Page 53 of Fast Justice

Blood trailed along the hardwood floor, over toward the powder room. Someone had tried to wipe it up but hadn’t done a good job in their haste. Whoever it was, she hoped they were in as much pain as her mother.

The shadow detached itself from the wall and a man’s silhouette filled the darkened hallway. Oceane’s nape prickled, her heart slamming against her chest wall.

Arturo.

The sight of him pierced her. He had a hand pressed to the front of his ribs. Blood glistened on his fingers and his breathing was quick and shallow. He held a pistol in his other hand.

Hands surprisingly steady, she raised her weapon, felt no fear as she stared down the barrel of the pistol. He had taught her to shoot. Had turned her into an expert shot, all in case she ever needed to defend herself and her mother.

She had never dreamed she would need to use it against him.

“Oceane, put the gun down,” he said in Spanish in a low voice, so familiar that pain lanced through her.

A sheen of tears blurred her eyes as she stared back at him, the betrayal so acute it shredded her. “How could you?” she choked out, barely able to speak. How had he found them?

“You don’t understand. Put the gun down and come with me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She shook her head, a wave of nausea mixing with rage and despair. He’d betrayed them. “Liar. You fuckingliar!” She pulled the trigger. The shot exploded in the silent hallway. Arturo grunted and dropped to his knees, his gun hand falling to his side.

“Wait,” he gasped, reaching for the wall to steady himself, his face a mask of pain.

You cut my mother.

She fired again, hit him in the chest this time. Her whole body was shaking, tears pouring down her face. He’d betrayed them. The man she had trusted more than any other, and had risked so much to ensure her safety.

“Why?” she demanded, stepping closer, sickened by what she’d had to do. “Why, dammit?”

In the dimness his dark, glassy eyes rolled toward her. Blood bubbled out of his mouth, his nose. He choked, coughed. “Your father…”

She went even colder inside, the pain unbearable.

“Wants you…back. Had…to—” He broke off, choking.

Oceane turned her back on him, leaving him to die in the hall and swept the rest of the house for more threats. She found a man in a dark hoodie sprawled out on the master bedroom floor, his pants down around his ankles. Bile rushed into her throat at the thought of this pig violating her mother. She hoped her mother had killed him.

In a daze she went back outside, the dying sun too bright against her eyes. Marshal Smythe was slumped on his side now, barely having the strength to raise his head to look at her.

“They’re all dead,” she said woodenly in English, setting the pistol on the grass before kneeling next to her mother. Oceane took one chilled hand in her own and pressed it to her cheek, letting the tears track down her face. The sirens were in the driveway now. Help coming too late. Too late.

“We’re safe now,Mami,” she whispered in Spanish. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

Her mother didn’t answer, her chest barely moving with her too-shallow breaths, and deep down, Oceane knew that nothing would ever be all right again.

****

Mal turned up the radio in his truck and tapped along to the rhythm of a favorite pop song on the steering wheel as he steered out of the FAST headquarters near the Pentagon.

“God, how can you stand this crap?” Lockhart asked from the passenger seat, tugging the brim of his ball cap lower on his forehead. “Why can’t you like country or rock, like normal people do?”

“Don’t like my tunes? Should have thought of that sooner and brought your own wheels to work, then,” Mal answered with a smirk.

“Trust me, I won’t make that mistake again,” Lockhart muttered with his trademark sarcasm. The guy was quiet, but funny as hell with his zingers. You had to pay attention, though. He and Granger together were something else, though Lockhart didn’t crave the spotlight the way Granger or Maka did. “You wanna grab a bite or something before you drop me off?”

“Can’t. Got plans.”

Lockhart glanced over, the corner of his mouth pulling up. “Okay,” was all he said, knowing damn well Mal planned to see Rowan. Most other guys on the team would have talked shit or grilled him for details, but not Lockhart. It was why Mal liked hanging around the former sniper so much. Lockhart knew when to keep his mouth shut. Unlike Maka, for instance, he thought with a smirk.

It had been another long but strangely satisfying day, having transferred Oceane and Anya into the custody of the U.S. Marshals before going to HQ to rejoin his teammates. They’d trained in the gym for a while before hitting the range together, and attended a meeting about the latest on Ruiz and Nieto.

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