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He uses his partner in crime like a battering ram, shoving Charles at me. But the old man stumbles over his own feet and falls. His head cracks against the concrete, and he loses his grip on his gun. It slides across the floor and into a corner—too far for me or Laila to make use of, but one unhinged man has been disarmed and that’s a positive.
Charles curses as Jasper digs in his waistband for my other gun, which he immediately points at me.
“Don’t fucking move. And you,” he snarls at Charles, who’s still whimpering on the floor, unarmed, “need to get a fucking grip. Eyes on the prize.”
“I wanted fifty million!” Charles cries.
It’s becoming more and more clear that neither of them has thought this extortion scenario through to its conclusion. The plan has barely begun and it’s already falling apart.
Suddenly, I feel a little more confident.
I move toward Jasper while he’s busy yelling at the human pus boil he’s chosen to ally himself with. If I can get just another foot closer…
“Listen, I’m an old man?—”
“Exactly! What the fuck do you need fifty million for? That’s more than you could even spend in your lifetime.”
“That’s rich, coming from the son of a bitch who just shot himself up with two thousand dollars’ worth of meth! You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me! I’m the one who came up with this idea in the first place.”
Jasper’s eyes are bulging—from anger or the force of the drugs in his system, I can’t tell. “You son of a?—”
“Watch out!” Charles yells at the last second.
But it’s too late.
I launch myself at Jasper, tackling him around the stomach. One of his guns fires close enough to my head that my ears ring, but it’s a wild shot. He misses.
I wrench one gun from Jasper’s trembling hands. It takes almost nothing to overpower him. His eyes clear and, for one moment, he’s my old friend again.
He’s handing me a contraband cigarette in the yard.
He’s patching me up after I was jumped in the showers, swearing we’ll get our revenge.
For one last second, he’s my brother, and I don’t want to do this.
Then I remember everything he’s done.
So I press the muzzle to his chest and pull the trigger.
Jasper goes limp. The wild eyes I stopped recognizing a long time ago glaze over as the life drains from his face.
And then… he’s gone.
I’m breathing heavily, trying to control the tumult of grief and relief coursing through me. It’s finally over.
Jasper is dead.
There isn’t time to process his death, though. There’s one more scumbag I have to take care of. But when I turn around, Charles isn’t on the floor.
Now, he’s standing behind my wife, one arm wrapped around her chest, and a gun pressed to her temple.
“Either I leave here with my money or my daughter,” he breathes raggedly. “Your choice.”
52
LAILA
It’ll be okay.It’s all gonna be okay.
