Page 309 of The Black Trilogy

Heeding my own advice not to shoot anyone in the back, I whistled softly, and he spun around. Dark hair, a goatee, and a faint expression of surprise right before I put a bullet between his eyes. I followed up with a second, just to be sure, and he crumpled to the carpet with a soft thud. Four down, I couldn’t help smiling.

Heartless?

Of course I was heartless. I’d given my heart to Black, and when he died, he took it with him.

But I didn’t have time to dwell on sentimentalities because I had a dead body at my feet, right where one of his buddies would undoubtedly trip over it. I started to drag it into the linen closet, only for Jed to interrupt.

“Emmy, incoming. Middle staircase from the second floor.”

I didn’t have time to go back the way I’d come, but I didn’t want to go forwards either because I’d be boxed in. And worse, the only room that lay ahead was Bradley’s bedroom. Most people slept as far away from me as possible, but Bradley had insisted on having that one because it had the best view of the sunset.

Think, Emmy, think!

That particular hallway was quite narrow, so I braced my shoulders on one wall and my legs on the other then climbed upwards, wedging myself near the ceiling. Awkward, but it worked.

A few seconds later, my opponent came into view, dashing towards his dead buddy. Medical attention was a waste of time since the man’s brain had a couple of new lead accessories, but in the darkness, he didn’t know that. Instead, he stooped to check for a pulse, cursing under his breath when he didn’t find one.

The newcomer straightened, and I saw the moment he realised he was a sitting duck. His back stiffened, his gun came up, and he looked both ways. Trying to get out or searching for me? Well, he wouldn’t manage either successfully because he didn’t look up and he chose to go forwards.

I dropped to the floor behind him and followed, catching him as he came out of Bradley’s en-suite.

Another one down.

It should have been a moment to celebrate, but I groaned instead. There was blood on the carpet, splatters and a pool spreading out from under the guy’s head. The metallic tang assaulted my nostrils.

Great. I’d never hear the end of that. No way would Bradley ever sleep in this room again. In my head, I could hear him muttering about death cooties and the guy wasn’t even cold yet.

Why did this stuff keep happening to me?

Nate announced over our secure channel that he’d tagged the last one upstairs, coming out of my housekeeper’s sewing room. She loved making quilts, and apparently the light was good in there. Now? There was only darkness.

Eight down, six left. Six walking dead, roaming my first floor and basement.

“They’re starting to panic,” Jed told me. “They can’t get a response from the others, and they don’t know what to make of it.”

Excellent. I slipped back in behind Stan’s portrait and met up with Nick, Nate, and Dan to go downstairs for the Battle of Little Riverley: Part Two.

But as we descended inside the walls, we missed one of the remaining hombres coming to look for his amigos. He must have stumbled across a body or two, and he must also have been a less experienced member of the team, because he hurtled back to the ground floor, yelling in rapid Spanish.

The others whispered furiously over the radio for him to shut up, and he seemed to come to his senses and did so. I sighed. The lion was out of the wardrobe now, and I stowed my .22. With the need to remain secret no longer an issue, I might as well have the stopping power of the Glock.

Given that four men had checked the two visible rooms of the basement—the movie theatre and a large games room—and found nothing, I figured they wouldn’t expect anyone to come from down there. So I did exactly that.

Water trickled down the basement stairs as I snuck up to the ground floor. The sprinklers had stopped the fire from taking hold, but the smell of smoke still grated at my throat. One of Blanco’s men came out of the lounge, and when I shot him with the Glock, half of his skull disintegrated thanks to Carmen’s hand-loaded ammo.

“That was for my kitchen, you monkey-flunking goofnugget.”

Not to mention my husband.

I hustled back to the basement, ready and waiting for my next victim, but when Team Blanco found the headless dude, they’d had enough.

“Fall back,” came the cry over the radio, and the five remaining soldiers tripped over themselves to get out.

“Heading for you, Dime,” Mack told Carmen.

Nate had given her that nickname years ago because when she picked up a rifle, she could hit a coin from a thousand yards every time.

“What, all of them?” she asked.

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