With that, Jean-Luc released him and stepped back. Raines dropped the few inches into his chair.
Raines straightened his shirt collar with casual disdain and locked onto Dom with that cold, calculating stare. There was no fear there, no panic, and that pissed Dom off. After everything he did, he should feel every ounce of the terror he inflicted on Vivi and Sabin and probably Brennan, too.
“This is the part where you beg for your life.”
“I’ve been a soldier longer than you’ve been alive,” Raines replied. “I don’t beg.”
Dom moved forward and shoved the gun against Raines’s forehead. He thought of Sabin’s vacant eyes, his broken fingers. Of Vivi’s face when she saw what they’d done to her brother. Of the terror in her voice when she called Sabin’s name in that warehouse.
“Dom,” Davey said, a warning in his tone, and set a restraining hand on Dom’s arm.
“He deserves this.”
“Yeah, but be smart about it. We need to question him.”
Jean-Luc made a small sound of disgust. “He ain’t gonna tell you a damn thing. Man like this, he die holdin’ his secrets. That’s all he got left.”
Dom knew it was true. So did Davey, and after a second, he removed his hand from Dom’s arm. “Just make it quick. We need to be gone in three minutes.”
Dom pressed the barrel harder against Raines’ forehead. Three minutes was more than enough.
Raines chuckled. “Do you really think it ends with me?”
“It ends for you.”
“Killing me won’t stop anything. You’ll only make them angry.”
Dom had expected that. The speech. The threats. The little monologue Raines would try to use to buy himself another sixty seconds. He wasn’t interested.
He was interested in only one thing:
“Brennan.”
Raines went still.
It was the smallest reaction, and that was how Dom knew that Sabin had been right. Brennan was alive.
Davey saw it, too, and muttered, “Fuck.”
“Where is he?” Dom demanded.
Raines just sat there with the stupid smirk back on his face.
“Clock’s ticking,” Jean-Luc reminded from where he’d positioned himself by the door.
Dom tightened his finger on the trigger, the pressure building. “One last chance. Where’s Brennan?”
“Somewhere you’ll never find him.” Raines’ eyes gleamed with malice. “And even if you did, you wouldn’t recognize what’s left.”
Dom pulled the trigger.
The silenced round gave a muffledpop,and Raines slumped back in the chair. The bastard still wore that goddamn smirk as blood oozed from the neat hole between his half-open eyes.
For a long second, nobody moved.
Jean-Luc exhaled slowly. He stepped up beside Dom and looked down at what was left of Malcolm Raines. “C’est fait, p’tit.One less asshole in the world. You did good.”
twenty-nine
