“Max!” I cry out, my lungs unable to contain the joy welling up in me.
“Kill the bastard!” Will barks hoarsely, aiming his pistol and taking a few shots into the woods where my lover disappeared. “A half-mill to the man who lands the killing shot!”
Immediately, the men seem emboldened, and bullets spray the trees, but two more thuds signal the deaths of two more of the Mafiosi. The men are looking around wildly, not even sure where the shots are coming from now. Before they can react, I watch a man standing in front of a fallen log get yanked behind it with a shout, and there’s another gunshot before Max leaps from cover, firing the dead man’s Uzi into the crowd of shooters by the car. His tuxedo shirt is mostly burned off, but his face is unscathed, fury in his eyes as he guns the men down. Then his eyes meet mine.
A thousand words could have passed silently between us in that split second. I forgive him for letting me think he was dead before he could apologize for having to torment my heart so. He tells me how much he loved me and that I was unharmed. We tell each other how dearly we wanted to put these wretched men down, permanently. All that in a look.
The brute holding me pulls me close, holding his gun up in Max’s direction, but before he can even aim the gun, Max draws another pistol from his side, the same weapon he used to save me from the apartment, and I hear the bullet whiz past my head as it lands true in the gunman’s throat, and his grip on me slackens as I recoil and he hits the ground.
More gunshots as the remaining men react. I can hear the screams of the Chechens as Max dashes through the smoke of the car again, and for a moment I see him flash past the trees, taking on one of the men with his bare hands.
Gathering my bearings, I reach down to pick up the weapon of the dead man at my feet, and my hands nearly wrap around the handle of the gun when I feel a strong grip on the back of my dress that yanks me up, and before I can react, I feel cold steel on my temple as Will wraps his arm around my neck and stands me up, and his pistol cocks.
“Pavlenko!” he roars, and in an instant, the forest falls silent, save for the rustling of the leaves in a gentle breeze. The wind parts the smoke, and I see Max less than ten feet away, pistol raised to Will, all the rest of the Chechens dead on the forest floor all around us. “Put. The weapon. Down,” Will growls. I don’t need to look at him to feel his wide, wild eyes, truly on the edge of doing something drastic.
I can see Max recognizing that look. “Max,” I whisper, but Will tightens his grip at my throat.
“Quiet, bitch,” he hushes me, and Max tenses. “Alright, assassin, weapon on the ground now, or I’ll decorate the woods with this cunt’s brains.”
Max looks ready to shoot, but Will’s finger is on the trigger, his voice steady, his hands not shaking. But is he willing to take that chance?
“Now, Pavlenko!” Will barks, and finally, Max nods, taking his hand off the trigger and holding the gun out in front of him, slowly setting it on the forest floor. “Everything else,” Will says, and Max turns around slowly, displaying the two more pistols he has strapped to his back. My heart sinking, I watch him do the same with those, then the knife on his leg, and the pistol on the other leg, and the smoke grenades in his pockets before he raises his hands and puts them on the back of his head.
“I’m yours, Will,” Max says calmly, his voice as even as if he were chatting casually with me. “Release Liv, and I’ll come with you. It’s me you want more, after all, isn’t it? I can think of a lot of people who have a high price on my head.”
“I was going to kill you,” Will says, “but perhaps you’ll have better uses. Bitch,” Will addresses me, giving me a squeeze, “I’m going to let you go and turn the gun on your Russian lover-boy. Then you’re going to walk far away and get a cab to wherever the fuck you want. Call the police, they won’t catch us.”
Max nods significantly to me, and I take a deep breath before I nod my head a little, the metal of the gun barrel still pushing into my skin. “Okay, Will. Okay.”
Next thing I know, Will shoves me to the ground roughly, and he starts to step forward to Max, pistol now turned on him. My hand tightens around the torn dress draped over my thigh. Then it slides the dress up, and my fingers wrap around the knife in my garter.
The motion is quick and fluid. I draw the blade, leaping to my feet and diving for Will, and before he can turn around, eyes wide, I drive the blade with all my strength into the side of his head, and as his reflexes fire the gun wildly into the forest, his balance gives out, and his weight carries him to the ground, the blade lodged in his head breaking off the knife as Guillaume Bouchard hits the dirt, dead.