BloodWise

BloodWise, Chapter 16

The moment Reyna turned the corner to Fitzpatrick's conference room the goosebumps flared across her skin. She stopped short and peeked into the future. She saw herself, sitting at the table with a silver spike embedded through her forearm.  The spike passed all the way through her flesh and then down through the tabletop and her blood dripped slowly onto the carpet. She saw herself sweating blood and groaning in pain as Fitzgerald lectured her. They knew. They knew how she'd saved Solomon.

She tried to look more closely at the future, to see other possibilities. None appeared. But it couldn't happen if she ran now, could it? She turned the other way in time to find Noah's Assegai in her face. The razor sharp edge of it sat an inch from her nose. "I wouldn't make any fast moves," Noah advised. "It would be a sad thing to ribbon your face."

Reyna took a long, shallow breath.

Noah pointed back to the conference room. "We got this meeting to go to. After you."

Fiztgerald and Isaac were in the room when Noah escorted them in. With a single glance, Reyna saw that the jog was over. There wouldn't be any pretence.

"I guess I overestimated your fondness for Solomon," Fitzgerald said. "Or maybe I didn't. Maybe the problem is that you forgot about your sister and nephew, but I didn't forget them, Reyna."

Reyna sat at the table while Noah stodd directly behind her. She didn't look Fitzgerald in the eye. She didn't put her hands on the table. She tried to think of something to say, some appeal to make, but nothing came to mind.

"Nothing to add to our conversation?" Fitzgerald asked. "I'll consider that an admission of guilt."

"Are you going to kill me, Lord Fitzgerald?"

Fitzgerald glanced up and behind her, at Noah. Then Noah's hand shot out to grab hers. Even though she knew what was coming, she couldn't stop it. Noah was so fast and strong. His hand flickered past her like a shadow, then he had an iron lock on her wrist. He slammed her right fist hard against the table. Reyna groaned in pain and then the silver spike in Noah's other hand. He drove it down and it bit through her skin and flesh, glanced off her bone and continued down, meaking a clean hole through the table-top. Her blood dripped slowly down the hole. Noah used his other hand to hold her down by the back of her neck

Reyna gave off an animal-like growl as the pain came for her. It shimmied up her arm, wrapped itself around her sternum and then squeezed her brain like a boa constrictor. She gasped for breath against it.

Fitzgerald watched her squirm. "You knew the price, Reyna. You knew what would happen if you betrayed me. Why did you do it?"

An etching of a plan came to Reyna. "Because I hate you!" If Fitzgerald were mad enough at her, maybe he'd be satisfied enough to kill her and leave her sister's family out of it. Her face contorted with the effort of trying to speak. "Because your rotten to the core Fitzgerald! You used Solomon to your own ends, and the- even after you got what you wanted, you threw him to the Prestons out of pettiness."

"Not out of pettiness," he barked. "I am not small-minded. I did it to tie up lose ends. It now it appears as though you are one more loose end."

"Then get it over with and kill me."

"Settle down, bitch," Noah said. The grip on the back of her neck tightened considerably, and she felt something in her neck pop.

"Language," Fitzgerald said.Then he turned his attention back to her. "I know what you're trying to do. If I kill you, then I have no reason to hold your family hostage, but it isn't going to work that way. You see, you're one of my assets. You're important to my organization and plans, and you have at least Police Commissioner in love with you. And you're a very good driver. What I think we need to do is just have a reminder. I think what's in order is for me to turn your nephew, Paul, over to the Prestons, let them do what they like with him."