Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
The sound echoed through the concrete levels of the parking garage. Slow. Mocking. The kind of applause reserved for stage plays and people about to die.
Elijah turned.
Twenty guns stared back at him. Maybe more. He stopped counting after fifteen because the math didn't really matter when you were this outnumbered. The men holding them wore tactical gear. Professional. The kind of crew that got hired when someone wanted a job done right.
Well. Shit.
Pierre wasn't among them.
That was something. Small comfort when you had enough firepower pointed at your face to level a small building, but Elijah filed it away anyway. His spotter hadn't sold him out. Good to know. Made the whole dying thing slightly less annoying.
The man doing the slow clap stepped forward.
Dmitri Volkov.
Of course it was Dmitri.
The man doing the slow clap was Dmitri Volkov. Thirty-two going on sixteen, with the kind of daddy issues that could fuel a private jet.
He had his father's eyes: cold, blue, and utterly vacant.
"No honor amongst thieves, huh?" Dmitri's accent was London private school trying desperately to sound Moscow street. It failed. "Classic line. I like it."
"You've got some nerve." Another voice. One of the gunmen. Elijah didn't bother looking to see which one.
"Oh really?" Elijah shifted the duffel on his shoulder. His nose had finally stopped bleeding but it felt like someone had stuffed cotton balls up both nostrils. "What did I even do?"
Dmitri smiled. Perfect teeth. Veneers, probably. "You? You were a liability, Elijah. Far too loud. Far too reckless. You draw attention like moths to a fucking flame."
"Says the guy who crashed a Lamborghini into the Monaco harbor last summer."
The smile thinned. "You were always father's favorite. That's what really burns, you know? The American thief who shows up out of nowhere and suddenly Viktor can't shut up about how brilliant you are. How clean your work is. How you're the future of the organization."
Ah. There it is.
"So that's what this is about?" Elijah laughed. It came out harsh through his broken nose. "Daddy didn't love you enough? That's some weak sauce, man."
"You have no idea what it's like." Dmitri's voice dropped. The fake accent slipped. Real anger bled through. "Growing up in his shadow. Being compared to you. Some arrogant prick who thinks he's untouchable."
"Or," Elijah said, "was it me fucking your girlfriend that did it for you?"
The temperature in the parking garage dropped twenty degrees.
Dmitri's jaw worked. His trigger finger twitched. "Natasha made her choice."
"She sure did. Multiple times. Very enthusiastically, if I remember right."
"You know what?" Dmitri pulled his own piece. Desert Eagle. Compensating for something. "I've been waiting years to do this."
He aimed at Elijah's chest.
"Any last words?"
"Yeah. Your taste in guns is terrible. That thing's gonna break your wrist."
Dmitri fired.
The shot hit like a sledgehammer. Elijah's chest exploded with pain. The impact drove him backward into the sedan behind him. He crumpled against the door, sliding down to the concrete. His lungs refused to work. Each breath felt like swallowing glass.
Kevlar. Thank fuck for kevlar.
The bulletproof vest had caught it. Barely. Elijah could feel the bruise forming already. Ribs screamed. His diaphragm had forgotten how to diaphragm. But he was alive.
He wheezed. Tried to suck in air. Failed. Tried again.
Dmitri stepped closer. "Huh. I actually forgot you always wear that thing."
"Lady luck," one of the gunmen muttered. "He's got her on speed dial."
"Luck's got nothing to do with it." Dmitri crouched down. Looked Elijah in the eye. "You're just too paranoid to die easy. But you know what? I can work with that."
Elijah's phone started beeping.
The alarm cut through the garage. Loud. Insistent. The kind of sound that meant someone had programmed it to be as annoying as possible.
That someone had been Elijah three days ago.
He started laughing.
It hurt. God, it hurt. His ribs protested every wheeze. But he couldn't stop. The absurdity of it all crashed over him in waves.
"What's so funny?" Dmitri stood. The Desert Eagle was still in his hand.
"You." Elijah managed to get the word out between gasps. "You're so fucked."
"I'm fucked? You're the one bleeding on the ground."
"That alarm?" Elijah grinned. Blood stained his teeth. "That's my insurance policy going active. See, I've got this scheduled upload. Encrypted files. Sitting on a server in Iceland. Boring technical stuff, you wouldn't understand."
Dmitri's face went blank.
"Three minutes after that alarm goes off, everything uploads. Every major crime database. INTERPOL. FBI. Europol. Even the fucking Russians. All the dirt I've collected on the Volkov family over the past six years. Bank accounts. Shell corporations. The names of every politician you've bought. Every judge. Every cop."
"You're bluffing."
"Am I?" Elijah's laugh turned into a cough. He spat blood onto the concrete. "You really want to test that theory? Because I'm a dead man either way. But you? You and daddy dearest? You'll be under a cell so deep they won't even remember to feed you."
One of the gunmen shifted. "Boss?"
"He's lying." Dmitri's voice was flat, but his eyes flickered to the face of the gunman nearest him, seeking a confirmation he didn't find.
The man just stared back, his own certainty wavering.
"So squeeze, bitch." Elijah leaned his head back against the sedan. "Don't pussy out now. You wanted this. You wanted to be the one who finally put me down. So do it. Pull the trigger. Make your father proud for once."
The phone kept beeping.
Dmitri raised the Desert Eagle again. His hand was steady. No shake. No hesitation.
He aimed at Elijah's head.
"See you in hell."
The shot was louder than the first one.
The world went dark.
No pain. No sound. No light.
Just nothing.
Huh. So that's what dying feels like.