Hit Me (The Bailey Boys #2) (20 page)

With that he raised a hand and placed it on Fearless’s arm.

I looked. Met the eyes of our old family friend.

And understood.

Fearless had always drummed into us the most basic of all the principles: you have to look out for yourself, because nobody will ever care as much as you do.

How had he survived out here for so long – not just survived, but thrived – without protection? From the likes of Markov, and whoever had been king of the Costa before he came along.

Back when I’d gone to him, told him I wanted back in the game, he’d told me the story of the London gangster new to the Costa who hadn’t understood the rules, had got himself in too deep and crossed one of the gangs. When I’d asked what had happened to the guy, Fearless had said,
He was lucky. That’s what they kept telling him. He’ll be paying that debt back for the rest of his life, in all kinds of ways. He’s that gang’s bitch.

I hadn’t realized Fearless was telling me his own story, and that when I was looking at him I was looking right at Hristo Markov’s bitch.

They had me. Well and truly.

Maybe if I took my punishment, Imelda might still have a chance.

More than anything, I knew that now wasn’t the time to make a stand.

Stay quiet. Give Imelda a chance, at least.

“No!”

Imelda moved in front of Markov, her back to me.

“Let him go.”

Markov laughed, an ugly sound. “And why would I do that?”

“Because I am in love with him. If you care even a little about me then you will give me that, Hristo.”

I let a breath go. She must know that was never going to work. All she had told me about how important this
reputatsiya
thing was to him: having his apparent lover stand in front of him and say she was in love with another man... that could never work.

He would be humiliated.

He would be furious.

He straightened sharply in his recliner, hauled himself forward and stood, face to face with Imelda, his fist raised.

“Hit me,” she hissed. “Hit me and it will be the last thing you do.”

Markov’s fist twitched. He stopped himself, looked like he was about to burst, and I took that opportunity.

I ducked low, pushed off with all my strength towards the one nearest me.

Jack the Knife.

His right arm darted to the waistband of his pants, heading for that knife he always carried, but I grabbed his wrist and jerked his arm back. In the same movement, I turned, putting Jack between me and the advancing Georgi, who had already pulled a gun from his shoulder holster.

That thing in the movies, where a bad guy grabs someone and uses them as a shield against a rain of bullets, it’s a myth. It looks spectacular on the big screen, but in real life... Most shots would pass through a human shield: soft flesh is no impediment; bones are better – they might deflect the occasional shot and offer at least some protection, but it’s still not much.

But all this only counts if the gunman knows it, too. If that’s not the case, grabbing a skinny shit like Jack and holding him in front of you, twisting his arm up behind him so he jerks from side to side and adds to the impression that he’s hard to shoot
around
... all that helps you win the battle of minds, at least.

And Georgi... I’d worked with him long enough to know he was no Einstein.

Now, as Jack twisted left to right in front of me, Georgi’s aim wavered. Trying to find a shot around Jack’s body. Not understanding that while a chest shot might not work because of all the ribs to absorb and deflect the impact, a gut shot would take the two of us out.

Meanwhile, Jack was squealing in my ear, head twisting back as if he was trying to grind it into my face.

“You owe me,” I hissed at him. “You might think that debt was paid but then you double-crossed me, Jack, and you still owe me.”

I paused, then added, “With your life.”

I braced myself, arched my back, and pushed with all my strength. And by now I think we’ve established that I have a lot of that.

Jack the Knife flew across that space between us. Looked like some kind of cartoon running as his arms and legs flailed for balance as all the momentum I’d given him carried him directly towards Georgi.

The Bulgarian still didn’t have a clue, gun circling in the air, not knowing where to shoot first until finally instinct kicked in and he fired on the nearest target.

Jack the Knife’s body jerked upwards as two, three bullets struck him somewhere in the chest, but his momentum kept him going, his arms spread wide as he impacted with Georgi in a macabre, bloody embrace, dead arms folding around him as the two fell back towards the doorway. As they hit the ground, Georgi lost his grip on the pistol and it skittered away into the pool.

I heard a shout behind me but didn’t have time to see what was happening. Had to prioritize, deal with this one first.

I took four big strides to close the distance, came down on top of the two of them in a tangle of limbs, dead and living.

Seizing Jack by the waistband of his pants I jerked him forward and let go. He fell like a mattress across Georgi’s upper body, smothering his face with his excavated, bloody mess of a chest. Georgi flailed, choking on the mess, and I drove my knee up hard into his groin before slamming his abdomen with a succession of power-punches driven up below the ribs.

His whole body bucked, but nobody can take those kind of blows. Something gave in his belly, and I recognized that feeling as the impact changed – an internal rupture, a bursting of organs, spleen or intestines, I guessed. He wasn’t going to be going anywhere in a hurry.

On my knees, I twisted, took in the scene.

The three of them, standing undecided.

If Markov had been armed he’d have drawn by now, probably shot me already.

I moved towards them.

Glanced at Imelda, making brief eye contact.

Felt my gut wrench.

I had to get her out of here.

“Go,” I hissed at her. “Now. You don’t want to see this.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I love you.”

That spirit I so loved... but now it was an obstacle, something to be pushed aside. Brutally, if necessary. Anything to get her out.

“
Go!
Get the fuck out of here. You’re just in the way now.”

Her expression, faltering.

“Don’t you see? This was only ever a job. It was only ever the sex. Nothing more than that. Go, Imelda. Get as far away from here as possible. Disappear, you hear me? Forget about all this.”

The words were like poison. Like a slap across her face.

She turned away, took a step, looked back at Markov and then at me.

“You,” she said. “The two of you... you are all the same. I should have seen that.”

And then she turned and strode away, past the fallen body of Jack the Knife, the writhing, curled up form of Georgi, back through the doorway and out of my life again.

I’d never felt such pain. In all my years in the MMA cage. All the scraps I’d got into. The broken bones, the bullets I’d taken, the two times I’d been stabbed.

All that... it was just physical.

I could handle that. I knew it could be treated, and it would go.

But Imelda walking away.

The expression on her face as she’d looked from Markov to me and said we were both the same.

The knowledge that she’d meant it.

That was a different order of pain altogether.

I looked at Markov now. Only a few seconds must have passed, but all that felt like another lifetime now.

I took another step towards him.

He was as tall as me, but wiry. Looked like a scrapper rather than a brawler. Maybe he’d been a fighter once, but he delegated now.

I thought back to when Imelda had first raised the possibility of hiring me for a job.

A hit.

I’d assumed the target would be Markov, not her.

Right now I decided I preferred that first thought: hit Markov.

And so I did.

Hit him so hard in the jaw he staggered back into Fearless’s unwilling arms.

I followed through and hit the Bulgarian in the gut, knocking the wind from his lungs, the impact driving both of them a couple of steps backward.

First time I’d hit him, those fucking aviator shades had gone flying away to one side and now Markov peered at me from small eyes. Blood seeped from nose and mouth, tears from the eyes.

Then that swollen lip curled and he hissed at me, defiantly, “Fucking pussy Englishman!”

He took a step toward me, as if he thought he stood a chance.

I hit him again, and he fell back into Fearless’s arms.

And then, finally, I met my old friend’s look.

“That was you, wasn’t it?” I said. “In that story. The guy forever tied to one of the gangs. You were trying to warn me, weren’t you?”

A pause.

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Gave a little nod, and then, finally, said, “Say ‘Hello’ to your old man, boy, will you?”

And then, like a tree being felled, he leaned backward – just a fraction too far, so that all he could do was topple, Hristo Markov still trapped in his embrace.

Topple back over the knee-high wall at the edge of the roof terrace into open air.

Markov screamed, but Fearless remained silent, true to his name, all the way to the ground.

Stunned, I stood there for a few seconds, taking in what had just occurred. Then I moved forward to the low wall, leaned my shins against it and peered over.

The two lay a few feet apart on the concrete – Fearless had finally extricated himself from the Bulgarian in death, at least.

Already, a couple of people were there, leaning over them, a van pulled up at a haphazard angle in the street.

As one of the people twisted to peer up I stepped back.

Went to the main doorway back into the apartment building, past the fallen forms of Jack and Georgi. Leave Georgi to explain, if he lasted long enough for them to get him to a hospital.

§

I went after her.

Of course I went after her.

I hadn’t known how bad it might get up there. She must know I’d just used those words to drive her away, to protect her.

That I didn’t mean them.

We had that connection, that understanding of each other. We’d had it from the start.

Had it been necessary for me to say those words? To lash out at her like that, just to drive her away?

It had been a spur of the moment thing – a snap judgment, made when she had refused to move.

She couldn’t possibly believe I meant those words.

But they had worked, at least.

She was gone.

Vanished, just as I had told her to do.

§

Out in the street, sirens blaring, more people gathered around the fallen bodies.

I looked down at myself, saw blood on my shirt, maybe from manhandling Jack the Knife after he’d been shot, maybe from when I’d hit Markov – how many times? Three? Four? More, perhaps?

I couldn’t hang around here, but...
Imelda
.

There was no sign of her.

She wouldn’t be running, I knew. Not in those shoes. Striding purposefully, coolly, in control.

She knew this district inside out. She’d head to the busiest of thoroughfares where she could lose herself in the crowd, just walk and think and, hopefully, realize that my words had been to protect her.

She would find somewhere to wait. Maybe send me a text message.

She had to.

I couldn’t bring myself to conceive of anything else.

§

On the seafront at San Pedro, leaning on the metal railings, the New Duchess behind me, the deep blue Mediterranean before me.

“She’s gone, hasn’t she?”

That was the first time I’d managed to say it out loud.

“She’s not coming back.”

“That was the deal, wasn’t it, bro’?” Dean stood to one side of me, leaning with his ass against the railings, fists deep in his pockets. “She hired you so she could make a clean break.”

“It was always more than that,” I said. The opposite of those last words I’d said to her:
Don’t you see? This was only ever a job. It was only ever the sex. Nothing more than that. Go, Imelda. Get as far away from here as possible. Disappear, you hear me? Forget about all this.

So much more than that.

“You’re going to go after her, aren’t you?”

“How can I? She’s vanished. Covered her tracks. I can’t find a single clue that even hints at where she might be.”

“But you’re going to go after her, aren’t you?”

“How can I not?”

She sat on the rocks, the Atlantic Ocean seething at her feet. Behind her, the town of Garachico occupied a slender shelf of land between sea and sharply rising mountains; before her, the sea, and the craggy island they called Roque de Garachico.

That island, it made her think of him: tough, harsh at first impression. Strong. It would stand up to anything.

She came here a lot.

It was a kind of meditation, an emptying of her brain.

A way to stop from thinking of what had been, and what she had lost.

He’d told her to go. Used harsh words to drive her away.

She’d seen the pain on his face as he had done so, and knew he did not mean them, but yet... such words hurt. They undermine and fester. They bring up that first flush of anger, the surge of emotion that makes you turn, walk away, not look back. Please, not look back, until you are in the doorway, about to leave, and you allow yourself one final glance.

And then she had gone.

Her only priority at that point had been to get clear. Hristo must have more men nearby, and the police must be closing in after the gunshots. And Lee had so much to deal with just then – he couldn’t be responsible for her, too. For how long could he hold Hristo off?

She’d considered waiting for him somewhere, but...

It was a selfish choice. She would admit that now.

For the first time she was free of Hristo’s web. She could just walk away, keep walking, keep going. Nothing to stop her.

She could vanish, just as Lee had told to her to do.

She already had everything in place – the stash of money, the false documents – accumulated over the past few weeks as she had prepared her plan.