Kiss & Die - Lee Weeks [74]
He was just a scrawny eighteen-year-old, when the men held him back and forced him to watch his father’s execution. His father had taken twenty minutes to die as each man aimed his cleaver and felled his father like a tree. The last blow split his skull. Mann had been as helpless as a baby to stop it happening. The men had left him weeping. He had crawled on his hands and knees to his father, and cradled his bloody body. Mann had scars in his heart and soul that would never heal, no matter how much Helen tried. So Mann had let her go when she called his bluff. He had let her leave when she said it was now or never. He hadn’t realized the taxi would take her to hell.
He sat back in the chair and willed sleep to come. He felt his body become heavy, his muscles released their tension. Mann’s dreams were often in English. But his dreams were nightmares in any language. The background noise of the corridor outside filtered in as dull lullaby, comforting, droning and then it stopped resisting and let the muscles go and Mann drifted into an uneasy sleep. He found himself back with Helen. She was laughing, smiling. For a few seconds he was so happy to see her face and then her expression changed. Mann couldn’t wake up. He was caught in hell with her. He was twisting with pain. His head was inside the hood. He was with Helen. Her voice was his. Her screams coming out of his own mouth. From outside the darkness he heard two men talking. Mann had always believed he killed the man who took the last breath from Helen until now.
‘Sir?’
He was awakened, startled by a nurse staring into his face. He could smell her starchy uniform, hear it crackle. It was light in the room.
‘Any change?’
The nurse turned away and went back over to check on Tammy. She changed her drip and set up a new bag of blood and saline. She moved around the bed with a hypnotic calmness, a precision that Mann could have watched for hours. Her tasks were executed in sequence, in silence. Her hands moved, her starchy uniform touched the bed and creased. Her eyes watched and her ears listened. She shook her head as she finished taking Tammy’s obs.
‘She’s holding on,’ she said with that look of sympathy that Mann knew well. It said, you should go; there are worse times to come, go and get some rest. Mann knew she was right but he also knew that he had scores to settle first.
Chapter 54
Mann stormed past CK’s shrieking PA. He grabbed Victoria by the arm as she sprang out of her chair and tried to get away. He pushed her across the room.
‘Is this what you’re all about? Is this what you want me to be a part of? You pleased with yourself? A young woman lies seriously wounded in the hospital. Do you want another death on your hands?’
Victoria backed away. ‘I did not order the attack on your officer.’ But her eyes were shining triumphant; they told him that she had known he would come. He was still a piece on her chess board.
‘You sick bitch…’
She backed up until she could go no further. ‘You want someone to blame, look in the mirror. I warned you.’ She flinched as he pushed her again and she knocked into an Andy Warhol original. It juddered against the wall.
‘She is worth a million of you – you power hungry, mercenary, twisted…’
He watched her eyes flick to something behind him. He turned to face the two same bodyguards from the Oceans bar. Mann reached inside