Bullets fly towards us from the door.
We dive back behind the corner.
“Cover me,” I tell her.
“I have a concussion grenade,” says Kat.
“No,” I say. “I want him to be fully conscious.”
“Well, let’s go then.”
Kat shoots as we both move towards the door.
I get one lurk inside, before a flame erupts from the door. I dive out of the way at the last possible moment, because I expected something to happen.
I land on the ground and see one of his men through the flames. I aim and make a single-precision shot. He falls to the ground as I get back up. My shoulder hurts slightly; I am not twenty anymore, and I feel it.
The flames stop, and hell breaks loose.
A rain of bullets flies at us, and I am hit on the arm and chest. It hurts painfully, but the Kevlar does what it’s supposed to do, stopping the bullets.
Kat shoots, and we both press against the wall next to the door. A moment of silence, where we are both standing there with our chests heaving up and down.
Kat brings her finger to her mouth and then taps her ear, telling me to be silent so she can hear what is going on in the room.
I hold my breath.
She signals me two with her fingers and that she’ll go in on three.
I nod.
She closes her eyes for one second, and I wait. I have learned to trust her methods. She is a killer from the first water, even before my training, and now that killer focuses.
She opens her eyes, and I can see the switch in her eyes. She nods, and then we go.
She jumps in, it takes her one shot, and a man is on the floor, and then we both point our guns at my brother.
I haven’t seen him in a very long time. His best years are behind him; he got fat and looks quite sick.
My eyes fall onto the girl strapped to a table, her dress pushed up. My eyes narrow.
I didn’t know what I expected, but this wasn’t it. I know he is a rapist bastard who took his own daughter many times, but after what I overheard of their conversation, I believed him to treat Sophie differently.
“Mia carissima sollerra,” he says in his superior glee of a voice. But I am not his dearest sister. I am his death.
“What did you do to her?” asks Kat.
“Her?” he asks. “What do you think I did?”
“Stop the bullshit, or I’ll perforate you,” says Kat with a dangerous growl.
“I am certain you will not,” he says, almost cheerfully, and laughs. A laugh I haven’t heard in many years, and it triggers me. It triggers the memories and the anger.
“And why do you think that is?” I ask him.
“Because of this,” he says and holds up a small cylinder with a button on top. “Let us say it is life insurance. I will blow us all up. The entire house, you, everything.”
Kat and my eyes meet for a nanosecond.
