Tane arrived first, his squad car raking up dust along the two kilometre driveway. Michael turned into a psychedelic banshee of fear, waving the pistol at Seline and accusing her of calling the cops. His cheeks flamed the whole gamut from puce to purple.
“You called Tane,” Leilah rasped. “He’s a cop. You destroyed your own plan.” She coughed and the wound in her shoulder ached despite Seline’s tearful pressure with the cardigan. From her seated position on the floor, Leilah didn’t see Tane saunter casually up the driveway and skip his bulk up the porch steps, but she recognised his familiar tap on the front door. She squirmed and opened her mouth, delighting Michael who turned the gun nozzle to face Seline. The teenager gave a small cry and put her flat hand over her mouth, muting the rest of the sound.
Receiving no answer, Tane put his hand on the front door handle and pushed, feeling the French door move inward under the pressure. His eyes widened at the sight before him; Leilah bleeding on the lounge floor and a red haired girl knelt next to her, sobbing into her hand and pressing on a bloodstained item of clothing. The cop in Tane assessed the threat with immediacy and he put his hand on his tool belt, snatching at the Taser tucked into a pocket.
“Don’t bother.” Michael waved the nozzle of the pistol towards him at the same time as backing away, putting enough space between himself and the big man to avoid an immediate end to his scheme. “Take the gear off.”
Tane glanced towards Leilah and saw her struggle with consciousness as pain invaded her soul. He raised his hand, palms upwards. “Ok, ok,” he said. It took time to detach the belt and release himself from the stab vest, a sweat stain appearing under his armpits and forming a stripe down the centre of his back.
“Now get over there!” Michael snapped, waving the gun towards the women.
Leilah watched as Tane weighed up his options and moved into a better position. “Don’t, Tane,” she begged. “He’ll do it.”
Tane eyed Michael as though he was a rabid hound, sidestepping across to the far wall and squatting next to Leilah. “Lei,” he breathed, his eyes searching her face with frantic eye movements. “How bad is it?”
“Bad!” Seline sobbed, removing the cardigan and revealing the blood-soaked shirt. She jabbed a wavering finger at Michael. “He shot his own wife!”
“Ssshh, Seline, ssshhh,” Leilah hissed, eyeing the gun toting maniac.
Tane fixed his stern gaze on Michael and balled his fists. “You’re Michael Hanover?” he spat. Tane stood, every inch the authoritative cop. “You bastard!”
“Sit down!” Michael shouted, waving the gun.
Tane took a step forward and pulled his lips back in a snarl. “You won’t pull the trigger ass-wipe! I bet the last one was an accident.” He advanced further and Michael pulled the trigger.
The room resounded with the sound of the blast and the wall behind Tane exploded into a hail of shards. Instinct overrode courage and the policeman ducked, wood spraying the back of his shirt. Tane swore at Michael but halted his advance, allowing the gun to direct him over to the women. He squatted next to Leilah and cupped her cheek in his hand. “It’s ok, Lei,” he whispered. “We’ll get out of this, babe.”
“You think so?” Michael waved the gun around near his own face. “One of you won’t.”
“What the hell?” Tane began, stopped by Leilah’s tug on his sleeve.
“Please stop,” she begged. “Just hold me.”
Michael’s eyes flared with fury as Tane pressed his back against the wall and slipped his arm around Leilah. He avoided her sore shoulder, cupping her head in his large palm and massaging her scalp. “Maybe we don’t need the others to come,” Michael said, satisfaction in his voice. He jerked his head towards Seline. “See, sweetheart, do you get it now?” His eyes bugged and the reddened hue of fury remained in his cheeks.
Seline shook her head and wiped her bloodstained palms over her eyes. “No, Daddy, I understand none of this. Put the gun down; can’t you see how ridiculous this is?”
“Don’t call me that!” Michael spat, the label seeming to burn in his chest. “I’m not your dad.”
Seline turned to face Leilah, gripping her hand and causing her mother to moan in pain. “Mum, what’s happening?” she whispered, avoiding Michael’s eyes. “Why’s he doing this?”
They heard the rumble of another vehicle and Leilah’s heart clenched in her chest, stress raising her blood pressure and causing more blood to slide from the wound and seep into the shirt. Five stained squares covered her collarbone and chest as the flow busied itself with colouring in a sixth. Tane dragged the cardigan from Seline’s lap and placed it back over the wound. “Who’s coming?” he asked Leilah in a low voice and she groaned.
“Everyone,” she said, a catch in her throat. “He’s called everyone who matters to me and then he’ll make me tell him and kill whoever I name.”
Tane’s radio crackled on his stab vest, the curly cable abandoned on the floorboards with the earpiece. Michael jumped and almost discharged the gun again, stopping himself at the last second. Tane leaned his ear close to Leilah’s, his question whispered. “How many rounds has he discharged?”
“Shut up!” Michael hissed as the car door slammed outside. Leilah held up two fingers before clasping them through Seline’s shaking digits and giving them a squeeze.
Dante didn’t bother knocking. He let himself in through the French door, slamming it behind him as he always did. He froze at the sight of Michael wielding the gun, but didn’t fully register the serious of the situation, his brain lying to his ego. “Hey, buddy,” he said, running his hand through his blonde hair. “What’s going on?”
Michael’s eyes narrowed and he jabbed the gun in the air. “Get over there, with them,” he said, his voice a snarl. “All these years you’ve hung around my wife like a bad smell. I suppose I should’ve worked it out before now.” He glanced at the small gathering in the corner of the room. “Perhaps all this is academic, after all.”
“Dunno what you’re on about, mate,” Dante said, his casual air deceiving. His lips parted at the sight of Leilah laying in her blood and his eyes flashed back to Michael, frightening intensity in his glare. “Did you not hurt her enough during your farce of a marriage?” Dante hissed, cranking up into a higher gear. He took a step forward. “Everyone knew what an asshole you were, Michael. Or didn’t you realise? Do you honestly think they fawned over you because you were the latest hot thing? They laughed behind your back, man. You were the butt of everyone’s jokes but they made you pay for it, didn’t they? Hey, Mike, the drinks were always on you, weren’t they? You didn’t just fill your own nose with Cocaine; you supplied half of Auckland’s well-to-do. Grow up, man. Smell the coffee, you loser.”
Michael reeled from the revelation, his jaw clenching and the bone showing through his skin as a taut line. He shook his head and his hands shook as the gun became a dangerous extension of his arm. “Really? Really, Dante? You turn up to all the best parties in your flash suits and bow ties and the women float around you like flies around shit! But underneath you’re just a small town farm boy with no money and a debt that’ll strangle you one day soon. You’ve placed one bad bet too many and they’re closing in my friend; you’ve nowhere left to run.”
Michael waved the gun around his head and Seline ducked with a squeak of terror and covered her ears. “You backed a donkey!” he shouted into Dante’s face, sounding like an excited lunatic. “You needed both tracts of land for the development and you don’t have a hope of getting them. There’s no funds for you, my friend. Your backers are done with you!”
“You think I don’t know that?” Dante said, his voice level. “I’ve made some dumb mistakes in my life, Michael, but you had it all; a beautiful wife, a family and a business with the potential to take you somewhere.” He fixed his eyes on Leilah and his face softened. “You lost it all, man. You’re a fool.”
Michael’s eyes flashed danger and he took a step towards Dante. “I knew it!” he screamed into the other man’s face. “I knew it was you!” He spoke through gritted teeth and Dante’s face remained unchanged. “Say goodbye to your daughter, asshole!” Michael said, his face twitching with latent wrath which spewed over into his body, taking control and rendering him a slave to the inner fury.
Dante turned to Leilah, his blue eyes sad as he watched her struggle for breath. “Sorry for everything,” he said and blew her a kiss. Michael pressed the gun into Dante’s chest and depressed the trigger, sending the .44 Remington Magnum round deep into his heart. Dante dropped like a stone and Leilah let out a wail of dismay, contorting her body and drawing up her knees. Tane seemed lost for words, cradling her head and kissing her hair, horror forcing his eyes closed.
Satisfied, Michael’s demeanour changed. He calmed, opening the cylinder on the pistol and checking the chamber. He leaned back against the wall with a casual air, blowing out in a slow exhale through pursed lips and recovering his equilibrium with surprising ease.
“I need to check Dante,” Tane said, rising, his voice stilted. “I need to see if he’s...”
“See if he’s ok?” Michael sounded sardonic. “He’s dead. Just like you’ll be if you take one more step forward.” He jerked the gun towards Leilah. “Sit down and I’ll consider letting you live.”
Leilah sobbed as the blood pooled beneath Dante, spreading out in a wide, ugly circle like spilled paint. Overwhelmed, Seline pressed her face into her mother’s lap and her shoulders heaved in a silent plea for clemency.
Michael jerked his head towards Tane. “Shut them up,” he ordered. “I mean it.”
Tane pulled Leilah into his chest, hearing the catch in her lungs at the agony burning in her shoulder. He noticed another chequered square filled in on her shirt and bit his lip. Stretching out a hand towards Seline, he stroked the girl’s hair, offering comfort from one captive to another, wishing he’d got to know her and reeling from the shock of Michael’s assumption. He caught Leilah’s glassy stare as she looked up at him and she shook her head in a frantic motion at the confusion on his face. Leave it, her eyes implored.
“The others aren’t coming but it doesn’t matter now.” Michael stared at the gun in his hand, pleased with the outcome of his dramatic visit. “I got what I came for.”
“And what was that?” Tane asked, his tone bitter.
“Retribution.” Michael cocked his head as though it was the most natural thing; to visit his ex-wife and shoot her friends. “I brought up his kid, fed her, clothed her, paid her expensive school fees and stood by while he hung around my wife like a parasite.” Michael shook his head at Dante’s statuesque body. He kicked the polished black shoe and it bounced away and back again.
“What does he mean?” Seline pleaded, reduced from the capable young woman to a hysterical child. “Was Dante my father?” Her voice raised to a squeak and Leilah stayed silent, her heart thudding in her chest. “Mummy, please. Tell me!”
“I’m sorry, baby,” Leilah breathed, ending her sentence with a guttural cough as her throat dried out from shock and blood loss. She put everything into the apology, meaning all three words with heartfelt regret. Tane swore next to her, spitting out words he’d only heard from drunks. “It hurts at the back,” Leilah gasped, feeling pain drilling through from chest to spine.
Tane took her body weight and tipped her forward, peering over Leilah’s head to see her back. The blood stain reached from shoulder blade to waist, her shirt sticky and rucked. Beneath her a pool of blood soaked her jeans crimson and she sat in the vibrant puddle like a guilty child with a leaking bladder. As Leilah slumped towards Tane’s chest, Seline let out a scream of horror. She screamed and screamed, holding the note like an opera singer, her hands clasped over her open mouth at the sight of Leilah’s true plight.
In the remains of her peripheral vision before darkness descended, Leilah saw a dark figure enter from the kitchen. It moved with silence and precision, focussing like a heat-seeking missile and unfazed by the gun. She heard the thwack of bone on bone and saw Michael fall, the weapon skittering from his hand and sliding across the floorboards. It hit the skirting and stopped, the barrel facing towards her like an empty threat. Leilah moved her gaze to the left and met the lifeless eyes of the blonde haired beau, pleading with her from death. He seemed less vibrant lying down, his buoyancy and natural flair sucked from him, leaving an empty shell in its place.
“Bastard!” Seline’s father shouted and the agony in his voice brought a shiver of fear to Leilah’s fractured consciousness. She groaned as Tane’s support disappeared from under her. She sank face first onto the floorboards with Dante’s blue eyes staring at her in blank adoration, just like he always had.