Blood Line (A Tom Rollins Thriller Book 1) Paul Heatley (10 best novels of all time .txt) 📖

to land his one desperate blow. Peter tires himself out. Tom strikes, kicks at his knee, blows it out. Peter cries, goes down onto the knee, the one Tom has just kicked out of joint. Peter cries harder; it turns into a scream.

Tom grabs an arm and twists it around his back, wrenches it up until it breaks. Keeps it held behind Peter’s back. He pulls his KA-BAR, presses the blade to his neck. He speaks into Peter’s ear. “You’re going to answer my questions,” he says, “or else I’m going to break all the other bones in your body.”

Peter is in pain, but he does his best to remain defiant. “Fuh-fuck you,” he says. Blood runs from his mouth. The bones in his arm grind together, his dislocated knee swims around inside his leg, pressed to the hard floor.

“I can make it hurt more,” Tom says, slicing the knife a little across his throat, drawing blood. “Who attacked Anthony Rollins?” he says. “Who’s responsible?”

Peter tries to turn his head, to see him, confused. It wouldn’t make a difference if he could, even without the night-vision goggles covering most of Tom’s face. “Who the hell are you?” he says.

“Answer the question.” Tom wrenches his broken arm up a little higher, makes him scream again. Peter gasps for breath, but he doesn’t answer anything. “Who attacked Anthony Rollins? Who killed Alejandra?”

Something happens then. There is a change in Peter. It takes a moment for Tom to realize that he is laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

Peter continues to laugh, defiant until the end. “You wanna know who killed her, huh? I did. I killed that spic bitch. I put a bullet in her pregnant belly, and I put another right through her fucking face!”

Tom does not react. This is supposed to make him react, to make him sloppy. To get him to make a mistake.

Tom turns Peter around, then stands, kicks him onto his back. The broken arm is still twisted behind him; he lands on it. Peter isn’t laughing now. Tom stamps on his good hand, feels the knuckles and the fingers shatter beneath the force of his heel. He kneels down, onto Peter, pinning his body. The knife is still in Tom’s hand. He presses the tip to Peter’s chest, right at his heart. Peter tries to paw at him with his broken hand, to force him off, but he can’t get a grip, can’t make a fist.

Tom is cool. He’s calm. He’s never been calmer.

He doesn’t need Peter for the answers to his other questions. He can get them elsewhere. Right now, Peter has given him the only answer that really matters.

Tom slides the KA-BAR between Peter’s ribs, into his heart.

He does it slow.

32

Tom isn’t done yet.

He’s left the bar. Set it on fire. As he drives away, he passes the fire engine heading toward it. In the rearview mirror, he can see how the burning bar lights up the night sky behind him, the way the smoke arcs upward, obscuring the stars.

Tom goes to Steve Reid’s house. He parks down the block, goes to the back, to the window where he sees lights flickering. Tom is armed with his Beretta and his KA-BAR. He’s covered in Peter Reid’s blood.

Inside the house, Steve sits at his computer. He rests his face in one hand, taps idly at the keyboard with the other. Looks bored.

Tom goes around the side, to an empty room. He breaks in. Slides his knife under the window frame, breaks the lock. Gets inside in relative silence. He listens to the house. Apart from the room where Steve is, where the only sound is the tapping of the keys, the house is silent. Tom goes to the room, stepping lightly, one foot in front of the other, knife in hand, raised.

Steve does not hear him coming. His ears don’t twitch; he doesn’t turn. Just goes on staring at the screen. Tom doesn’t bother to check whatever it is he’s looking at. From behind, he puts the knife to Steve’s throat. His other hand is at the top of his head. Steve freezes. Tom turns him around in the chair. Steve gulps; his Adam’s apple bobs against the blade. He raises his hands in surrender. He looks up at Tom. His eyes narrow, studying the face. His body goes limp. “You look just like him,” he says.

“Who?” Tom says.

“Anthony.”

“Then you know why I’m here.” Tom keeps the knife at his throat.

Steve nods, just a little, careful not to cut himself. He seems resigned to what is about to happen.

His reaction surprises Tom. He notices how Steve is looking at the blood upon him. “It’s your brother’s,” he says.

Steve acknowledges this with another small nod, but again, he doesn’t seem as upset or angered as Tom would have expected. “How’s Anthony?” he says.

Tom blinks.

“Is he all right? Everyone has assumed he’s survived, but no one knows it for certain. I’m guessing, by your being here, that he did.”

Tom’s eyes narrow. “He’s alive,” he says.

“When I messaged him, I had to send it from a number he didn’t have, in case … y’know … they got him. In case they checked his phone and saw that I’d warned him.”

This part of the story is news to Tom. Anthony did not share any of the details with him. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him to run,” Steve says. “That they knew, and they were coming for him. If they had managed to keep hold of him, if they’d checked his phone, they probably would have worked out that the message was sent by me.”

“What would they have done?”

“Killed me.”

“Even your brother?”

Steve snorts. “The Right Arm are his real brothers. I’m just a nuisance he can’t shake.”

“What happened next?” Tom says.

“When?”

“After you messaged him.”

“I called the cops,” Steve says. “I called them anonymously, told them I’d seen a couple of cars drive too fast around town, looked like they were heading out of it. I thought they were either racing, or