a sound of relief and madness. He pulled me into a kiss, violent and vital, sealing our bloodless pact.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
“Let’s go home.”
The car pulled away, leaving the wreckage of our old life behind. We weren’t innocent. We weren’t good.
But we were alive. And we owned our own hell.