Kiss & Die - Lee Weeks [127]
Victoria screamed. ‘No, Father, please.’ She tried to run but the bodyguard held her back. He stared coldly at her.
‘You were never my favourite. Take her…’
Two of the bodyguards came forward and dragged her away from her father. Another walked towards Mann. Mann’s pulse slowed right down. He felt the adrenalin turn his blood to ice. In his mouth he moved the arrow that he had snapped from the Parker pen out of his cheek and into the centre of his tongue and he waited until he was within range, he eased himself to his left slightly and felt the gun in his back travel two inches to his right and then he shot it straight into the bodyguard’s eye. It pierced his retina and exploded his eyeball. At the same time Mann twisted his body away from the gun in his back. The shot missed Mann and hit the bodyguard who keeled clutching his eye. Mann back flicked his fist into the man’s face and he broke his nose, cheek and cracked his eye socket. He dived forward towards Ng and caught him around the shoulders and rolled with him to protect him, laying his body across his, but it was too late. CK had already shot Ng through the head. His skull shattered. His body lifeless beneath Mann’s. Mann gave a cry of pain, a roar of anger as he turned, rolled away from Ng and reached inside his shirt with his left hand. There, between the cloth and the bandages, pressed around his chest, was Delilah. And on her hilt she bore something precious. The bodyguards reached for their weapons at the same time as Mann dropped to one knee, rolled and fired Delilah over their heads. She turned direction in the air, almost hovered and then dropped blade first as CK looked up to see what it was. A flash of steel, a plume of black. It sunk deep into his left eye, so far that Delilah was pushing to come out the other side of his skull. CK was driven back by the force and smashed against the mahogany book shelf and slid down to the floor.
Victoria screamed. There was a pause as if the room stood still and then she laughed. Mann thought at first it was shock but it gathered momentum and the bodyguards joined in. She went over to her father and stared down at him and giggled at the kite eagle’s long black tail feathers that were a perfect manoeuvring tool in the air. They were still vibrating as they protruded from his eye socket. She went over to CK, put her foot on his face, her Jimmy Choo heel dug into his chin and she pulled on the eagle feathers, wiggled them to dislodge them and then slid Delilah out, brain matter and eye attached.
‘You know, Father, you disappointed me too.’
She came over to Mann, who was knelt beside Ng, feeling no triumph now, only a bitter loss. She put Delilah in his lap. It was as if Mann had stuck to the script when he hadn’t realized there was a whole different play going on.
She leant over to kiss his lips softly. ‘I intend leaving the country for a while. I will be going to the Philippines. But, don’t think it’s the end for us, Mann, think of it as the beginning.’ She stood up, picked up her bag. ‘And, by the way,’ she tore up the contract and handed it back to Mann, ‘you don’t get out of it that easily. I prefer to be partners, lovers even, who knows, Mann? I