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.“It’s hitting too fast.” She licked her lips and took several ragged breaths.“Oh shit.Oh shit.I’m scared, baby.”“Don’t be, precious,” he said, taking her hand.“Oh-oh-oh-oh.” Her voice came in hitches, softer each time.The nurse’s pupils began to bounce up and down.He allowed her limp hand to drop.Her chest rose and fell a dozen more times until it finally stopped.A rattling sound emanated from her mouth as her final breath modulated her vocal cords.Then she was gone.Xavier slapped her thigh affectionately, coming to a standing position.As he lifted the nurse’s light body from the floor, he noticed the Polish woman, Justina, eyeing him through slit eyes.“Go to sleep,” Xavier commanded, flipping off the light in the cupboard and pulling the door shut.He carried the slight nurse to the hall closet, stuffing her inside, thoroughly disgusted when her bowels released due to the pressure of her contortion.Hoping to contain the smell, Xavier wet a towel and jammed it against the outer base of the door.Then, from the kitchen, he looped a piece of string around the resident dinner bell, hanging it on the doorknob of the storeroom.Using his cell phone, Xavier touched redial for Acusador Cortez Redon.“That little shit better use every bit of his influence to find Gage Hartline.”Cocked an eyebrow.“And my money.”* * *Something happened while Angelines drove the small pickup truck westward across the sunset-splashed city of Barcelona.Though it had been hitting him in waves over the past day, Gage’s fear for Justina uncorked, constricting his optical nerves in a cousin to his old PTSD headaches.This headache wasn’t completely debilitating—but it was quite painful.And while Barcelona was streaked with the low afternoon sun, to Gage it flamed red, worsening his headache with every second.Redon was still in the floorboard, his protestations having quieted after Gage stomped on him a few times.Now the lawyer was curled into a modified fetal position, whimpering occasionally, surrendered to his fate.Unable to speak with a great deal of coherence, Gage motioned Angelines to follow the road by the Llobregat River.She followed the river inland for ten kilometers, as the city abruptly gave way to a pastoral setting, with rows and rows of plantings beside the curving waterway.At a rural bridge crossing, Gage asked Angelines to slow, having her turn down a dusty access road that led to the river’s edge.There, at the base of a low bridge, a good ten feet below the road and completely hidden, Gage held his left hand up to stop her.“What are we going to—”Her query was cut off because Gage was already out of the truck.He thrust both hands back in, grasping Redon’s lapels and yanking him from the truck so hard that Redon’s forehead snagged on a protruding screw head at the bottom of the dashboard, ripping it open and leaving the acusador squealing like a pig.“My kidney’s about to rupture! My head is splitting! I’ve got stab wounds! Acid burns!” Gage’s rant continued as he dragged the howling little man down to the coffee-colored water, his actions concealed by the looming bridge.Above them, the radial sound of car and truck tires on the steel grate-work drowned out the acusador’s screamed protests and impassioned cries for help.Dropping down into the knee-deep water just below the bank, Gage twisted the acusador so his back was against the grass and mud, and then he began to beat the man.First blow: straight right to the mouth.Finger-width gash on the upper lip and two teeth knocked loose.Second blow: left hook into Redon’s right ear.No visible damage other than a stunned reaction.Third blow: another straight right, directly into the acusador’s pristine Gallic nose.Nose visibly broken afterward, replete with running blood and red snot bubbles.Fourth, and final, blow: left cross to left eyebrow.Deep fissure of a cut on the sharp brow line, matching the lip cut in severity.Through it all, the acusador had blubbered legal protestations, as if a bailiff might rush in to save him.Finished punching him, Gage dunked the lawyer into the waters of the Llobregat, silencing the acusador’s remonstrations.Now, other than the traffic, all that could be heard was bubbling and thrashing.As he held the crooked little man under, Gage turned to Angelines, who was watching him in horror.“Let him up!” she screamed.“You’ll kill him.”Gage continued the hold for ten more seconds, then lifted Redon, his bloody, split maw a rictus of sucking air.“He’s alive,” Gage said monotone, thrusting him under again.The thrashing continued.Foaming water.Churning.It had all the frenzy of a crocodile attack.Defeating the car sounds, the splashing, and Angelines’ objections, was a smooth female voice from the recesses of Gage’s mind.The accent wasn’t American; it was indistinct.It could have been Justina, could have been Monika, he couldn’t tell—but the words, and their meaning, were clear enough:Let him up, Gage.No more killing.It might have been the only thing that saved the acusador, and since the voice belonged to a woman Gage loved, though he didn’t know which one, he obeyed.Still holding the lawyer’s soaked lapels, Gage jerked him from the river’s silt.He hoisted Redon onto the dusty bank, leaving him flat on his back.Once the acusador had his breath, he began to cry, wailing loudly.Redon reminded Gage of the proverbial neighborhood bully once he’d finally met his match, taking a vicious and humiliating ass-whipping from the new kid on the block and not having a clue of how to react to total defeat with some measure of decorum.Gage pulled himself up, staggering to Angelines as his fury melted away.“Get ready to leave.”“Don’t kill him, Gage,” she pleaded.He pointed to the truck.She complied.By the time Gage took a knee by the acusador, the Spaniard’s cries had reduced to whimpers.“No mas,” the pathetic man sniveled.“No mas, por favor!”“Stop your crying,” Gage said, curling his lip.“Wh-wh-what are you going to do to me?”“Before you tell me what I want to know, I’m going to make you a promise.”Redon began to gingerly touch his facial cuts.“Look at me,” Gage said.When Redon did, Gage spoke calmly but firmly.“If you cooperate with me, Redon, I will allow you to live.If you lie to me, or clam up, you’re going back in that river and you’re not coming up.” Raising his eyebrows, Gage waited for acknowledgement.“I will do anything you say.Anything
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