He rolled away, trying to get to his feet.
Suddenly, he was left alone as footsteps entered the room.
Alex looked up at Preston Cooper.
“Hello, Alexander.” Preston crouched down until he was close to Alex. “It has been a long time. A very long time.”
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Alex asked, staring at his past.
Preston smiled. “Imagine my surprise when I heard you’d moved on from the casino to Fort Wills, Alex. We were friends. You owe me, and I’ve come to collect.”
“I told you it was an accident what happened to your sister—”
The other man gripped his jaw, hard. “I don’t want to hear it, Alex. A life for a fucking life. You promised me the life of the man who killed my sister. Imagine my surprise at discovering that very man was you?”
So many mistakes were catching up to him. “How did you find out?”
“You were gone from the city. Cops like to talk when you’re gone. You should learn that.”
Preston shook his fingers at the man behind him. “Give me the gun.”
Alex knelt on the floor as he stared at his past. The past that he’d long forgotten about with Tiny and The Skulls at his back. He should have known Preston would come for him. What had happened with Preston’s sister, Elizabeth, wasn’t his fault, but he had to pay the price.
“You won’t get away with this,” Alex said.
The gun went off, and pain exploded in Alex’s abdomen. It wasn’t an instant killer shot, but in time, he’d lose too much blood.
“I think it’s only fair you get to watch your woman die, Alex. You can’t do anything to protect her just like I couldn’t.”
Seconds later Preston and his crew left his home. Alex crawled across the floor, smearing blood in his wake to try to get to Sunshine. She was shaking, and he was losing too much blood. He could barely move, and he grabbed his cell phone.
Alex put a call through to Tiny.
There was no answer. After the third call, Alex started to give up hope. When he phoned the emergency, Alex had lost all focus. He was bleeding faster than ever before.
“I’m sorry,” he said, talking to Sunshine.
He’d really thought he could run away from his past. With everything going on around them, he should have known there was no running away from the past. Sooner or later, it was going to catch up to you.
The End