The Innocents, Nathan Senthil [best life changing books .TXT] 📗

mansion’s color, he did remember its size. And it was gigantic as ever.

But not a single sentry on sight.

Bugsy should be lethargic with the security detail here because the news about what happened to his men in Illinois had not leaked to the national media.

Leo crossed himself and muttered Isaiah 54:17. His fingertips, nails, and skin around them, still pinkish from Roman’s blood. Just a while ago, he had cut an eyeball out of a living man, but now he was all God-fearing like. Ryatt wondered, for the umpteenth time, how the cogs turned inside that little head of Leo’s.

He stopped the car at the entrance; the security camera was pointed at their windshield. Leo observed it, too, and solved the conundrum with a bullet from his suppressor-fitted machine pistol.

The front door was thick, and that same sneaky lock was protecting it.

Ryatt pulled out Roman’s key fob and selected the one that unlocked this door. Sweating behind the rubber, he operated the lock with the finesse of a burglar.

It unlocked with a click.

Weapon in hand, he went in and closed the door behind.

The house was still, as if time itself had frozen. Ryatt lay on the floor, so did Leo, presenting smaller targets just in case someone burst through.

No one did.

Ryatt crawled along the entryway, and when he reached the end of the wall, he peeked out on both sides. The hall was quiet, too, the silence so absolute that it rang in his ears.

He pushed himself up and sat on his haunches. Confident that they wouldn’t confront CCTV, they removed their masks and crouched up the stairs.

A mechanical dentist-chair-like thing rested on the corner of the top step. Ryatt felt warm, looking at it.

He remembered that Bugsy’s room was to the left. Just as he turned around on the landing, something shifted on the shiny banister.

A mini electrical-bomb went off in his stomach and a sickening sensation stunned him. Microseconds later, he heard the cocking of a gun; the click-clack of a round being chambered was robust. Must be a shotgun.

“Stop right there!” someone screamed behind them. “Don’t move a muscle.”

Ryatt could outdraw anyone and shoot them.

If they were in front of him.

“Reach for the skies!”

Ryatt did not obey. Better to die by a spray of pellets than whatever Bugsy and his men would do if they were to catch him alive.

“I said hands up!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Leo stiffen.

“Don’t move!”

Leo said, “Thank you, Ry. Thanks so much.”

Then he smiled and winked, slowly turning towards the voice. No, no, no. Ryatt knew that look, the madness in his eyes. It was the same look when he set something on fire. When he flayed Roman’s penis.

Leo giggled and dashed, and the explosion of the shotgun shook the corridor. It was so loud that it almost swallowed the series of gunshots from Leo’s MAC-10.

Almost.

Ryatt turned on his feet in time to see Leo crash on the guy, and they both limply fell. Gun at ready, Ryatt sprinted towards them. He pulled Leo off the man who had several holes in his face.

And Leo, his best friend, was alive. But only barely. The buckshot tore Leo’s tiny midsection, his shirt shredded and guzzling blood in rivulets. Leo caught Ryatt’s wet eyes and tried to giggle, but it became a labored wheezing fit. His mousy face contorted one last time, in a demonic grimace, before the movements halted.

Ryatt stood straight, angling the Desert Eagle at Leo’s dead murderer on the floor.

And he pulled the trigger. He pulled it many times, until the clip couldn’t supply metal to feed his rage.

The man’s head was obliterated. Almost flattened. His blood and bones, brains and hair, they all dotted the lower sections of the walls and Ryatt’s pants.

Taking one last look at his late friend, Ryatt ejected the clip and pocketed it. Then he marched towards Bugsy’s door, fed a new mag and chambered a round. But he knew full well that all the metal in the world would not be enough to settle his score with the rotten bastard inside.

“Time to end this.” Ryatt kicked the door open.

Chapter 46

May 13, 2019. 09:20 A.M.

Gabriel parked the Camaro beside Bugsy’s peripheral wall. He grabbed the shopping bag on the passenger seat, which contained a few new blankets, and exited the vehicle. He hopped onto the Camaro’s hood, then onto the top. The metal sheet caved, but Bill wouldn’t mind.

Looking around the avenue, he threw the spongy cloth over the spiraling barbed wires. They got hooked by the spikes and provided a comfortable ingress.

Gabriel wiped his palms across his jeans and leapt. His belly landed on the blankets, and he swung his legs over to the other side. Hugging the blankets, he looked down. A seven-foot drop. He loosened his ankles and legs, before letting go. As his feet touched the grass, he neutralized the force by maneuvering his knees as springs.

In a wink, he dived under the nearby shrubbery and observed the mansion from its cover. The CCTV camera above the front door was hanging down; bits of plastic and glass were strewn directly below.

Gabriel waited for a few moments. No gunshots. No shouting. Not even a TV.

Drawing his Glock, he ducked his head between his shoulders and crept to the door.

It’s a weird looking lock.

Gabriel slowly wrapped his fingers around the doorknob.

An explosion shattered the quietness.

He jumped to the hedge flanking the door and crouched into a protective huddle. Then he pointed his gun… at nothing. He frantically turned left to right and right to left.

Nothing whatsoever.

Auditory hallucination? Fat chance. Gabriel never suffered from psychosis.

And then his stomach burned in searing pain. As if someone stabbed him with a red-hot knife.

“Mother…”