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

Ben knows he doesn’t have much time. He doesn’t try to get up. With what little strength he has left, he reaches into his pocket, pulls out his phone. Brings it up to his face. He’s able to open one eye. He types a message, hits send, then closes his eye.

60

Tom attacks.

The four on guard duty aren’t expecting him. They aren’t watching. They’ve gotten lax as the night has worn on.

It’s like in the bar. Tom wears the night-vision goggles. He blinds them first, throwing in a flash grenade. While they stumble, covering their eyes, crying out, he takes them out with the M4 Carbine. One fell swoop, four down. The guards are dead, headshots all.

Tom tears off the goggles, runs in low, ducking beneath the windows. The door to the cabin bursts open. Harry is in the entrance, armed. The gun swings from side to side, searching him out. Tom can hear him cursing. “Come on, motherfucker! Show yourself, you stinking son of a bitch!”

Tom surprises him from the side, slams the butt of the gun into his stomach. Harry keels over; the gun goes off, blasts through his own foot. He screams, stumbles from the steps. His fall ends with him lying flat on his back, looking up. Tom pulls out his Beretta, shoots him twice through the face.

Into the cabin. The lighting in here is dim, but everything is clear.

A banshee shrieks. Tom turns. The wife, Linda, she charges him, eyes wild, hair flying out behind her. There’s a knife in her hand, raised, for him.

Behind her, a shout. Michael. “Linda, no –!”

Tom catches her as she reaches him, has to drop the Beretta to do so. She’s too close; he needs both hands. Reaches up as the knife is arcing down. He grabs her wrists, twists her arms, steps to the side. Drives the knife into her stomach. Her own hands are still wrapped around it. She falls silent with a gulp, looks down as her blood comes spilling out. She falls to her knees, then drops to her side.

Before she hits the ground, Michael is charging. There is a gun in his hand, but it’s forgotten in his fury. He slams into Tom with all of his weight, knocks him off balance, down to the ground. He drops the gun as they land. It skitters across the floor. He punches Tom across the face. The back of Tom’s head hits the floorboards, dazes him. He comes around as Michael wraps his hands around his throat. He’s spitting words as he does so, cursing him for what he has done to his wife, his friends, his men.

“I’m gonna kill you,” Michael says, saliva flecking his teeth and lips. “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you!”

Tom grabs his hands, stops him from setting the choke in fully. Michael battles against him.

“This is for them,” Michael says, leaning down, putting all his strength, all his weight into strangling Tom. “This is for all of them – this is for Peter and Ronald and –”

Tom grabs his thumbs. Michael feels something change and falls suddenly silent. “They were easy,” Tom says. “You were all too easy.” He snaps his thumbs.

Michael rears back, hands high, thumbs bent back at unnatural angles. Tom gets a boot up, kicks him back, off him. He gets to his feet, pulls out his KA-BAR, spins it in his hand.

Michael shuffles back across the floor, holding up one useless hand. “No,” he says, “no, please, no, back off, no!”

Tom grabs him by the front of his shirt, drags him up to his feet. “You’re the first one who’s begged,” he says. “Aren’t you supposed to be the leader?”

Michael’s mouth clamps shut.

“Did Anthony beg? Did Alejandra? Would it have made a difference?”

Michael closes his eyes.

Tom sticks the knife into his gut. Michael’s eyes shoot open. Tom tears the knife upward, spills his guts. Tom drops him onto the floor, in front of his dead wife. Michael isn’t dead yet, but it won’t take long. He tries reaching out for Linda, but he doesn’t have the strength.

Tom gathers up his things. He leaves the cabin. Behind him, as he goes, he can hear Michael crying.

61

Despite the discomfort of the chair she’s bound to, and the gag in her mouth, which dries out her throat and her lips, Beth manages to fall asleep.

When she wakes, someone is untying her. “Tom?” she says.

Mary, one of the maids, looks at her, raises an eyebrow.

“Mary!” Beth coughs, clears her throat, swallows down the little spit in her mouth. “Do you have any water?”

Mary finishes untying her, then goes to her trolley. She takes a bottle of water from it, hands it over. She says, while Beth gulps it down, “There was a phone call came for you.”

Water spills from Beth’s mouth, down the front of her blouse. “What?”

“Told me you were in here. He said to tell you he’s sorry he couldn’t come back to untie you himself, but he had to leave.” Mary gives her a wry look.

“Oh,” Beth says. “Did he, um, did he say anything else?”

Mary ignores the question. “You know we’re not supposed to do anything with the guests,” she says. “And specially not anything like … well, whatever this was.”

Beth opens her mouth, but says nothing. Mary has a kinky idea in her mind, and she won’t be swayed from it.

“I won’t tell Mr. Cooper about it,” Mary says. Mr. Cooper is their boss, the owner of the motel. “Just consider yourself lucky I’m the one answered the phone. Don’t let nothin’ like this happen again, Beth, y’hear me? You ain’t gonna get so lucky twice, I’ll bet.”

Beth nods, thanks her, leaves the room. Stumbles outside into the early morning sunshine. She finishes off the bottle of water, feeling sore and tired still from sleeping all night in the chair. She heads home. She knows by now that Tom will have left town. She knows she will never see him again.

62

It’s