Page 37 of Breakdown
“Jesus, kid, keep your voice down,” she admonished, ducking through the hole. Cynthia’s expression was grave and far less triumphant. She’d clearly already figured out the flaw in Peter’s plan, fixing him with a shrewd gaze. “So we’re in. But how the hell are we supposed to get the car out?”
Peter sighed; he was already running those calculations in his head and none of them seemed very promising. “Best-case scenario, there’s a key for the gate inside.”
“And worst-case scenario?” Cynthia pressed. Her mind worked at problems like his did. In a different life, he might’ve learned a few things from her. The thought stirred something unexamined and aching inside him, and he fiercely pushed it down. This wasn’t the time.
With a soft smack, Peter demonstratively punched his fist into his opposite palm. “Worst-case, I use the car as a battering ram. Liv said it’s about the message so she can’t really complain if the car happens to get a little beat up,” he said grimly, wincing at the damage it was going to do to both the Ferrari and the soft tissues of his body.
Cynthia frowned, but she seemed satisfied enough with the answer to not have any follow-up questions.
He glanced at his Rolex; he was almost fifteen minutes early, but he wasn’t going to stand out here in the open. Volkov, Giannopoulos and their army of goons should be halfway there by now. He dropped the bolt-cutters back into his duffle bag and retrieved his pry bar just in case, testing the weight. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
The back door was a no-go, trying it had been wishful thinking. It was custom-built reinforced steel without as much as a handle, strictly an exit. He circled cautiously around to the front of the building, pressed against the brick to stay in the shadows as he peered around the corner.
He’d expected to see some beefy, surly Russian enforcer stationed there, built as thick and impenetrable as the steel door he was protecting. But there was no one watching the entrance. As untouchable as Volkov thought he was, he was too smart to not leave at least one man behind to look after his assets as a failsafe. The fact that no one was guarding the door was not so much a red flag as the whole fucking color-guard.
He crept closer. The front panel of the alarm system had been ripped off and was dangling by a half-severed wire, knocking against the wall with a hollow tap in the breeze. The heavy door stood slightly ajar, a dark, ominous mouth.
“Stay behind me,” Peter whispered, the pry bar held out in front of him, his throat tightening as he eased his way into the building.
The lights were off, the air in the shop stale and everything entirely too quiet. Something smelled funny, and not just in a figurative sense. Peter spent his entire life around chop-shops and garages, and he usually found a certain comfort in their scent: the sweet, transient tang of gasoline, the deeper, richer smell of oil, and on top of it all the windshield washer fluid and diesel and coolant and a half-a-dozen other solvents tinging the air. Here, in Volkov’s garage, there was something else though, something Peter recognized but that didn’t belong, heavy and ferric.
His mouth was dry as he groped for his flashlight, illuminating the scene. Behind him, Jordan started to gag.
He didn’t blame the kid. “Jesus.” The sound seeped out of Peter, an involuntary murmur. He took a step closer, directing the light and trying to make sense of what he was looking at.
It was a goddamn massacre.
The amount of blood was staggering, slicking the concrete floors, long thick tendrils of it streaming into the oil pits. A few of Matteo and Volkov’s guys had been shot where they stood, quickly and messily. Their chests and faces had been gruesomely ripped open by the force of the bullets. The rest had been more deliberate, lined up against the far wall execution-style. In the middle of it all was parked Volkov’s Ferrari Pista, pristine and gleaming.
Peter’s knees threatened to buckle, and he groped for the bumper to steady himself.Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.The curse thrummed through his brain like a nest of wasps, persistent and stinging. Far away, but too close for comfort, police sirens wailed.
“What the hell happened here?” Cynthia whispered under her breath.
Peter knew, but he didn’t want to believe it. This was a set-up. His sister set him up. Peter took another darting glance at the bodies cooling on the concrete. He wasn’t sure yet how she pulled it off, but Liv had just put a major dent in her competition, taking out a whole crew of Volkov and Matty’s forces. The sirens were growing louder and nearer to Volkov’s shop. And now she was going to let Peter take the fall for it. If he hadn’t been early...
He forced himself to take a breath. Count to ten. Release it. Nik’s trick. He wasn’t sure if it was the breathing or the thought of Nik, but it was enough to snap him out of his inertia.
Panic clawed at the back of his throat. Christ, how could he be so fucking stupid? He knew something wasn’t right with this job, but between everything going on with Nik and his mother, Peter had ignored his well-honed instincts of self-preservation.Now Nik was alone with his traitorous sister at the garage. Hell, Peter had practically insisted on it.
What if framing Peter for this hit was just the first step? She knew Nik was the reason Peter had stayed legitimate for so long. Hell, she knew Nik was the only thing tethering him to anything resembling sobriety and sanity. If she was really this far gone, this much like Dad, there was a chance she was taking the opportunity to get Peter out of the way for a few hours to get rid of Nik permanently. If Peter didn’t have anything to go back to, anything to live for... He couldn’t do time again. She knew that. Hell, she probably figured Peter would take care of her problem himself.
Like Stavros had.
He felt like he was drowning, Liv’s betrayal pulling him under the water. Peter had to get Nik out of there now. “Jordan, gimme the burner.” His own voice was choked and unfamiliar. He cursed as the call went to Nik’s voicemail, dialing again immediately.
The first cruiser arrived on scene, illuminating the garage through the windows with weak light. Red then blue then red again, strobing over the slack, bloodied faces. Peter’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of a neat round hole—red, red, red, red—in the center of a Neanderthal brow. A bad copy of Stavros. Matteo Giannopoulos.
Peter dropped his hand, clutching the phone too tightly as he moved toward the corpse, his pulse hammering. This was worse than he fucking thought. Even if Peter somehow managed to get out of here and elude the cops, Volkov was going to—
“Chief!” Jordan shoved him hard and Peter stumbled forward, the sudden crack of gunfire deafening in the small shop.
The force of the shell spun the kid, his mouth opening in a small ‘o’ of surprise and his hand fluttering to his stomach. Bright blossoms of fresh blood welled up between his fingers. Jordan staggered, dropping to his knees. Peter was watching the whole thing unfold in agonizing slow-motion.
He went to reach for Jordan, to help him, to dosomething, but he was held in place by a familiar voice.
“Hands up, Bauer.” Anton Volkov lilted dangerously against the far wall, his bony, tattooed fingers gripped loosely around the stock of a sawed-off shotgun. He was obviously dying, a triangle of bullet wounds pockmarking his torso and soaking through his shirt, his skin already going gray. Spite seemed to be the only thing keeping him upright.
Peter did as he was told, raising his hands, his heartbeat thrashing wildly in his ears. “Easy, Volkov.” On the ground, Jordan whimpered pitifully.
