Ellie shrugged.“I guess when it’s my own it doesn’t matter.”
“Like Hell it doesn’t.”I lined up Johnny in my sights.
“Dude, I don’t know who you are but?—”
Ellie cut him off.“Shut up Pornstach.Nobody said you could talk.”
“Babe…”
“Bridget, are you okay?”
Trust Ellie to worry about someone else rather than herself.
“I’m okay, I’d be better if I could undo this damn knot.”She was working furiously on the jumble of electric wires wrapped around her legs.She’d been through a bit.Johnny roughed her up good.The blood on her shirt had dried to a dull reddish brown.Head wounds bled a lot.Luckily, that looked like her only problem, save the chair hobbling her legs.
I couldn’t let her get free.
“Ellie, look away.”I didn’t want this haunting her like Venice did.I wouldn’t be there tonight to keep the nightmares at bay.
“Ringo, don’t.You don’t have to.”
Yes, I did.“I’m sorry.Look away.”
“Dude, please?Don’t pull that tr?—”
His words cut short.I sent a second shot through his skull.
Then checked to see if Ellie had listened.
Her eyes were wide.Her face was almost white.“Why?”
I couldn’t tell her that.
She collapsed in her chair, dead out.
I turned to the agent.
I should kill her.“Take care of her.”Having a federal law enforcement officer handling the questions at the hospital would speed things up.
“But…”
“No buts.If you don’t get her to a hospital in the next twenty minutes, I will hunt you down.And you know I can do it.Good luck, Agent Perkins.”
I slipped out, wiping and dropping the gun in a muddy puddle just outside the back door.If the agent searched my exit, she’d see it.I got in my car and didn’t look back.
The airport was a half hour away.I dialed Edward.“I need your plane.It will be in Sardinia.Make the arrangements and bill the Left Hand.”
“Did you get your girl?”
I debated how to answer that.“She’s safe.That’s what matters.If you want our continued service, make sure she stays that way.There’s a federal agent with her.”
Edward made a strangled noise.“Godspeed my friend.”
I’d need it.
As the sky turned black over the Atlantic, I stared at my reflection in the window.“I had it all.”
Was it Loppa or was it Don Manca who told me that eventually I’d have regrets?I didn’t believe them.A month ago, I thought I would when I accepted the bounty for Mario’s head.
