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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hunter
The knock came. Three fast raps. Hunter took one final breath. This was it.
He opened the door and made a show of looking around Jeremy and the parking lot before letting him inside.
“Were you followed?” he asked.
Jeremy glared back. “Are you kidding me? I’m the one who has people followed, not who gets followed.”
“Right, and were you followed? Did you have your people follow you here?” Idiot. What did he think he was asking, if the cops had followed him?
“My people are everywhere.”
Sure they were. Asshole. He could barely stand to be feet from him and not punch him in the face. Every time he talked, Hunter pictured his hands tight around his throat.
“You wanted me here to explain, so explain. This is taking too long,” Jeremy said.
“I know, but I’ve never done a hit where there’s a child involved.”
“I never asked you to kill the child. Just don’t shoot her when you shoot her mother. It’s not that difficult, but clearly you can’t handle it.”
“I’m not going to shoot Vanessa with Opal in the room.” Picturing that made his chest tight with agony. “I think that would do a lot of psychological harm to her.”
“Psychological harm? What do I care about that? You know what? Forget it. The deal is off. I know where Opal is, and I already have someone on their way to get her. I’ll have Vanessa taken care of in the meantime, and it’ll all be done by the end of the day. You took too long, and you pissed me off. I’ll be expecting back the money I gave you as a down payment.” Jeremy crossed his arms and glared at him.
Hunter swallowed and tried to keep his feet from dashing out the door. “I said I’ll do it. It just needs to be done right.”
“Too late. She’ll probably already be dead by the time you make it back to the apartment,” Jeremy said smugly. “Oh, but that’s right. You won’t be making it back to the apartment.”
Hunter watched in disbelief as Jeremy opened his coat and pulled a gun from his inside pocket. Hunter’s hand twitched. This was the perfect set up. It would be self-defense, no question. He never expected Jeremy to do something like this.
He reached his hand to his back, but Jeremy pulled the slide on his gun. His years of training kicked in, and he saw Opal’s face flash through his mind before he acted. There wasn’t enough time to pull out his gun.
Hunter lunged for Jeremy and collided with him hard, sending him to the ground in a crash. Jeremy still had hold of his gun, and turned it so that it pointed at Hunter’s shoulder. Hunter spun out of his aim.
He threw his body over Jeremy and slammed his fist down on the arm holding the gun. Jeremy moaned in pain, but didn’t let go. Hunter considered reaching again for his own gun, but it would take too long, and the risk was too high.
Jeremy tried to throw Hunter off him by twisting under him, but Hunter was too heavy for him. As Jeremy turned, Hunter grabbed the hand holding the gun. They struggled for several minutes—Hunter trying to get the gun, Jeremy desperately holding on.
Hunter got his hand on the gun, and Jeremy lost his grip. He quickly got to his feet. Jeremy rolled out of the aim of Hunter’s gun, and scrambled to his feet.
He ran at Hunter, jamming his head into Hunter’s chest and causing him to drop the gun. It hit the ground, and the men dove for it. Jeremy reached it first and closed his fingers over it.
He pointed the gun again at Hunter. Before he could pull the trigger, Hunter slammed his hand down. The gun fired.
For a moment, Hunter wasn’t sure what happened. Who had been shot. Was someone dead? This was such a messy way to do this, and all of his hits had been clean and simple. None of this fighting with the mark stuff.
He didn’t feel any pain, and Jeremy wasn’t moving. Hunter carefully stood up. A hole was at the front of Jeremy’s chest and blood trickled out.
Hunter ran out the door without another glance back, only one thing on his mind—get to Vanessa. Now.
# # #
She almost texted him or called him a few times, but she knew that would only make things worse. He was playing a role, pretending, and he couldn’t seem like he cared about her at all. But the wait was killing her. She needed to hear Hunter’s voice, know he was okay. She had a bad feeling about all of this and was terrified something would go wrong and someone would get hurt.
She looked at her phone again. He was going to call as soon as he could. As soon as he was alone. Still nothing.
