Roma
Mr. Black! I think, mind racing.
He’s alone, holding a rifle. Mr. Black is never on his own. He always has an entourage, and he’s holding a rifle. He never does the dirty work. He’s the Man in Black, the Man in the Shadows, the Man Who Gives Orders. But he holds the rifle confidently, like he has no problem with using it. I look through the scope and see his grinning face, follow the trail of his aim. He’s aiming right at the ambassador, with Felicity right beside him.
My blood turns cold at the sight of Mr. Black aiming the gun at her. My bones turn to ice and all the pain and exhaustion I was feeling falls away. A cool killer’s calm comes over me, the calm which used to be my default mood before I met Felicity. Suddenly, Cleft’s gun pressed into my back seems absurd. I will not let him shoot her, I think. I will never let that happen.
My hands are steady and my eyes are honed. My muscles feel relaxed, stronger than they’ve ever been. I feel as though I have been injected with a calming drug. I am Roma again. I am Bear’s protégée again.
“Cleft,” I say, keeping my voice as casual as possible.
“What?” He grunts, the gun moving up and down my spine.
I close my eyes, sense him, feel his movements. I can feel his breathing by the reverberations it makes down his arm, through the gun, and onto my back.
“I fucked your girlfriend a few weeks ago.”
“What?” Cleft snaps.
Come on, come on, let that anger take you, motherfucker.
“I fucked your girlfriend and she told me she loved me.”
“Yeah fucking right,” Cleft grunts, but his voice is shaky. “What color’s her hair then?”
Shit.
I take a stab: “It’s blonde.”
I hear his breathing tremble.
“What shade of blonde?”
Shit, shit.
I take another stab. “Dyed blonde, bleached.”
There’s a pause and I wonder if I’ve got it wrong.
But then Cleft screams: “Piece of shit!”
He won’t shoot me, so he tries to do the only other thing he can. He lifts the gun and makes to smack me over the head with it. Eyes closed, I feel every movement, the sensation of the gun being pulled away from me, the way Cleft’s breathing gets quicker and quicker. Half a second—he brings the gun down.
I lurch to the side and the gun smacks harmlessly against the chair. I jump up and punch him so hard in the face blood explodes like a burst watermelon, pouring down his shirtfront. I’m on him in a second, wrenching the gun from his grip. The other man, taken off guard, tries to lift his gun to aim it at me. Two shots. Pop-pop. And Cleft and his friend are dead, headshots, lying like sacks of potatoes on the floor.
And I’d kill a thousand more to protect Felicity, I think.
I quickly grab the rifle and look through the scope at Mr. Black. He’s looking straight at me, mouth set in a determined grimace. I watch as he swings the rifle in a wide arc, aiming right for Felicity.
“No fucking way,” I growl.
Before I met Felicity, I never would have dreamed I’d do what I’m about to do. It would’ve sounded like a joke, a twisted joke that made little sense. The Man in Black is my employer. The Man in Black is the man who pays my bills. The Man in Black is the reason I have almost one million in cash stashed away. I’ve known the Man in Black almost as long as I’ve known Bear. But none of that matters anymore. He’s pointing a gun straight at Felicity. I can’t have that.
I pull the trigger, but a split-second before I do, he manages to get a shot off. A window in the party room smashes. Even from up here, I hear the screams. Mr. Black slumps forward, a bullet hole in his head, blood spilling onto his rifle. I look at him for half a second, thinking: You played the game, sir, and you lost.
And then I’m on my feet, charging down the stairs and out onto the street. A shot cut through the party. Felicity . . .
If she’s been hit, I’ll never forgive myself. If she’s been hit, I’ll take my own life, make no mistake. I love her more than I’ve ever cared for anything or anybody. If that bastard has killed her.
I sprint across the street, traffic swerving around me, people mashing their horns. The air fills with the sound of curses and honking. I ignore it all and sprint into the hotel room, glancing around. I know that any moment now, Felicity could be bleeding out. On her back, blood gushing from her mouth. I should’ve shot sooner, I think. Goddamn it! Why didn’t I shoot sooner?
“Sir,” the receptionist says, as I spring toward the door guarded by two Secret Service agents. “Sir, you can’t go that way.”
The agents step into my path. I don’t want to hurt them. These aren’t men who’re part of the life. So I don’t. I just do something they don’t expect. I bow my head and bull-rush them. The men—clean-shaven, tidy-haired, with a military look about them, but not the hardened, mercenary look of Mr. Black’s men—let out a yelp and step aside reflexively. After a moment, they realize what they’ve done and jump after me.
But they’re too late. I crash through the door and look around the room.
It’s chaos. I can’t see anything. I push through politicians, wading through the crowd.
“Get him!” somebody screams.
Finally, I reach the front of the crowd.
I stop, heart hammering in my chest. Felicity and her father stand huddled close together, unharmed. I look at the shattered window, follow the path the bullet must’ve taken. There, low on the stage, I see the shredded wood where Mr. Black’s shot missed. Gasping, I stare at Felicity. Her head is bowed, but at the sound of the mayhem, she looks up. When she sees me her eyes go wide and her hands begin to shake.
“Felicity,” I say. “I love you. I couldn’t let—”
A Secret Service agent barrels into me, taking me clean off my feet and slamming me into the ground. The crowd lets out a scream as three, four, five agents begin laying into me; the two I charged past at the door are the angriest and pound my face and my arms with heavy fists. I grunt as their strikes hit me, but I’m too relieved to see Felicity unharmed to fight back. Blood pours down me and old wounds reopen.
So what? I think in the midst of the beating. Felicity is alive. Mr. Black is dead. That’s all that matters.
Then Felicity’s voice cuts through the pain. “Stop that!” she screams. “I am the daughter of the ambassador and you are Secret Service agents and I order you to stop, right now!”
Reluctantly, the men stop beating me. One of them grabs me by the wrists and pulls me to my feet. I can hardly see. Blood drips down my forehead and covers my eyes.
But none of that matters. Felicity is alive and her would-be killer is dead. She is safe. Bleeding or not, wounded or not, in agony or not, I have saved her.