“Yes, we are fucked. What the hell are we supposed to do now?”
My God, we were fucked.
I closed my eyes and thought. This required raw skill. It required raw balls to the wall skill and it meant I had to focus above the fucking rim. It meant I had to push Jia out of my mind and get the damn job done.
Giovanni rested a heavy hand on my shoulder and my eyes snapped open.
He moved his hand away but continued to stare at me.
“All things aside … if none of this shit had happened, I would have chosen you for her. It means nothing for me to say that to you now, and I still would have killed you because that’s who I am, but if none of this had happened and I was thinking straight things would have turned out different. This was what I feared and when it comes to my daughter I can’t think straight.” He pulled in a haggard breath. “When my wife was killed Jia was seconds away from death too, that stayed in my mind. It stayed there and I never forgot that a few seconds could have taken her from me. It was what I had in the forefront of my mind when shit hit the fucking fan with the Ra. It’s why I treated you the way I did.”
All I could do was stare at him. I didn’t know what he expected me to say to any of that. I understood it, but I wasn’t about to brush all that happened under the rug.
“What’s the point of telling me this now?”
“It’s not an apology Xander. I’m not saying sorry because if I had another chance I would do the same thing. All over again. What it is, is an explanation. And it’s to let you know that Jia needs you. You must have been damn good at whatever it is you do for the Ra to get you to steal from me. Maybe you need to be that person now.”
I agreed wholeheartedly with that.
Fuck… I absolutely had to be that person.
“Yeah,” I answered and I had a really bad idea. “I need you to cover me. I need you to be you too.”
“Well Ace, I’m gonna need something a little better than this.” He held up the knife.
I handed him a Berretta and he smiled.
“Better?” I asked.
“Much.” He positioned it.
“Let’s go.”
We started walking again and that was when I saw a mist ahead. Instinct made me stop. I’d seen that before on one of my missions in the Middle East.
It was absolute confirmation that they could fucking see us, because since when did the inside corridor that separated meeting rooms mist up like we were in the middle of the forest on a dark night?
“Back this way,” I shouted. “It’s poison. We have to go up.”
As in up on the next level up.
Giovanni was on the move. I was surprised how fast he could run.
Those motherfuckers really knew how to drop shit.
Fuck.
We ran back the way we came looking for a way up .
There was nowhere. The only other way was to keep going until we got to the stair well and that was a big no. There was no elevator nearby either.
And fucking hell the damn mist of shit was starting to pour out now like someone turned it up. Going in one of the rooms we passed wasn’t even an option. That was perhaps what they wanted us to do, then get marooned inside unable to do anything about it then die like vermin or the pests they thought we were.
Fucking bastards.
Fuck them.
Giovanni stood back and started shooting at the ceiling. When it gave, I started shooting up too in the same spot. The only way was up.
