The Hard Way Duncan Brockwell (romance book recommendations .TXT) 📖

Walker made out people in silhouette form, one pushing another, until he saw the one being pushed was Demirci. And Zuccari had already had fun with her; she was bleeding.

“There! Sit down on this chair, love,” Zuccari said through his mask.

Walker glanced at the farmer, the only guy not wearing a mask, who looked nervous. Zuccari’s stance and demeanour was intimidating. Walker noticed his “friend” was wearing gloves, but nothing could disguise the fact two of his fingers were missing on his hand. “Take it easy.” He was ready to jump on Zuccari.

“Easy? You want me take it easy when these fuckers are here?” Zuccari’s eyes blazed at him through the holes in his mask. He reached behind him and produced a pistol.

The atmosphere in the barn changed.

Sarge, Vodicka and his two other colleagues gasped, before Sarge tried to intervene. “What the fuck’re you playing at? Put that away before you get someone killed, you sick maniac.”

Zuccari whipped round and pointed the pistol at Sarge, who froze. “I won’t be needing this anymore.” He pulled the mask off. “Or these.” One by one, he pulled his gloves off, training his pistol on Sarge. “You thought we’re here to beat these bastards up? Oh no, we’re here for a lot more than that.”

Melodi Demirci stared up at him. “You’re police officers. Do something!”

“Hey mate, how about you put that gun down, huh?” Walker stepped closer to him from behind. His charge turned to face him, the pistol pointed at his chest. “I know you’re pissed off with these two, and I get it. But please don’t do anything you’ll regret. We’re not past the point of no return yet.”

“Oh no?” Zuccari marched forward, put the muzzle of the pistol against the Inan brother on the left, and pulled the trigger.

The Inan brother fell backwards in his chair, a red mist hanging in the air.

Stunned silence filled the barn.

Zuccari spat on the corpse of his tormentor. He raised the pistol at Sarge once more. “He took my fingers with a circular saw. He deserved it.”

Everyone present, including Walker, knew they were in shit, accomplices to murder. Angry, Walker rushed Zuccari from behind, grabbed him around his neck and put him in a stranglehold, making sure he grabbed his gun hand with his free arm. “You fucking psycho.” He crushed Zuccari’s windpipe until his colleague collapsed unconscious on the hay-covered ground.

“You killed my brother.” Yasin Inan glared at him. “You’re bent coppers. Murderers. You’re all going down for this.”

“Yasin, do us both a favour and shut the fuck up.” Demirci tried to kick her cousin, but her restraints prevented it. “Don’t listen to him. We won’t say a word about this, ever. I’m a businesswoman. Let’s talk terms and conditions, yes? We all want to get out of this alive, and not in prison, don’t we?”

Sarge took the gun from Walker. He stepped up to Demirci. “Do you really think we’re taking advice from the likes of you? You’re scum! We decide what happens from here.”

“You know what happens from here,” Walker shouted. “We have to call this in, right?” He didn’t like the glares he received from his team. Sarge whipped his mask off. “Sarge? What’re we even thinking about this for? Call it in!”

“Don’t be so fucking stupid, Luke. How can we? We’re all a part of this now. We’re all equally as guilty as Zuccari. What we have to do is damage control.”

There was a long silence.

Every free person in the barn glanced at the others expectantly.

“There’s nothing for it, Sarge, we have to get rid of them.”

Walker couldn’t believe how cold-hearted Vodicka sounded, nonchalant, like it was “no big deal”. “Voddy, no. You don’t mean that. You’re a cop, for fuck’s sake.”

“We don’t have a choice, Luke, do we? We can’t let them go. We can’t call it in, or we all go down, and I for one, am never going to prison, especially not for someone else’s mistake. I like Zuccari, but I’m not going to prison for him, got that?”

“Then we make a deal with them, never to take this further, right, Melodi?”

“Yeah, absolutely. Anything to help the situation.”

“Fuck that!” Yasin growled. “Fuck you, Melodi. No deal. I fucking kill all of you.”

“Yasin, shut up! What did I just tell you. Either shut up, or I swear I’ll kill you for them, and make a deal for just myself.”

Walker spent the next fifteen minutes trying to talk Sarge, Vodicka and the rest of his team out of killing them. The only person on his side was the farmer who hadn’t expected dead bodies on his property. Sarge took the farmer aside, gave him a talking to.

When the Sarge returned, he whispered in Vodicka’s ear, who held the pistol to Yasin Inan’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

As his brain’s sprayed the air, Yasin’s head slumped forward.

“I’m sorry! I had no choice.” Vodicka held the pistol by her side.

54

Hayes swerved to the left, keeping the transit van behind them. Mrs Edwards drove at speed in front of her, but on a winding country road, they would all come a cropper eventually. She had to do all she could to give Fisher’s sister a chance to slip away. Miller held on tight next to Hayes. “Hold on.”

She slowed, while swerving from left to right, keeping the van in check, watching as Mrs Edwards’ car vanished. Behind her, she could sense the driver’s growing frustration by how he kept trying to get by her. “Oh shit!”

The van sped into the back of her, as their Peugeot veered to the left, giving the transit the chance to pull up beside her.

Glancing to her right and up, the passenger window wound down and a pistol appeared. “Down! Get down!” Hayes screamed.

A bright flash preceded her side window smashing into tiny shards. Hayes looked away, trying to concentrate on the road ahead, which became an embankment.

“Look out!” Miller screamed.

Before she knew what was happening, Hayes drove