AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Derrick goes on. “If he caught wind of you trying to make greater alliances with me, I had no doubt you’d be shooting each other to death in seconds. The city’s underworld would be turned inside out, and with a few well-planned raids based on intel I’ve gathered from both your families over the years, I would’ve single-handedly run your lot out for the rest of my term at least. Unfortunately, both of you survived the firefight but I did manage to shoot the D.A.. Crippled your political foothold a little, at least.”
Lucky for him, he doesn’t seem to expect a reaction to this revelation, because I don’t give him one. The longer he monologues, the longer I have to silently open the lock on these handcuffs.
My nausea is easing thanks to my careful, steady breaths. Nothing but an ice pack and several ibuprofen will ease the pain in my head, but I’m hoping that adrenaline will get me through.
Just a few more minutes. I’ll only have to listen to this bullshit for a few more minutes.
“I suppose I should thank you for forcing me to move up the raids,” Derrick says. “It just means that all of this is finished sooner rather than later. Imagine it! The newest Sheriff in county history cleaning up the city in the first month of his first term. From there, the sky’s the limit.”
This is the first time I can think of that the joy I hear in Derrick’s voice sounds genuine. What were once signs that he could be easily manipulated by his ambition are twisting themselves into warnings. How many of his own colleagues did he turn in for their ties to the mafia to gain clout as a young cop, all while taking money from my father himself? And now, he’s just confessed to killing the District Attorney for the sole reason that he was an ally of mine.
I thought holding his career over him would incentivise him to be more loyal, or to at least reconsider betrayal. Little did I know that he was just using me as the stepping stone I believed him to be.
I’d be impressed if I weren’t the one handcuffed to the chair.
Derrick shifts, pushing off the desk in front of me. From the sound of his footsteps and voice, he’s heading back around to his side of the desk. I jiggle my key around until I feel the lock give, then carefully catch the opened half of the handcuff in my newly freed palm. It’s only because Derrick’s back is turned to me that he doesn’t notice my wince. The hand I’m clenching now is my right one, and every flex of every muscle sends pain through my fresh bullet wound. Shifting the key to the same hand with care, I start feeling for the second lock as Derrick sits back down.
“But after your banquet failed, you allied with Morgan to take me out,” I say, to cover the sound. “You’d rather deal with that psychopath than me?”
“Not at all,” Derrick says, surprising me a little. “If I could choose to keep one or the other of you around, I’d pick you in a heartbeat. I’ve always felt like you and I were kindred spirits, despite our differing goals. But if I’m going to succeed, I need both of you gone. So, yes, I put in my lot with the Speare family first. And the simple reason for that is: you’re the more dangerous target. If you had free reign of the city, it would be so much harder to uproot you. But with you gone, I’m confident Morgan won’t last much longer himself.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed that his ability to strategize has been deteriorating greatly over the years? Not as though it was a refined skill to begin with. But right now, he works best when he has a target to lash out against. And he and his people have a simple, shared goal: win out over the Warwicks. Without that goal, without you as their common enemy, they’ll eat themselves alive.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I say. Unfortunately for him, he’ll never know for sure whether his master plan would have worked or not. There are many similarities between Derrick and I, more than I ever realized until now. But there is one crucial difference too, and that will win me the day.
I don’t waste time monologuing.
The second lock on my handcuffs clicks. I let them drop and throw myself blindly over the top of the desk. I slam into Derrick with enough force to send both us and his chair crashing to the ground. I land hard on my left side, sparing my wounded right arm. Finally, I open my eyes to see how Derrick landed.
The pain in my head and my eyes is an afterthought. My heart is pounding hard and my arms and legs are coursing with pent up fury. Derrick is dazed but struggling to sit up out of his overturned chair. I haul a leg over him, sitting on his chest and pinning both of his arms.
It gives me no small amount of satisfaction to punch him in his picture-perfect face.
Derrick tries to buck me off, but between me and the chair he’s trapped completely. All he can do is take one blow after another after another.
I make sure to break his nose, so that there will be evidence of this night every time he sees his own face on the tv or in a goddamn mirror.
Finally, he stops crying out. His face is a mess of blood, mostly streaming from his nose and smeared by my knuckles. He’s lost consciousness, which means it’s time for me to stop. I could kill him- maybe I should kill him. But Derrick is too much like me for me to ever truly hate him, which means that I know the greater punishment for him wouldn’t be death. It’ll be living with the way he failed tonight, and will continue to fail because of me.
“Sleep well, pawn, and know that you will never be king,” I say, and pick myself off of him. I’m not sure how I’m getting out of the police department without being spotted, but I have to try-
Footsteps pound up the hallway. Multiple footsteps. It was too much to hope that no one in the police department heard me tackle Derrick over his desk. I grab for his belt and the gun holstered there, and manage to raise it just as the door is kicked open.
Iris and five more of my men explode into the room, guns aimed and ready to fire. My right hand sees me, and we both immediately aim our guns to the ground.
“Oh my god- Thomas,” she gasps, her eyes wide with shock. She crosses the room in four long strides and looks around the desk at Derrick, then back up at me. “You. Bastard. You disappeared- I thought you didn’t make it! You ever scare me like that again and I am shooting you myself.”
“You almost missed your chance,” I say, trying to massage my temple and immediately pulling my hand back at the searing pain. Iris curses and smacks my hand away.
“A bullet grazed your head. Your head, Thomas.”
I’ve never seen her so disheveled. Someone clearly came at her with a knife, because there’s a cut down her left cheek, a shallow slice across her neck, and a whole chunk of her long white hair abruptly cut short at the shoulder. There’s dirt on both white sleeves of her blouse, like she was wrestled to the ground. Worse, though, is the fear in her wide black eyes.
Iris doesn’t get scared, not like this. Not even for my sake.
“Who’s ‘mine’?” I ask.
She waves a hand impatiently. “My husband.”
