“We’ve got Boris,” Chase said, speaking for himself and Juarez.
“Still no sign of Aleskei. You know, he may have been at the garage,” Ricky said.
“Good point. Or he might have something to do with why we haven’t seen any of our other guys in a while,” I added. “Get Boris tied up and keep looking.”
I grabbed Ivan by the back of his flashy dress shirt and started dragging him to the steps leading down into the yacht. I saw the other three joining me.
Dimitri clapped loudly for us and turned to say something to Julia.
“He says you’ve done a good job taking down the men on the boat, but you won’t get him,” she called out to us.
I looked at the others and shook my head. I had no idea what he could have meant by that.
“Tell him we have him outnumbered, four to one. Tell him to give up and save himself the trouble,” I yelled back to where they were.
They spoke again, and he laughed.
“This feels like it’s about to go south in a big way. Get ready,” I said over my headset, mostly to myself.
“We’ve got your back, Gage,” Ricky said.
“Yeah, whatever happens,” Chase added.
“We’ll take care of it,” Juarez finished.
“He says you’re going to have to make a choice,” Julia said, and I could hear the fear gripping her voice.
Suddenly, I was back on the street with the guys standing behind me and the street gang in front of us, a gun to Lisa’s head. She looked at me, terrified.
“Do it,” she’d said. “Do what you need to do, baby.”
I had kissed her. Our lips met for the last time, and it felt like every time we’d ever kissed, all rolled into one. Our romantic life together flashed between us. The kiss seemed to have lasted forever, but I knew there was no way it could have.
When I pulled away, tears streamed down her face. I rubbed one away with my thumb and smiled at her. “Don’t worry,” I told her, “I’m going to get us out of this.”
Then, the gunshots. Two guns fired at the same time. Lisa’s head slumped, and the gang’s leader slumped with her. And I ran as other gunshots erupted. They unloaded on us as we tried to escape, without Lisa. I had failed her.
I stared at Julia and Dimitri. Dimitri didn’t even have a gun pulled. He stood with a hand on the back of her chair. He smiled at us, so sure of himself, confident that we wouldn’t do anything to him. I could see the tears streaming down Julia’s face.
“Tell him he’s the last one of Ivan’s men alive,” I called to her. “He should give up now before he has to lose his life, too.” I was bluffing. Ivan and Boris were just out, knocked unconscious so we could tie them up nice and neat for the Feds.
She turned to him and started to talk, but he shook his head and said something in a very angry tone that sounded like a growling bear.
We stood where we were, frozen with anticipation. We knew any wrong move could end it all right then and there. Instead, we waited to see what Dimitri was going to do.
The sun was coming up. Daylight was beginning to brighten the scene before us.
“We probably need to wrap this up, Gage,” Ricky urged. “Didn’t the mayor say he had men coming to clean the boat out of the weapons and drugs below deck?”
“He did.” My body ached as my desire to shoot Dimitri now clashed with my sense of self-preservation. I didn’t want to miss and risk making things worse for Julia. I didn’t want to hit him and have to explain to the mayor why I had chosen to take him out the way I did.
“Well, we need to get out of here before we lose the cover of night.”
“You’re right.”
Julia looked up and repeated what Dimitri said to her. “He says your time is up, Gage, and he’s going to make you choose now.”
What happened next was the stuff of nightmares. Dimitri kicked Julia’s chair, which had weights tied to the bottoms of the legs. He shoved it overboard with his foot, sending her crashing into the water below with no way of getting out.
Time stopped.
I looked at Dimitri. I looked at the falling chair as it collided with the water. I took aim, focusing on the bear’s shoulder. I lowered my aim to his leg. I wanted to ground him, not just aggravate him.
He laughed and started to say something in Russian, and I squeezed the trigger, letting off a round right into his thick, muscular leg. When the bullet hit, it jerked him to the side, and he lost his balance, crashing down on top of the yacht. I was surprised the whole boat didn’t quake when his body collided with it.