Chapter 7 - Alone
The quiet that followed was absolute.
It was not the peaceful quiet of a country lane; it was the heavy, suffocating silence of a vault that had just been sealed from the outside.
Smoke hung in thin, grey horizontal ribbons three feet off the floor, smelling of burnt cordite and the sweet, nauseating tang of fresh arterial blood.
Marcus Voss was cowering behind his leather chair, his silver revolver lying on the floor three feet out of his reach. His face was green, his expensive suit soaked in sweat and cold water from the overturned pitchers.
Under the mahogany table, Leo Mercer crawled out slowly, wiping a spot of drywall dust from his dark forehead.
He looked at the floor.
Five men lay dead or dying in the gilded ruins of the Gold Room. Their blood was already soaking through the antique Oriental rugs, pooling in the low spots of the hardwood floorboards.
Quinn stood in the center of the destruction.
Her pea coat was untouched. Her hair was still pinned back in its tight, neat knot. The only sign that she had moved was a small smear of grey gun grease on the side of her thumb.
She walked over to Marcus Voss.
Marcus looked up at her, his lips trembling so violently he couldn't form a word. He looked at her eyes—those muddy hazel eyes that had seemed so tired in the West Side butcher shop three weeks ago.
There was no victory in them. No anger. No excitement.
They were simply empty, like windows in an abandoned factory.
"Please," Marcus whimpered, reaching into his pocket with a shaking hand. "I have money... I have three million in a Swiss account... I can give you the numbers..."
Quinn looked at Leo.
"Is he useful?" she asked.
Leo pulled himself up, using the edge of the table for support. He adjusted his cuffs, his hands steady, though his eyes were wide as he looked at his driver.
"No," Leo said softly. "He's not useful anymore."
Quinn lowered the heavy Sig Sauer.
She didn't use a bullet.
She stepped forward, brought the heavy steel heel of her boot down on the side of Marcus’s neck with a sharp, sickening CRACK, and stepped back before his body even hit the rug.
She turned to Leo, her face completely pale under the yellow light of the hotel chandelier.
"The garage is going to be noisy in three minutes," she said. "We need to take the service stairs."
Leo stared at her for five seconds—five long seconds where he realized that the monster he had been looking for wasn't a six-foot-four wall of muscle like Tommy.
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It was this five-foot-six shadow that he had hired as a joke.
"Lead the way, Quinn," Leo said.
