Showdown Brooklyn
Showdown
Brooklyn
Alex hauls me around the side of the house. EMTs are still there working on people, sirens are screaming, neighbors are watching in abject horror. No one notices us. I stumble, dragging my feet. I just want to see the kids. I start to call out, but he slams a hand over my mouth.
“Don’t even think about it, or I’ll drop you where you stand.”
He forces me down the path that leads to the backyard. The dead hydrangea stalks brush against my hands. They remind me of the reeds by the river in Thiviers. We reach the gate, and I open it. He pushes me through.
“Alex. I thought you were dead.”
“Wished it, is more like it.”
“That’s not true. I could never—”
“Stop talking, Brook, or I’ll shoot you and throw you into the water. See how you like nearly drowning.”
He keeps herding me, past the garage, and I realize he’s taking me to the shelter.
“What do you want? Money? I don’t have any. Trey took it all.”
We’re at the entrance now, and he shoves me at the door. “Unlock it.”
I press the buttons, but instead of our personal PIN, I use the emergency code that calls our security company. Granted, there are plenty of cops around here already, but at the very least, if anyone comes looking, the police will have a record that someone has been forced to open this space.
I clatter down the stairs, and Alex follows. Underground, the cacophony of calls and sirens diminishes. It’s just our ragged breaths.
He hits the lights. They turn on in sequence, the familiar flinck, flinck, flinck of the bulbs warming up, and I get my first good look at my former lover.
He is older. The softness of youth has been replaced with sharper angles.
His hair is slightly darker but still curly and blond.
He is more muscular, less sleek and lithe than he used to be.
His eyes, though, are the most significant shift.
They used to look at me with happiness. Now they are narrowed in hate.
“Listen, I don’t know what’s happening here. But I am so, so sorry. If I had any idea that you were still alive—”
“Oh, shut up, would you? You always did talk too much.”
He cocks his head to the side like Bohdi does when he’s trying to be cute.
I hope my puppy is okay. I didn’t hear him barking when we moved around the house.
Our bedroom is in the back and he always barks if someone goes through the side path.
Theresa promised she’d help him, but Alex shot her before she could.
“Where’s the crypto wallet? Give it to me and I won’t put a bullet in your pretty face.”
“This is about money?”
“I was hired to do a job. I’m doing it. Where is the money your husband stole from the Gussins?”
I’m struggling to connect the dots. Pat and Bob hired Alex to track down the funds Trey was stealing?
“How did you meet them?”
“God, you are thick, aren’t you? Always the innocent, the ingenue. You never had any idea what was happening right under your nose.”
I remember what Detective Lee was asking me about providing Roger with the drugs that killed him. About my dad trafficking into Europe. How Alex was always able to get the product. And now he’s working for them?
“Were my aunt and uncle doing something illegal with my dad?”
He ticks the side of his nose. “Money’s gotta come from somewhere. Who do you think bankrolled him from the beginning? These operations aren’t cheap. And your stupid husband got greedy and stole a whole lot of it. Where is the wallet, Brook?”
“I don’t have it. I don’t know where it is. I barely know what a crypto wallet is.”
“Oh, Brooklyn, come on.”
When Alex used to get exasperated with me, he threw his head back and muttered Russian epithets at the sky. He does this now. The action both unnerves me and emboldens me.
I reach for the gun at the small of my back. I have one chance here.
I pull it, but it catches on my belt. Fuck. The motion is jerky and Alex’s trained eyes land on me.
“What have we here?”
I get the gun free and bring it up to shoot, but he’s too big and too fast. He slams my hand, and my wrist cracks. The gun flies from my grip, and I shout in pain, cradling my injured hand.
“Not again, my sweet. You didn’t kill me the last time you shot me, but I’m not going to give you another chance. You might manage it this time.”
My heart stutters.
“I didn’t mean to shoot you in France,” I say quietly. “It was an accident.”
He says a word that sounds like choosh. I know it means bullshit. He used to curse in Russian a lot and taught me some of his favorites.
“You two were fighting. I was just trying to get you to stop before one of you got hurt.”
That moment replays, the shouting, the punches, the gun in his bag. I warned them to stop. I was just trying to get them to calm down.
“Yeah, I’ve always found shooting into a couple of guys throwing punches to be an effective way to stop them.”
“You know I wouldn’t hurt you. Not on purpose.”
“And I suppose having Roger throw my body in the river was not meant to hurt?”
“He told me you were dead.”
“And you didn’t bother checking. Just let him deal with things.
” Alex is pacing now. “I have to hand it to you, that was cold, Brooklyn. But what you did to Roger that night was just masterful. Covered your tracks perfectly. Got rid of the witness to a murder and sailed away, innocent. He would have done anything for you, and instead, you killed him. You got to have a life. You and that identical twin of yours. So clever, to have her sitting quiet as a mouse in the hotel lobby so everyone thought you were in town instead of with us at the river.”
“What do you want from me?” I scream at him. “Apologies?”
“The wallet. I want the wallet. Give me that, and I’ll let you get back to your sweet, dying family. Eden really fucked them up.”
“How do you know Eden?”
His stare is unnerving. “I’ve always found the old adage to be true. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’”
“I’m confused.”
“It’s not rocket science, Brook. She wants your husband dead.
I want your husband dead. We worked together.
Your aunt and uncle know a lot of things, and one of them is your husband’s sordid past. Unlike you, they didn’t take Andrew at face value, and as they do with all their employees, they find choke points, and know where—and when—to apply pressure.
His pretty dead wife was exactly what we needed.
They pointed me at Eden, and that viper was all for taking him down. ”
“So this has been an elaborate ruse that you and Eden put together? Are you with her now?”
He scoffs. “Hardly. Eden was a means to an end. She wanted revenge for her sister, and she was willing to do most anything to get it.” He taps his chest with the gun.
“Two birds, one stone. We’ve been watching you two for a while, Brookie.
Amazing that you’ve gotten so complacent.
Suburbia tamed you. You never saw her coming, and she’s been right under your nose for months.
In your house. In your life. Watching. Listening.
Tracking.” His smile turns cruel. “Waiting.”
Now it makes sense, Stephanie seeing Eden in the school pickup line. But my mind is spinning. If he hadn’t told me, I might not have ever known.
“Eden is hopefully rotting in hell by now. She took a dose of her own medicine.”
“Hm. Well, no one said she was Einstein. Though, I have to say, she’s been quite the ally.
She moved fast when we realized Andrew was getting ready to run.
We thought he’d go it alone, but the fool decided to bring along the whole family.
The software we loaded on your computers alerted when he booked the tickets, and Eden logged in to the airline’s system and changed your flights, plus marked you for an ‘upgrade’ so you had to come to Atlanta instead of jetting out of the country.
Then put herself on the flight, too. She wasn’t supposed to get involved directly, but I suppose she just couldn’t help herself.
After all those years wanting to make his life hell, I guess she wanted to get to know you a bit before she ruined you. She’s one in a million.”
“How did you get to the airport in Atlanta? Were you on the plane, too? Or were you lying in wait, ready to force my husband away from me?”
“These are the things you want to know? Why don’t you want to know how I survived being shot and dumped in the river? Or why I haven’t come for you before now? You’re asking all the wrong questions, Brook. As usual.”
I hear noises, shouts getting closer. I swear, Trey’s voice is among them.
I edge closer to my gun. If I can just keep Alex talking for a few more moments . . .
“Don’t even think about it,” he says, and scoops it up. Now he has two guns pointed at me. “This has been a lot of fun catching up, but now I need you to hand over the money so I can finish things.”
“Finish it, then,” I say, chin up. “I don’t know where the wallet is.
You are a figment from my past. An inconvenient one, at that.
” I see the spike land heavy, and I’m not proud of angering him like that.
“I did love you, once. Until you got so controlling, so terrifying. Getting rid of you was the only choice I had. I just wish I’d made sure you were truly dead. Because Trey is worth ten of you.”
“That’s good to hear,” my husband says, coming slowly down the stairs into the shelter.
Alex trains the gun on the stairs, surprise crossing his features. When I chance a glance over my shoulder, I can’t help the gasp that escapes me. Trey looks like he’s been through hell.
“You didn’t die, Locke.”
“No, Durov, I didn’t,” Trey says, and smoothly, expertly, draws down on my ex. “Drop the weapon, and I might let you walk out of here.”
Alex responds by casually shooting me in the leg.
I cry out and spin, falling at his feet, facing Trey.
God, it hurts. I’ve never felt such horrible pain, not even giving birth.
It burns and stings and aches, and blood, bright red, spurts into the air.
I try to squeeze my leg, but it’s too slippery. Trey’s eyes are wild.
“Arterial blood,” Alex says. “She has minutes. Tell me where the wallet is, and I’ll let you call for help.”
“Here.” He throws the small black wallet at Alex, who catches it. “There you go. You’ve won.”
“Now I have.” He pulls the trigger again, and everything goes dark.