Page 119 of Eyes in the Shadows

“I saw the sale records for this warehouse. I know it’s yours. What I don’t know is why you thought you’d get away with it. You thought I was just going to let you steal from me?”

I see the instant Rossi knows what’s going to happen—that Mayor Anderson isn’t going to listen to his version of the truth—and he starts bringing up his own weapon to make a feeble attempt to strike first.

“Dive, Eleanor! Under the truck!” I yell, frantically.

I’ll thank whatever God I need to that she reacts quickly. She’s almost under the truck when I take out the gunman on my left, who was closest to her. Simultaneously, Rossi gets a shot in Mayor Anderson’s shoulder. Anderson spins from the impact, going down, and the other gunman fires off towards Rossi.

Rossi is hit in the chest and he fires another shot, missing the gunman entirely. If I weren’t so fucking pissed, I’d laugh at how poor his aim is. I get the gunman through the temple as he turns to help his boss.

Anderson is clutching his arm, but Rossi is back up with a hand pressed to his pec. No blood is leaking through his fingers.

Fuck. He’s got on a vest.

He takes a few steps forward, approaching Anderson on the ground. He stands over the older man, who’s writhing and trying to get his gun back up in position.

“I never needed you, anyway.”

He fires off a few rounds and Mayor Anderson stops moving.

Then, like he realizes the other gunmen were taken care of by someone that wasn’t him, Rossi turns on a dime and dives. Too late, the bullet I fired off lands somewhere in the cinderblock wall 500 feet behind where Rossi was standing. When I recover from the recoil, and find him again, he’s dragging Eleanor to her feet, and using her as a shield. He has his gun pointed at her face from the side.

I see red. Every thought of torture flies out the window—he dies now.

“Show yourself, Ivanov!”Rossi shouts into the darkness beyond the warehouse, in my general direction. I can hear his elevated voice clearly in the still night air.“I will fucking shoot her!”

Generally speaking, I have enough confidence in my ability to know that if two men are 500 meters away, standing a foot apart, the one that I wanted to hit is the one with the bullet in his brain. Which is not to say that I’ve never missed, only that it’s been a while.

But no shot I’ve ever made has been more important than this one. She is… She’s everything to me. Three inches too far left, and I hit her. An overcorrection to the right to ensure I don’t hit her might go too wide and he’ll fire off in fear.

“Mac?”Wes prods.“You good?”

I breathe in and out. In and out. I have to get out of my head.

“You want me to try to hit him from the side? I am almost in position—”

“No,” I say to Dimitri. “If he sees you, he’s definitely going to shoot.”

“You’ve got this, mate.”

“Eleanor, on the count of three I want you to drop to the ground. I know he’s got your hair and it’s going to hurt, but it’ll surprise him and you’ll be out of the way of my shot. I promise you I will not miss. Blink twice if you understand.”

A terrified expression fills her face, but she blinks twice in rapid succession.

“One…” I see her tense and I press the gun into the right spot against my chest. “Two…” her knees go soft and she brings up her hands to be in place to catch her fall as I place my finger on the trigger.

“I swear, I will shoot her—”Rossi shouts.

“Three.”

She drops, I shoot, and the hole forms right through his eye. First there’s a dark round spot as his eye blows out the back of his head, then red pours out, falling down his face and squirting from the wound.

And I’m up, leaving everything where it is in the middle of the field, sprinting for the warehouse. Dimitri has just finished cutting the tape off her wrists when I come running up. We lock eyes and the relief shining there makes my chest hurt. But as I get close, opening my arms for her to run into, she reaches up and slaps me in the face.

“‘Drop to the ground on three so I don’t shoot you’?” she shrieks at me. “You asshole!”

Wes chokes on a laugh as Dimitri hides a smile by turning around completely.

“Never do that again, James Mackenzie,” she hisses, poking me in the sternum.

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