HE COULDN’T FIND Grace. What Sebastian did find was the old Q-tip with the tufts of white hair slumped against the floor. His breathing was labored as he held out an arm, terrified, shaking the set of car keys pinched between his clawed fingers.
“That’s my Bugatti Chiron parked out front,” Q-tip said, his voice trembling with fear. “It’s worth nearly three million dollars. Take it. Just let me live.”
“The girl,” Sebastian said.
“I can give you money, anything you want—”
“The girl. Where is she?”
The old man pointed to the front door. “Out there,” he said. “He took her out—”
In his mind’s eye Sebastian saw the old man laughing at something Paul had said, Grace standing next to them both and crying, and shot him in the face.
No witnesses.
He heard gunfire coming from outside—not from a handgun but the rapid fire from an AR-15. Had to be Faye, unless Paul had grabbed a similar weapon on his way out. He assumed Paul was armed. Sebastian approached the doorway, looking down the iron sight, ready to fire.
The area outside the front door appeared clear. He swung around the door, to his left, and saw the bodyguards and the small, fat man running, almost to the cars. Sebastian kept his finger pressed on the trigger, shooting at them and having no idea if he’d hit them, because he saw Faye—saw her standing, her hood pulled back and her mask gone, firing from her shoulder at a cherry red Lamborghini Aventador convertible that drove, in fits and starts, across the lawn as though the driver didn’t know how to drive a standard. He caught sight of the steel pockmarks created by the AR rounds and knew Paul was driving the car. Paul was driving away, and he was going to escape.
Grace stood behind the tree where Faye had taken cover. Faye must have grabbed her. His daughter’s shins and knees were scraped and cut in places, but she didn’t look like she was in pain; she didn’t appear even to know what was transpiring around her.
His daughter was safe.
But he had to consider Paul. Paul was alive, and the only way Sebastian could ensure the safety of Ava and their daughter was by killing Paul. If he didn’t, he would spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, wondering if Paul was going to make another move against him, threaten everything he loved once more.
No. End this shit now.
The Range Rover wouldn’t be able to catch up to a Lamborghini.
A Bugatti would.
“Take her to my house,” he called to Faye. “I’ll meet you both there.”
Sebastian glanced at the Lamborghini—it was almost at the gate—and bolted back inside the foyer. He grabbed the keys from the floor, and when he came back outside, rushing to the Bugatti, he saw the Lamborghini’s dim taillights racing in the distance, fading.
Sebastian started the car and floored the gas pedal. As he went after Paul he thought again about his daughter. What was more important? Taking Paul down or meeting his daughter and bringing her home to Ava?
They were both important, he told himself.
He deserved both.
Paul didn’t know how to properly work the clutch and gearshift to drive smoothly, to take full advantage of the power and speed of the Lamborghini’s engine, which meant he wouldn’t be able to get as much distance from Sebastian and the house as he would have liked.
Worse, Paul had chosen as his escape route a winding, solitary stretch of track road, which allowed two-way travel but, in reality, was wide enough for only one car. The road was also made of dirt—not the best choice for a high-performance sports car—and it dipped and rose between rolling valleys of undeveloped land.
Sebastian kept reminding himself to drive carefully. The Bugatti had a lot of horsepower, and it was suited to driving on flat surfaces, not winding dirt roads through hillsides and mountains. If he didn’t maintain control over the car, especially near one of the hairpin curves, he could spin out, drive off the road, and crash.
For the next twenty minutes, he trailed Paul under a sky glowing blood red from the nearby wildfires. The glow intensified, making Sebastian wonder where Paul was going. Is he playing the ultimate game of chicken, thinking I’ll stop following him? What’s the son of a bitch doing? Sebastian didn’t have the luxury of focusing much on these thoughts; he had to bear down hard on driving, having Paul in his view one moment, only to lose sight of him as the younger man took another switchback road or hairpin curve or drove down some steep decline or up some rise, Sebastian’s heart freezing with dread and loss until he caught sight of Paul again, thanks to the Lamborghini’s headlights. Paul, he was sure, would have preferred to kill the headlights, but he couldn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to see the roads and could very well crash or drive off an incline.
Paul turned right, across a sharp curve, and disappeared behind a stretch of land. Sebastian reached it minutes later, and when he turned onto the flat stretch of dirt road, he saw, maybe half a mile ahead, the road engulfed in flames that reached so high into the air, they looked as though they were touching the sky.
But where was Paul? Sebastian didn’t see his vehicle or its headlights; he didn’t see any other roads. Had Paul decided to drive off-road, through the valley of scrub brush? The Lamborghini wasn’t designed to handle that type of terrain. But there was nowhere else for him to go unless he turned around and—
There! There he is! Sebastian caught sight of one of the taillights through the clouds of smoke whipping across the road; then, as he drew closer, he saw that Paul had backed up, the sports car now sitting at an angle, like a sawhorse set up to block the road. But Paul wasn’t moving. In the glare from the headlights Sebastian saw him furiously trying to work the gearshift and clutch.
End it here. End it now.
But how? What was the best approach?
Sebastian had an idea—risky, yes, but still promising. He reached into his front pocket and grabbed the switchblade he always carried with him. It felt slick in his sweaty palm, and after he clamped it between his front teeth he put on his seat belt. Then he accelerated, working the gears and clutch, the flames reflecting off the hood of the Bugatti, the Lamborghini growing larger in his windshield. He had reached almost forty miles per hour when he transferred the switchblade from his mouth to his fist and then intentionally drove straight into the Lamborghini’s driver’s-side door.
Before the airbags deployed, before the headlights smashed and his head and body were thrown violently against the seat belt and seat, he saw Paul, who hadn’t put on his seat belt, thrown sideways, out of his seat.
The switchblade was still clutched in his fist. Sebastian used it to puncture the bags so he could see the road clearly.
The front part of the Bugatti had been smashed, turned into an accordion of steel, the windshield gone. The wind, as hot as the exhaust from a blast furnace, blew across his face, smoke filling his lungs and irritating his eyes. He quickly got his bearings—saw that he’d been thrown sideways from the impact, the Lamborghini somewhere behind him. Sebastian didn’t turn around to look, focused on seeing if the car was still drivable.
It was. He drove back up the road, the Bugatti wounded, the transmission groaning, causing the vehicle to buck. He got just enough distance between him and the fire, and then parked the car. He had to make sure Paul couldn’t escape. He had to make sure.
Sebastian was banged up, but he could move. He opened the door and got out, legs shaky from adrenaline. Where was the AR rifle? There, on the passenger-side floor. He reached back inside the car and grabbed it.
Paul was heaving himself out of the totaled car’s missing driver’s-side window.
Sebastian brought up the AR as Paul landed face-first on the ground. Through the smoke, he saw Paul’s powerful arms push him up, but all of his strength, all his time spent in the gym, wouldn’t get him to stand. His left leg had been badly fractured, the foot twisted and nearly torn off. There was no way Paul could stand, let alone run.
Sebastian had an idea. He churned it in his mind for a moment, then decided, Yes. Do it. He had time.
He had all the time in the world now.
Sebastian lowered the AR-15, grinning, and walked up to Paul. He stopped a few feet away and took a knee, Paul coughing and struggling to move, Sebastian close enough to see the lacerations covering Paul’s face and scalp, his hands.
“Son,” Sebastian said, “you don’t look so good.”
Paul didn’t answer—didn’t even look at him. He was trying to catch his breath and doing a piss-poor job of it, Sebastian wondering if one of Paul’s lungs had collapsed, or maybe Paul had broken a rib or two.
“I’ve decided not to kill you,” Sebastian said. “I’m going to let nature do that.”
Paul eyed him, coughing from internal injuries, possibly, or maybe from the smoke. The heat of the surrounding fires was growing more intense with each passing moment. Soon, it would get to the point where it could melt skin from bone.
“Feel that wind?” Sebastian said. “That’s the infamous Devil’s Winds blowing behind you, fanning the flames. They’re going to eat their way across these fields—across you.”
Sebastian saw the knowledge hit Paul, saw the fear explode in his eyes. The joy bursting inside Sebastian’s chest was better than any combination of sex, booze, and drugs he had ever taken.
“You’re going to burn alive, out here, in terrible, unimaginable agony,” Sebastian said. “That’s so much more satisfying than my original plan of shredding you to pieces with my AR-15. My only regret is not being able to stay here and savor the moment.”
Sebastian got to his feet and jogged back to the Bugatti, the surrounding fires devouring the vegetation and trees. He glanced a couple of times over his shoulder, saw Paul army crawl limply across the dirt. There was no way he was going to make it out of here alive.
Now Sebastian had to work on a new problem: finding a way home to see his daughter. The Bugatti wouldn’t make it to LA. He’d have to find another ride. It didn’t bother him, because he had Grace. She was the priority now. Grace and Ava and their new—
A gunshot behind him, and Sebastian felt something hard and sharp slam into his back. He stumbled forward as he heard more gunshots, felt at least two more rounds slam into his back and one into his leg as he dropped to the ground.
The vest, he thought. The vest he’d been wearing absorbed the shots—although it sure as shit didn’t feel like it. He scrambled to his feet, stumbling, and when he turned he saw Paul holding a handgun. Paul fired again, missed, as Sebastian brought up the AR. He was about to shoot when he thought he heard the crack of a rifle report coming from somewhere behind him.