“With a man who just blew up countless employees and innocents? I’m not foolish. I’m just making it clear that if you kill him, the next body to fall will be yours and Idon’tmiss.”
I’ve never seen her like this before. Her eyes are narrowed and sharp, and there’s not a single hint of shaking in her hand. Earlier, when she’d been buttoning up her waistcoat, I’d been concerned, but there’s not even a brush of weakness in her stance.
“Indeed,” Hawk sighs. “I’ve heard all about you, Faina. But this little mystery?” Hawk shakes me using my collar. “The question I have is—ugh!”
That shake of my collar was the slack I was waiting for. As soon as he moves, I surge up and twist around, slamming my fist into his gut.
He stumbles backward, but I’m on him immediately, relentless in my punches. His stomach again, his chest, his jaw, and then my hands close around his wrist to stop him from aiming the gun anywhere except the sky.
Behind me, I glimpse Faina being grabbed by the decoy on the ground and she’s forced to turn and fight him. Then my vision clouds and I only have eyes for ending Hawk’s life.
I punch his face. He stumbles but ducks and throws a right hook at my ribs. As I flinch, he follows through with another punch and his left fist slams into my face. I follow the motion down and throw my elbow hard into his crotch, then I headbutt his chin as he doubles over.
Hawk’s head snaps back with a crack and blood sprays across the ground as he lands. I leap on top of him and grab a handful of his hair, then smash his face into the ground. He twists and hooks a leg around my left thigh and as he throws me to the side, that familiar painful ache flares up in my joints.
No! Not now!
Ignoring it, I surge upward and tackle him back to the ground. We roll together until momentum forces us apart. I scramble up and wipe the blood from my nose, then I launch toward him, only this time, I lack the power as weakness throbs painfully through my left leg. I yell as I fall and Hawk, instead of going for a blow, suddenly dances backward with a smirk.
“Hawk!” I scream, trying once more to get up. Failure hits me like a truck as my leg refuses to listen and with a swift, mocking bow, Hawk vanishes down the alley. “Faina!”
She’s my only hope, a last chance to chase after him and subdue him, but she’s still wrestling with the maniac of a decoy. Hiseyes are wild and crazed even as blood pours from several open wounds on his face. He has her on the ground but at my scream, he looks up and Faina gains an opening. She punches him hard on the jaw and he rolls off her. Then she climbs to her feet and shoots him dead between the eyes. Then she sprints over to me.
“Cian!”
“No, not me! Get Hawk! Go after him!” I shove her off and point down the alley, but she hesitates, and the concern I see in her eyes pisses me off more. “Go! The fuck are you doing? Go!”
Her eyes narrow and with her gun held close to her chest, she takes off running down the alley.
“Stupid leg!” Snarling, I bring my fist down on my left thigh, but the pain barely registers. As sensation finally comes back to my limb, I scramble to my feet and take off after Faina. The alleyway opens up into a street filled with panicked people from the explosion and more dust that clogs my throat and clouds my eyes.
No sign of Hawk.
A few minutes of searching lead me to Faina hurrying back to me with her weapon holstered.
“Where is he?”
“I lost him,” she pants. “He was so far ahead and the crowd just…” She mimes people smashing together with her hands.
“How could you lose him?”
“Did you miss this sea of people around us?” Faina snaps. “Or the fact that the cops and emergency services are everywhere? The smoke? The dust? How the fuck do you think I lost him?”
“I needed you to get him! I needed you to catch—” Breathless from the fight, I double over and Faina’s hand lands on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Cian. I tried.”
“You should have tried harder,” I snap, instantly knowing it’s unfair of me to say so, but the thought of him escaping leaves me feeling so insanely hopeless.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have let him get away,” Faina bites right back. “If you want to point fingers, then look closer.” She steps away from me and for a few minutes we just glare out at the crowd.
Then my shoulders droop and I lean heavily back against the nearby wall. “Fuck. He knows who we are now.”
Faina slowly turns to face me. “And he knows you’re alive. From the sounds of it, that was the only trump card we had.” At the sudden scream of sirens, our argument melts away as Faina hurries forward and grabs my hand. “Come on, time to go.”
A week passesand we’re right back where we started, only this time we have a name and nothing else to go on. Every other address we had left on the list got cleared out and we’d turned up to either completely empty buildings or the whole block would be burned down. All the names we had left were reported dead from the explosion, and with no way to safely contact Anastasia or Erik, we had to take those reports at face value.
All our leads were dead in the water and Hawk had shut down all known operations in Greece.
