One!
Lead No-Neck reached for Angel and simultaneously removed his weapon from his shoulder holster. The second his sweaty paw landed on Angel’s shoulder, Angel spun, grabbed No-Neck’s thumb, and wrenched it backward, out of joint. No-Neck barely had time to yowl in pain before Angel yanked the weapon from his nerveless fingers. The barrel of the gun gently tapped against the bottom of the guy’s jaw a split second before—Boom!—it removed the lower portion of his face.
The feel of warm blood splattered Angel’s cheeks and forehead. He was momentarily deafened by the roar of the weapon in the relatively small space of the café, which was why he wasn’t certain if the cry he heard had come from Sonya or Grafton.
Before No-Neck’s dead body dropped to the floor, before either of the other two remaining men in Grafton’s security detail could do more than gape and make a grab for their weapons, Angel darted around the table and snatched Grafton by the collar of his hoodie. He hauled the bastard in front of him and Sonya to act as a human shield and shoved the bloody barrel of the Glock against Grafton’s temple. It had been a long time since anything had felt that satisfying.
Leaning close to Grafton’s ear, he whispered, “Checkmate.”
Chapter 12
The smell of spent gunpowder perfumed the air and lingered in Sonya’s nose.
Not that she was complaining. The alternative was the scent of blood, since there was a huge pool of the stuff flowing from Lou’s ruined face and gathering around the mountain of his crumpled body.
Nothing but a blur…
That’s what Angel had been when he’d moved to disarm and dispatch the head of Grafton’s security detail. One second, Lou had grabbed him. The next second, half of Lou’s face was gone.
She couldn’t quite wrap her brain around what had just happened. Okay, so probably not the best turn of phrase, given the shape of Lou’s skull.
The waiter blinked owlishly, wringing his fat hands and looking from the dead man to Angel, then back to the dead man. Without a word, he sprinted across the café and burst through the kitchen door. A second later came the sound of the back door slamming shut behind him.
Had she not seen it with her own eyes, Sonya wouldn’t have thought it was possible for a man of his girth to move that fast. A big part of her wanted to follow him straight out into the alleyway, but she doubted Charles Gibson and Gordy Mills, Grafton’s last two bodyguards, would ignore her escape the way they’d ignored the waiter’s.
Their weapons were pointed in Angel’s direction, their bodies angled in shooter stances. Charles, who was nearest the kitchen door, said, “Let him go.” A muscle went to town beneath his left eye.
“Not a chance.” Angel’s ruined voice was barely above a whisper.
Sonya found herself the focus of his Turkish coffee eyes when he glanced over his shoulder at her. She gulped, realizing how right she’d been when she’d titled him Mr. Tall, Dark, and Deadly.
He hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t flinched before pulling the trigger and ending Lou’s life. Then again, she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. After all, he’d been recruited and trained by the Mossad. They only employed people with unwavering constitutions. People who didn’t dither, didn’t ponder. People who acted.
A split second can make all the difference between life and death, between fanaticism overrunning democracy, she remembered Mark telling her when she’d asked him about the Mossad.
“You okay?” Angel asked her now.
Seriously? He was in the middle of a standoff, and he was asking her if she was okay?
No, she wasn’t okay! There was a dead man lying at her feet! They’d given a canister of enriched uranium to some bucktoothed kid from the East End! And her entire plan of how to handle the situation was now completely shot! She was about as unokay as it got.
And, yes, she realized unokay wasn’t a word. But, by God, it should be! She was determined to pop off an email to Merriam-Webster the minute she got out of this unholy mess.
If she got out of it.
“I’m fine,” she managed, wondering why her eyes felt so dry. Then she realized it was because they’d been as wide as fried eggs since Lou had crumpled to the floor.
“I told you to let him go,” Charles growled, sounding menacing enough to make Sonya’s ass pucker.
“And I told you not a chance,” Angel came back without a second’s hesitation. Apparently he was immune to ass-puckering menace.
“I’m a bloody brilliant shot.” Charles squinted one eye and took aim. A bead of sweat dripped from his brow, ran straight down the center of his short, wide nose, and dripped off the blunt tip.
“Are you now?” Angel cocked his head from behind Grafton, giving Charles a better target to aim at.
The room did a slow spin. Sonya’s heart felt too big for her rib cage. “What are you doing?” she said or more like croaked. “Why are you—”
