“No,” Lori corrects him, looking through a pair of binoculars. Where did he take them from?
“The leaves,” Uriel cuts him off. “He shoots at the falling leaves.”
“Wow. Did he get them?” Michael seems really amazed.
“Every single one,” Lori confirms.
“Not bad for…a bowman.” Gabriel’s voice has an insulting hint.
“Your knives could never reach that distance,” I state. I like knives, but arrows can reach much farther.
“But my rifle bullets can, and go beyond it,” Uriel counters.
I grab a couple of rocks from the ground and throw one toward the wooden crate, knocking down one of the cans.
“Knives never run out of bullets or arrows.” Gabriel twirls the blade between dexterous fingers, making it shine under the sunlight.
“You do run out of knives to toss.” Uriel shrugs. “Pool!” Another clay disk gets fired in the air, making a booming noise that silences everybody for a moment.
“Knives are intimate. Guns are loud and impersonal.” Gabriel proves his point by sliding the sharp blade up the side of Lori’s neck and cutting through the silk scarf.
“That was hot.” Lori bites his lower lip, staring at his fiancé. “But you owe me a scarf.”
“I prefer my fists.” Raguel joins us outside with Oliver.
“Why use physical violence when you can just fuck with people with a press of a finger?” Ramiel decides to be part of the conversation.
“If I may. All weapons have their purposes.” Ferdinand tries to make peace. “Thebestweapon depends entirely on the context, I’m afraid.”
Don’t tell me everyone is going to just agree with that boring bullshit.
“No, Alfred. That’s not it,” Lori states, and everybody nods or grunts with approval. Ah, didn’t expect that.
The banter starts again, and I’m kind of amused by the loudness and playfulness of it all, until I’m not—psychopaths and our fickleness.
I throw the other rock knocking another can before placing the bow in the container. I’m ready to leave when a shot resounds in the backyard.
“What the fuck, bully boy!” Lori glowers at Raphael. But his cold gaze is on me as he lowers his fuming gun.
“Marlon Finch.” He voices the name of the chemist who created the poison that Nine used to put the doctor in a coma. “You said he was in New York.”
I nod.
“We looked. Went there. No trace of him. The intel, was it solid?” he asks.
All eyes are on me, studying, scheming, waiting for me to make a false move. Being surrounded by cold-blooded killers is a normal occurrence for me since I’m a hitman. I knew they wanted to interrogate me once again when Uriel told me to come. But I don’t have what they want yet.
“Yes, it was. He went underground. You need to look harder.” I glance at Ramiel, who rolls his eyes.
“And Nine is still in the wind,” Uriel snarls.
“I’m doing everything I can without knowing her face. Every time I get closer to one of her men, they disappear.” The hacker sighs.
“How about tracking their fucking phones?” Bezaliel asks.
“Smartphones have an operating system, and I can hack any operating system. But they use proxy services and VPNs. Serena can bypass them, but it takes time, and as I said, as soon as I’m close…poof. Gone,” Ramiel explains.
I can see Raguel gritting his teeth. “We have nothing concrete on her.”
