Page 14 of Seneca
She smiled, all teeth. “You’re wondering why I haven’t called the police.”
“Why haven’t you?”
She took a deep breath, the rise and fall of her chest visible through the thin cotton of her shirt. “Because I’m tired of pretending I don’t want to do something I shouldn’t.”
I set my glass down and waited.
She surprised me. Instead of coming closer, she turned and walked to the far end of the room, picking up a file from the table and thumbing through it as if reading. “If you’re looking for leverage, Wallace, you won’t find any here.”
I watched the set of her shoulders, the way her hair spilled across the back of her shirt. “Not looking for leverage. Just clarity.”
She barked a laugh. “Clarity doesn’t exist. There’s only who gets to write the last sentence.”
I found myself smiling for the first time all night. “That sounds like something a judge would say.”
“You want to know what scares me?” she said.
I nodded.
“Nothing anymore. That’s the problem.”
I understood. I finished my drink and let the warmth settle in my chest. Outside, the neighborhood was silent, the world pareddown to just the two of us in a room full of ghosts and broken rules.
“You should go, Seneca.” Her lips said one thing, but her eyes said something entirely different.
I could do the same to her that I did to Jenna, but the risk was far greater. When I finally moved to leave, I grabbed my gun, but she didn’t follow me to the door. She just said, “If you come back, I’ll let you play the piano.”
I left her there, framed in light and shadow, and stepped out into the night, the memory of her hand still burning against my skin.
The world had just gone quiet when the first bullet shattered the front window.
There was no warning, no shout, not even a footfall on the porch. Just a sudden, surgical crack and the sound of glass going everywhere at once.
I didn’t think. I acted. One second, I was halfway to the door; the next, I was on top of Bellini, driving her down behind the couch. My arms wrapped around her shoulders, forcing her head into the gap between the cushions as shards and splinters of wood whipped through the air above us.
The second shot came before we even hit the floor, this time through the sliding glass at the back of the house. Those outside were playing for keeps. The couch frame jumped, stuffing and splinters flying down over my shoulder.
Bellini didn’t make a sound. Her body stiffened under me, but she curled her arms tight against her chest and waited, exactly as you’d expect from someone who grew up watching people get shot at.
I shifted my weight, keeping her covered with mine, and scanned the room. The front window was a hole the size of a dinner plate. Glass sparkled everywhere. On the opposite wall, a high-velocity round had punched through the bookshelf,sending a landslide of legal tomes onto the carpet. The only cover was the couch, and even that was going to buy us about five seconds if they started walking rounds in.
I risked a glance over the top cushion. A dark sedan idled out front, engine running. The muzzle flash from the first shot had come from the shadow behind the open driver’s door. The shooter was low, professional, firing from a supported position. He’d had a clear line of sight right to the middle of the living room. I mapped the angles, adjusted for parallax, and waited for the next move.
Bellini breathed steady under me. I could feel her heart, rabbit-quick, pounding up my forearm where I pinned her down. My own pulse stayed slow, clinical. This was familiar territory.
I turned my mouth to her ear and whispered, “When I say go, crawl to the hallway. Kitchen’s a dead zone. The hallway leads to the garage. Understand?”
She nodded, lips pressed tight, eyes locked on the dark beyond the couch.
A third round cracked the air, this one lower, punching a hole through the couch leg just below my knee. I shifted position, hissing as a wood splinter bit deep.
I saw the shadow behind the sedan door. The shooter had a black AR variant, low on the mag, probably twenty more rounds in the mag, and a second man on backup. Maybe not. Most crews sent in a lone specialist for housecleaning jobs, but you never knew.
I squeezed off two return shots, one high, one at knee level. The sedan door rocked. I heard a hissed curse, then the shooter ducked out of sight.
Bellini hadn’t moved. She still crouched behind the couch, hands curled to fists, jaw clenched like she was biting downon pain. A bead of blood traced down her cheek where a glass fragment had grazed her, but otherwise she was intact.
Another round slammed the back of the house. I realized they were bracketing us, one shooter front, one at the rear. Professional. Methodical. Someone who’d planned to make sure neither of us walked away.
