Topspin (37 page)

“Check upstairs anyway,” Kevin said through a yawn.

“What did your last fucking servant die of?”

“Stop bitching and just do it.”

The lights went on and off in the upstairs rooms, one at a time, too briefly for Wilf to be doing anything other than taking a cursory glance before returning to the kitchen and reporting that nothing was out of place.

“A bloody shell had fallen off that narrow bathroom shelf, that’s all.”

Kevin’s only response was a grunt and a loud fart. Cyril and Jack raised their brows in cynical amusement. It clearly didn’t occur to Kevin or Wilf to wonder how something could have fallen off a shelf in an empty house when no windows were open to cause a draft. Jack wondered what would happen now. Would Pete still have the bottle to go through with it, knowing he’d just made his job ten times harder? Kevin and Wilf weren’t exactly alert but they were awake, which amounted to much the same thing.

In a far shorter period than even Jack, bristling with impatience, would have considered possible, he received his answer when without warning the lights in the kitchen went out.

“You gotta hand it to the little tosser,” Cyril whispered. “He’s got balls.”

Jack, adrenalin pumping, merely nodded. Kevin and Wilf had settled back into a steady rhythm of snoring. Jack didn’t know whether the sudden darkness would register with them immediately and didn’t wait to find out. Instead he sprang into action, taking the other end of the wooden patio table Tyson had procured for the purpose of breaking down the door. They both knew they’d only get one shot at this before losing the element of surprise and Jack was determined to make that shot pay. Using their combined strength he and Tyson hurled the table, battering-ram style, against the top half of the kitchen door. The timber splintered with a series of satisfying cracks and Tyson knocked out the remnants of the panel with one blow from his massive fist.

“What the fuck!” Kevin’s panicked voice came from the direction of the hall. As anticipated he and Wilf had gone in search of the fuse panel, but Jack had been too focused on breaking the door down to hear them leave the kitchen.

“Get down!” Cyril cried, guessing they’d shoot blindly in the direction of the noise.

He wasn’t wrong. A series of shots were fired from the small hall into the kitchen, the silencers on the weapons making them sound like nothing more innocuous than a series of mild pops. The lights were still out, they had no idea what they were shooting at, and the bullets soared harmlessly over their heads. All the same, Jack hoped Tania had remembered what he’d once taught her to do in the event that she was caught up in gunfire—always a possibility in his previous line of work—and had hidden herself and the boy behind something solid.

Focusing again on the scene that was going down, Jack flashed on his powerful torch. He trapped Wilf in its beam like a startled rabbit, temporarily blinding him, but also provided Kevin with the sufficient light to make a lunge for the main fuse switch. Light flooded the hallway, and even though he knew they’d lost their advantage Jack wasn’t backing off now.

He threw the torch to Cyril and sprang into action, going straight for Wilf’s arm. The gun discharged as they struggled for it. Jack, concentrating all his attention upon his adversary, was barely aware of the searing pain in his shoulder as he grappled with Wilf. Thoughts of his terrified son lent him superhuman strength as he caught Wilf’s wrist and twisted it viciously. He howled, instinctively relaxing his fingers, loosening his grip on the gun, which clattered to the floor.

Feeling more confident now that his opponent was no longer armed, Jack soon discovered that the situation had a downside: Wilf now had both hands free. Jack clearly hadn’t inflicted any serious damage to his wrist because he had already managed to wrap his hands around Jack’s neck and was squeezing. Hard. Jack could feel himself weakening as Wilf applied relentless pressure to his windpipe, preventing him from getting any air into his lungs. He was starting to feel dizzy, and fuzzy black spots danced before his eyes. The strength was seeping from his body, his eyesight was losing focus, and he was only dimly aware of Wilf’s noxious grin as he continued to choke the life out of him.

He needed to do something fast. Wilf was the younger and stronger of the two and Jack, impeded by the damage to his shoulder, the lack of air in his burning lungs, and the fact that he was out of practice when it came to slugging it out with thugs, knew he wouldn’t be able to hold out for much longer. No time for Queensberry rules, he thought, gouging at Wilf’s eyes with his fingers, distracting him for a vital second as he brought up his knee and slammed it into Wilf’s crown jewels with the limited amount of force he was still able to muster.

Fortunately, it was sufficient to make Wilf scream and drop both hands from Jack’s neck, setting him hopping on one foot as he spluttered, swore, and threatened, his face strained red with either anger or pain. Jack didn’t much care which. Without hesitation he swung at Wilf’s chin, hearing a satisfying crunch as he hurtled backward into a shelf of ornaments, taking the whole lot with him as he crumpled to the floor.

Tyson was almost smiling as he stepped forward and lifted Wilf off the floor by the scruff of his neck using just one arm, leaving his feet dangling in mid-air. Wilf was still alternately swearing and howling with pain but paled and abruptly fell silent when he realized whose clutches he’d fallen into.

Jack’s struggle with Wilf felt as though it had gone on forever, but had lasted less than a minute. Wilf was out of the game now, but Kevin, still bent on revenge, barely spared him a glance, and Jack could only watch helplessly as he flashed him a cocky grin and put his hand on the key to the lounge door. Cyril had drawn his gun but there was neither the time nor the space for him to fire, and nothing Jack could do to stop Kevin from going in there and using his family for target practice.

Except for one thing. Thinking only of his son, Jack stepped forward, deliberately presenting Kevin with a clear shot to his chest. Kevin laughed but didn’t even raise his weapon.

“You should have listened to me, asshole.”

“It’s me you want. Don’t take it out on them.”

Kevin shook his head, smiling with malicious glee. “Killing you would be too easy. You don’t get off that lightly. Not after what you did to us. I’m gonna have me some fun with the woman first, let you find out for yourself how it feels to be humiliated. Then I’ll decide what I’m gonna do with you.”

“You’ve got some nerve,” Cyril snarled. “Thinking you’d get away with taking me on.” Tyson had moved out of the way, leaving his boss with only Jack between himself and Kevin. “You’re a fucking dead man,” he said, leveling his gun at him. “Move aside, Jack, he’s mine.”

Before Jack could do so, shots rang out, but in the confusion he couldn’t tell who’d fired and if anyone had been hit. He looked toward Kevin, who was staring in stupefaction at something over his shoulder. He remained that way for several long seconds before his legs crumpled beneath him and he slipped slowly to the ground. His own gun had discharged and there was blood everywhere. Cyril’s shot had missed him. Incompetent to the end, Kevin had shot himself through the chest when he dived to avoid it.

Everyone had forgotten about Pete, who’d hidden himself behind coats hanging from a row of hooks in the hall. Noticing him now, Jack pieced together what had just gone down. Kevin’s fall hadn’t been the result of his dodging Cyril’s shot. Instead, Pete had seen the danger and snaked out a hand, grabbing Kevin’s ankle at the vital moment to bring him down.

“Pete!” Jack offered him a hand to help him up. “I think you’ve well and truly redeemed yourself, mate.”

But there was no response and it took Jack’s brain a moment to compute that he too was lying in a pool of blood. Cyril’s shot, which would have hit Kevin square in the chest, had found Pete instead when he stood up after tripping Kevin, leaving himself in the direct line of fire. If only he’d stayed down, as any of the others would have known to do, the bullet would have missed him by a mile. But Pete wasn’t used to being involved in the action and had acted on impulse. Jack felt for a pulse, already resigned to the fact that he almost certainly wouldn’t find one.

“Christ, Cyril,” he said, dazed, “he’s gone.”

“Yeah.” Cyril allowed a rare thread of emotion to infiltrate his tone. “I know. The stupid berk should have kept his head down.”

“He did it for me.” Jack gazed with disbelief at the body of the computer whiz who shouldn’t have been anywhere near the violence. His death would be on Jack’s conscience for the rest of his days.

“Shit happens,” Cyril said brutally, and Jack knew he’d shown the only emotion he’d ever allow himself.

“What are we gonna—”

“Go and make sure your family’s all right.” Cyril was already reaching for his phone. “We’ll handle things here.”

Jack nodded, still too stunned to argue. Was there a time when he could have handled this sort of thing with Cyril’s detachment? Probably. That being the case, he was glad he wasn’t that person anymore.

Taking a deep, calming breath, Jack opened the door to the lounge slowly, calling out to Tania so that she’d know it was him. Only as he did so did he become aware of the stinging pain in his shoulder where the bullet had grazed him. A steady flow of blood was congealing on his shirt.

“Tania!” No response. Good girl, she’d remembered to hide. He called out again. “Tania, it’s safe now. You can come out.” When he still received no response he started to get worried. Had stray bullets somehow hit one of them? “Tania, talk to me. Are you both all right?” He could hear the panic in his own voice. “Where are you?”

“Over here.”

The woman he’d never been able to get out of his system emerged from behind a sturdy sideboard. A small child, disheveled and tired-looking, face grubby, eyes round with apprehension, peered around her legs. Tania looked exhausted too, but the light of battle shone belligerently from her eyes. It took both of her hands to clutch the sturdy picture frame she’d obviously removed from the wall. Glancing up, Jack could see the mark where it had until recently hung. She’d been expecting one of the men to try it on with her sooner or later and was preparing to protect her child and go down fighting.

She lowered the picture to the floor and put both arms around the boy to hug him close. Then she lifted her face and offered Jack a smile that melted his heart.

“Zac,” she said in the husky voice that still haunted his dreams. “I knew you would come for us.”

Chapter Seventeen

F
OR
A P
ROTRACTED
M
OMENT
they simply looked at one another, neither of them speaking.

“Are you all right, both of you?” he eventually asked.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Did they…” Jack’s voice stuck in his throat. He cleared it and tried again. “Did they touch you? Hurt you in any way?”

“No, Zac, we were frightened, but we’re all right.”

“I’m sorry, Tania, you shouldn’t have been put through all this. They were just using you to get to me.”

“I thought you put all that behind you when you left London.”

He shrugged, smiling his apology. “So did I, but some people bear grudges and have long memories.”

“They were the men who burnt that shop, no?”

“You know about that?” Jack couldn’t hide his surprise. It had happened after he’d separated from Tania and there was no reason for her to have heard about it.

“Sure, Cyril told me. And then I heard those men talking.”

They were still standing several feet apart, watching each other closely. At first Jack’s eyes had been constantly drawn toward his son, still held protectively by his mother at her side. But now they were fixed on Tania’s lovely face. He felt the familiar lure of her violet eyes. He felt keenly conscious of her lush mouth and the way her lips parted, shiny and moist, when she spoke. He remembered how it felt to kiss them, how it felt when they kissed parts of him in return. Parts that were inappropriately stirring at the memory.

“I humiliated them, and they wanted revenge.” His voice was strangled with an emotion that had little to do with his near miss with Kevin and Wilf.

“What you did, what you made them do for that poor man in the shop. That was a good thing, Zac.”

Jack spread his hands, embarrassed by the praise. “They had it coming.”

“Those shots just now, was anyone hurt?”

“No one that matters.” Now wasn’t the time to tell her about Pete.

“But you are bleeding.” There was concern in her voice as her eyes rested on his blood-stained shirt.

He shrugged, regretting it when a fresh bout of pain seared through his shoulder. “You should see the other guy.”

“Are you a bad man?”

Jack’s entire body jolted with awareness. He’d been trying to imagine what his son’s voice might sound like, wondering what languages he spoke and if he’d ever get to hear him using any of them. But in spite of all that speculation he hadn’t stopped to consider what the boy’s first words to him might be.

Are you a bad man?

Jack thought of the way he’d earned his living until recently, and of how he’d just almost killed a man with his bare hands. Almost certainly would have killed him, if Tyson hadn’t intervened. Could a six-year-old really be that perceptive?