Chasing the White Lion by James Hannibal (best free e book reader .TXT) 📗

“Have I?” The Italian laid his cards face down on the green felt and checked his pocket watch. “Your clock must be off. There are still five seconds to midnight. Three . . . Two . . . One.” He snapped his fingers.

With a synchronous boom, blue flashes erupted throughout the club. Smoke filled every alcove where the guards had stood.

The crowd cheered and clapped, thinking the display must be a continuation of Aku’s fireworks. They seemed not to notice or care that when the smoke cleared, the guards were gone.

Jafet cared. He glanced around, as if expecting his platform guards to have gone up in smoke as well. They hadn’t. His eyes narrowed at Marco. “What have you done?”

“Some of the old ways still work, Orien. The shell game, for instance. It is all about misdirection.” Marco nodded at the mini-tablet that had played the live video of Aku. “You wasted your attentions on the wrong cup, and it has cost you.”

Jafet’s bronze complexion had turned red. “Whatever trick you’ve played has cost me nothing. A few grunts, perhaps. I still have you under my gun.” He tapped his full house with a manicured fingernail. “I’m still holding the best hand.”

“Are you?” Marco flipped his cards. All hearts. Ace. King. Queen. Jack. Ten.

Jafet stared at the cards, as if a wish and a hard look could change them, then glared at the croupier. “Those are not as they should be.”

The Frenchman refused to meet his gaze.

“I will deal with you shortly, as soon as I put a bullet through our guest’s head.” He thrust the pistol out, finger tightening on the trigger. “Goodbye, Mar—”

“Yeah. Okay. No problem.” The croupier interrupted Jafet’s big moment. His accent had switched from French to Moldovan.

Jafet gave him a quizzical look, turning the gun sideways. “What?”

The crook-shaped chip harrow flashed out and hooked the mobster’s wrist. The gun went off. The lead guard, on Talia’s left, let out a gurgling cry and clutched his throat. He dropped to his knees, blood seeping between his fingers.

Pell—the croupier—twisted the harrow, and the gun flopped onto the pile of chips.

At the same time, Talia stepped back to her right, elbow flying. She caught the second guard under the chin and his head snapped back. He collapsed, unconscious.

The last two guards each took a step toward the fight. Pell’s hand came down hard, upending the double tray of chips. They flew into the air and exploded with a peppering of blue, green, and yellow pops.

As the guards drew back, covering their faces, Pell freed a gray composite gun taped to the bottom of the double tray and threw it to Talia. She caught it by the grip, slid her finger into the trigger guard, and put two rounds into each man.

Jafet raised his hands. “How?”

“These are my successors, Orien.” Marco raised his voice so everyone under the dome could hear. “You’ve met Natalia.” Val came walking up the steps, accepting a second weapon from Pell. “And this is Valerie. Your friends at the Jungle know them as the Macciano Sisters. You speak of the future, Orien? These two are the future. And they are taking your seat at the table.”

Every eye in the club watched Val and Talia claim their places at Marco’s shoulders, standing tall in their black and red evening gowns. And every eye watched them empty their magazines into Jafet’s jerking form.

CHAPTER

FIFTY-

FIVE

CLUB STYX

MILOS, GREEK ISLES

JAFETFELLBESIDEHISMEN, and the crowd of lost souls screamed and shouted in dismay. Talia took full advantage of the confusion. Walking to the railing, she pointed a finger of condemnation at the onlookers below, turned her palm upward, and clenched her fist.

The River Styx exploded into the air. Walls of water crashed down on the gaming tables from all sides, knocking guests off their feet. By the time anyone looked up again, the sisters were gone.

The girls, Pell, and Marco carried Jafet’s limp form into the eighth-level surveillance room, now void of security guards. They dropped him ignobly on the floor. On a few screens in the bank of monitors, drenched souls fought over chips. On others, armed soldiers in gray-green tactical gear marched guards and workers through the utility tunnels.

Two men in similar gear were there to greet her. The older one, the Agency’s man embedded in the Special Tactics Squadron at Incirlik Air Base, inclined his head toward the monitors. “Once we secured the outer perimeter, we restored the cameras for our own use.” He held out two tiny boxes with alligator clips. “I believe these are yours.”

Talia accepted the boxes and dropped them into her clutch. “Major Ruiz. Good to see you again.”

“Nyx. Always a pleasure.” One corner of his mouth curled into a smile, making the black and gray stubble on his chin catch the light. “The men still talk about that business in the Black Sea. And they loved tonight’s fireworks display.”

“Well, I can’t take all the credit. Our team is”—she turned to introduce Val, Pell, and Don Marco, but they had left—“shy, apparently.”

At her feet, Jafet groaned and squirmed. The vapor from more than a dozen nonlethal P3Q rounds was finally wearing off, Tyler’s own diabolical blend of pepper spray and 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate. The ocular pain and shock of the pepper spray made the paralytic coma effect of the 3Q more predictable and nearly instantaneous. She gave him a poke in the ribs with a toe. “Shut up, you.”

The younger soldier knelt to bind and gag the mob boss. “Wait,” he said, pausing to blink as he cinched the zip cuffs tight. “This is Nyx? The Nyx?” His eyes traveled up from Talia’s spiked heels to her sparkling onyx earrings.

She frowned down at him.

Ruiz slapped him upside the head. “Quit drooling.” He lifted the man to his feet by the strap of his tactical vest and shoved him toward the hallway. “Go get Samuels and Bedford and carry this scumbag out to the boat. And make sure