“Hello?” Fedor asks, sounding suspicious. “Hannah?”
I could open the door and shoot at Fedor, but his guards would gun me down moments later. I have to alert Seamus, but I’m not sure how to do that without letting Fedor know this is a trap and giving him the upper hand.
“What the fuck is going on?” Fedor asks.
I’m out of time and options, so I do the only thing I can think of. I cup a hand around my mouth and yell, “He’s here!”
“Shit.” Fedor curses on the other side of the door. I hear him and his men scrambling to get away, but I also hear the doors around me open. I follow suit and step into the breezeway.
Irish members move into the breezeway and the parking lot, backing Fedor and his men into the corner, but they aren’t going quietly. Bullets are flying and by the time I step outside ,there are already two men on the ground, blood pooling around them.
“I’m sorry,” I yell to Seamus as I advance on my brother. “I fucked it up.”
He waves me away and points to Fedor, directing me to focus, and I’m trying. I really am.
I’ve never been this frazzled before. Perhaps it is because I know this is it. I know this is the last battle I’m going to have with Fedor. Only one of us is going to walk away from this. Either I’ll kill him, or I’ll die trying.
I take a sobering breath and begin firing.
My men and Seamus’ men are shooting at Fedor’s guards, but I aim for their cars. I can’t let them escape this.
One by one, I blow out the tires on their vehicles and shatter the windshields. Then and only then do I turn on his men.
I step out from behind the pillar I was using for cover, and immediately, I feel a burning sensation in the center of my chest. I don’t need to look down to know someone hit me in my bulletproof vest. I’m alive, but it still hurts like a motherfucker.
When I look up, I see Fedor lowering his gun and ducking behind one of their wasted cars.
He hit me in the chest without a second thought.
Suddenly, the doubt I’ve been experiencing fades away. I can no longer remember why I was hesitating.
I don’t want to be the one to kill my younger brother, but my baby brother has been dead for a long time. And I didn’t kill him. Fedor did.
This new version of Fedor strangled the innocent, kind version of my brother I’ve been holding onto. The little boy I loved and protected is gone, and now, I’m left to deal with the cold murderer in his stead.
I shake off the pain in my chest and charge forward, taking out two of Fedor’s men in the blink of an eye.
Fedor sees me approaching through a shattered window in the car and has the good sense to look terrified.
He grabs one of his guards and makes a run for the front lobby of the motel, ducking inside the shabby building.
Instead of following him, I duck into a maintenance hallway that splits the motel into two separate buildings with an overhang between and run to the back of the building. The grass is slick with dew, and I slide around the turn but manage to keep my footing as I head towards the back door.
That is where Fedor is going. I know it.
His men are out front fighting on his behalf and dying, but he doesn’t care. He is like a rat searching for dry ground in a flood. He will leave them all to die if it means he will live. He is going to run away.
A gunshot slices through the air, closer than the ones happening at the front of the building, and I spin around searching for Fedor, assuming he shot me. Then, I see a middle-aged man poking around the corner of the hallway I just ran through. He is chasing after me, still trying to protect his “fearless” leader, even as his leader is making a run for it.
I lift my arm to shoot him and a sharp pain burns through my muscle. My arm seizes up, and I nearly drop the gun. He shot me in the arm. In almost the exact same place where I was sliced in the arm a week ago. Molly was worried the slice would leave a scar and now there is no doubt about it. I’ll definitely have a scar.
I switch hands and fire at the corner, hitting the man’s exposed knee. He screams in pain and falls to the ground, cradling his leg, and I take him out.
Usually, I reserve kill shots for necessity only, but there is more than just my life on the line. I have Theo and Molly and our unborn baby to think about. I’ll singlehandedly slaughter every person on the motel’s property if it means keeping them safe. I have no regrets.
I spin around just as the back door of the motel bursts open and Fedor comes sprinting out of it. He doesn’t even look around to see if the coast is clear. He keeps his arms close to his sides, head down, and sprints for the tree line in the distance that borders the drainage ditch.
If he makes it through the trees, he could very well escape, and I can’t let that happen.
I aim for him and fire, shooting once, twice.
Grass and dirt explode just behind him, and Fedor jumps and then picks up his pace. I adjust my aim a bit higher, and I see the blood spurt from his thigh. A direct hit.
He stumbles, rolling over his shoulder in the grass before getting his good leg under him again. If I wasn’t the one chasing him, I’d be impressed with the show of agility. As it is, I’m annoyed he won’t just stay down.
Fedor glares at me, and I barely recognize him. His pupils have eaten up the usual electric green of his eyes, and he looks like a man possessed. He lifts his gun just as I lift mine, and we shoot at the same time like it is an old-timey duel.
I feel the shot hit me in the vest just above my heart, and I drop to my knees with the force of it. Fedor, too, drops to the ground, but whereas I’m unscathed, I see a red stain spreading across his gray T-shirt just over his stomach. He presses his hand to the spot and then looks at me, his eyes wide enough that even from a distance, I can see the whites around his irises.
He fires at me again, and I hear the shot shatter a window on the back of the motel. I fall down in the grass, but when he pulls the trigger again, it is just a useless click.
He’s empty.
I crawl forward on my knees and elbows, eventually making it back to my feet, and run for him. My arm is burning, but it isn’t life-threatening. Not like Fedor’s wound. My brother tries to run for the trees again, but he only makes it a few steps before he stumbles over his own feet and rolls in the grass. This time, rather than deftly maneuvering to his feet, he staggers on his hands and knees. He looks like a wounded animal, and it is pathetic.
“Enough,” I call after him, my boots squishing into the soft earth. “Face me and let’s end this.”
“Easy for you to say; you have a weapon,” he says, rolling onto his back. “It isn’t exactly a fair fight.”
“Was it a fair fight when you kidnapped Molly? Did you give her time to arm herself and give her a fighting chance?”
He doesn’t answer and scoots away from me on the ground. His face is paler than I’ve ever seen it and the blood is spreading across his shirt so quickly that it’s hard to tell what color the fabric was originally.
I can still hear shots coming from the front of the building, but they are happening less often than before. Whatever is happening up there, it is about to wrap up. I hope Seamus and his men come out victorious.
If not, at least I’ll have this victory before Fedor’s men kill me.
“That’s what I thought,” I say, standing over him. “That’s kind of your thing, isn’t it, Fedor? Overpowering those who are weaker than you? Beating people who can’t fight back?”