Ciphers, Matt Rogers [a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT] 📗

that someone he loved deeply was being held hostage, had led to the tiniest fraction of a mistake.

In this game, that’s all it took.

He had his own rifle aimed squarely between the redhead’s eyes, but there was no doubt if anyone pulled the trigger they’d all wind up dead.

King didn’t hear a thing behind him. He didn’t know where Slater was. He didn’t know if either of the mercenaries had even seen him.

The redhead said, ‘Drop it.’

King said, ‘No.’

‘I’ll shoot her.’

‘I’ll shoot you.’

Silence.

King said, ‘You didn’t come here to die. Let’s compromise.’

‘This bitch killed three of my friends,’ the guy snarled. ‘Cut them all down with a Glock before we could react. What is she — Special Forces or something? They were my buddies. I grew up with them.’

King nodded at Malcolm’s body between them. ‘He was my friend.’

‘I didn’t do that.’

‘He’s dead all the same.’

‘We came for you. And the other guy. Where is he?’

‘Behind you.’

The redhead didn’t turn around. But King could almost see the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. The shadows sure didn’t help. King imagined the cogs in his brain turning, running over and over again with hypotheticals. Like, Could it be?

And Violetta knew that was her cue.

She was five-eight, slim at the waist and curvaceous in the hips, with thin arms. Not the sort of physique you’d expect to be effective in combat, especially against a six-two angry Irish thug dressed in tactical gear with a loaded gun in his hand. But fighting isn’t really about strength. It is in a cage, with a referee, which is why weight classes exist. But when Violetta threw her head back like it was a bowling ball and pulverised the mercenary’s nose with the back of her skull, it came as no surprise to King that it worked flawlessly.

Because physics were the same no matter how big or small you were.

A nose is fragile, and a skull is hard.

The crack actually echoed through the lobby, as spacious and silent as it was. It was a brutal noise, bound to make almost anyone squeamish. In his peripheral vision, King noticed the merc to his left get distracted. Once again, only for a half-second, but it was enough. The man’s gaze flitted sideways to determine the source of the broken bone. Was it his buddy in a pickle, or had the redhead simply decided to teach Violetta a lesson to speed up the proceedings?

He realised it was his buddy with a now-broken nose, and immediately jerked his gaze back in King’s direction, because now the situation was serious. But suddenly there was someone behind King, filling up the rest of the doorway. An African-American man, materialising out of nowhere.

Three things happened at once.

First, Violetta deliberately jerked her head forward, in the opposite direction to her initial headbutt, and the momentum was enough for the redhead’s aim to slip. Suddenly the barrel wasn’t skewered into the side of her head, and when he pulled the trigger reflexively the bullet missed her head by a couple of inches, passing through the space between his chest and the back of her head.

Second, King shot the redhead in the face.

Third, Slater shot the other mercenary in the face.

Two bodies clattered to the floor with twin thwacks.

Violetta stepped away from the redhead’s corpse and quietly dusted herself off.

She said, ‘Thanks.’

King breathed a sigh of relief.

21

Slater eased himself out of the doorway and surveyed the lobby for the first time since it had been breached.

It was a mess. A disaster zone. The big slab of marble that constituted the reception desk was riddled with bullets and scorch marks. There was the body of the night guard in the middle of the space, and a dead woman in uniform behind the desk. Her face was pale and her eyes were glazed over. There were two bloody holes in the centre of her chest. Slater turned away from the macabre sight and took in the chipped columns, the overturned furniture, the soft wind trickling in through the space where the floor-to-ceiling windows used to be, the dead mercenaries scattered across the ground. The redhead hadn’t been lying. Violetta had gunned down most of the backup on her own.

Without her, he and King mightn’t have been so lucky.

She said, ‘Are either of you hurt?’

‘No,’ he and King said in unison.

This time it was her turn to sigh with relief. ‘Okay.’

She went quiet.

King said, ‘Don’t beat yourself up. You were outnumbered.’

‘You’re outnumbered every operation. You two still manage.’

‘We’re… a little different.’

‘You think I can’t take care of myself?’

Slater swept a hand across the space. ‘You seemed to manage okay.’

‘Not really. When you got here, I had a gun to my head.’

‘Like I said,’ King said, ‘don’t beat yourself up.’

‘Hard not to. I’d be dead if you were a minute slower.’

‘Probably not.’

She raised an eyebrow.

King said, ‘He seemed intent on using you as a hostage. They were here for us. Not for you.’

‘Oh, well, I feel miles better.’

‘You’re our handler. Not an operative. And you still killed three of them.’

‘Yeah,’ she mumbled, and turned to survey the scene.

It didn’t seem real to her.

Slater said, ‘Have you killed anyone before?’

King threw a quick glance in Slater’s direction, and gave a subtle nod.

Then he raised his hand and drew it once across his throat. Not now.

Slater nodded back. Understood.

Violetta looked up and said, ‘I’m not a spring chicken.’

‘Let’s not get into that,’ King said.

‘Probably a good idea. You two, come with me.’

‘Where?’

‘Away from here.’

Slater scanned the bodies, noting their body armour and the casual-wear underneath. This had been planned. A strategy had been formulated and executed by parties unknown. He and King were targets, just like they’d been targets many months ago in this very same building. They weren’t nearly as beaten and battered as they had been at the end of that particular skirmish, but the same principle applied. Someone wanted them dead, and it coincided with a blackout.

Coincidence? he thought.

As Violetta fetched her Glock from behind one