Chapter 6 - Blood on the Floor
The video message ended abruptly, leaving the office in dead silence.
Claire slowly lifted her eyes from the laptop screen to the man standing across the room.
Marcus was no longer smiling.
He reached under his unbuttoned flannel shirt with a lightning-fast motion.
Richard reacted purely on instinct, violently kicking the heavy wooden desk forward.
The desk crashed into Marcus just as he pulled a heavy revolver from his waistband.
The gun fired wildly, the bullet shattering the fluorescent light fixture above them.
Glass rained down as the room plunged into semi-darkness.
Richard lunged across the overturned desk, tackling Marcus to the floor.
The two old soldiers crashed into a filing cabinet with bone-crushing force.
Marcus kneed Richard in the ribs, trying to create enough space to aim his weapon again.
Claire scrambled backward, desperately reaching for the pistol in her jacket pocket.
Her hands shook so badly she dropped the weapon onto the floorboards.
Marcus shoved Richard away and pointed the revolver directly at Richard's chest.
He snarled that the bounty on their heads was twenty million dollars.
He said it was too much money for an old ghost to pass up.
Before Marcus could pull the trigger, Claire grabbed a heavy glass coffee pot from a side table.
She hurled it with all her strength, smashing it directly against Marcus's face.
Scalding coffee and broken glass blinded him instantly.
Marcus screamed in agony and fired a blind shot in Claire's direction.
The bullet grazed Claire's shoulder, tearing through her jacket and burning her skin.
Richard seized the distraction, grabbing a combat knife from his boot.
He drove the blade into Marcus's shoulder, pinning him to the wooden floor.
Marcus dropped the revolver, gasping for air as blood pooled around him.
Richard picked up the dropped gun and aimed it at his former friend's head.
He demanded to know who issued the twenty million dollar bounty.
Marcus coughed, a bloody smile spreading across his ruined face.
He laughed weakly, saying they were completely outmatched.
He confessed that the bounty wasn't posted by the Phoenix Vanguard or Daniel Prescott.
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Marcus pointed a shaking finger at Claire.
He said the person who paid for the hit was her biological mother.
