Page 77 of Killer Love

“Your mother…” he smirks, “she says he has my chin.”

I breathe a short laugh. “He does.”

He bounces his brow and looks out the window by his desk.

The twinge of breaking glass tears the silence and my heart lurches.

Markov rises from his chair. “Nikolai—!”

Crimson blood pours down my father’s face and strikes the wall behind him, expelled from the exit wound at the back of his skull. He slumps forward and tumbles to the floor before I can even take another breath.

Everything stops, seized by slow motion. Yuri jumps to his feet and we both rush forward as Fox leaps over the back of the sofa and throws the window curtains closed.

I fall to my knees beside my father and slide a hand beneath his head. “Pops…”

Warm blood coats my palm. He weighs heavy in my grasp, moving without any resistance in his muscles. I look down into his open left eye, this one glazed over with more gray than usual.

Yuri reaches down and shakes his shoulders in a childish attempt at waking him. “Pops!”

I lay his head down as shock turns to sadness. It only lasts a second. Rage overwhelms everything and I stand up to move toward the windows.

“It’s them,” Fox says, peeking outside through a narrow slit in the curtain.

“Them who?” Yuri asks.

“Snake Eyes,” I answer.

Fox nods and points outside with his pinky finger. “The sniper is in the trees. Just over that ridge.”

“You’re sure?”

“That’s where I’d be. Avoid the windows.”

I keep my eye on Fox. He maintains his eerie calmness like he’s seen all of this before. “Can you take him out?”

“If I had my rifle, yes.”

“Where is it?”

“Under the couch upstairs.”

“Go get it,” I tell him. “Climb the east stairwell to the roof and knock him to the fucking ground.”

Fox hesitates.

I flex my jaw. “I don’t have time for your resistance to kill right now, Fox.”

“It’s not that,” he says. “This wasn’t a normal hit. This was a distraction.”

“From what?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He glances at my father on the floor. “They don’t make themselves known until it’s too late to stop them.”

Yuri pulls himself off the floor. “What does that mean?”

“It means they’re already inside.”

I look at Markov as he reaches for the radio on his belt.

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