Chapter 2 - Blood in the Aisle
The metal click of a cocked hammer echoed beneath the engine's dull hum. Marcus took half a step forward, his jaw tight, eyes glinting behind his dark lenses with greedy excitement. ""Paul promised twenty million across three accounts the second your obituary hits the morning wire,"" Marcus whispered, his voice shaking with adrenaline. ""South River belongs to new management now, Dominic. You've gone soft over old graves and dead grandmothers."" Dominic tilted his head, watching the slight tremor in Marcus’s trigger finger. He had seen hundreds of men hold guns, but very few had the stomach to squeeze when looking someone dead in the eye. ""Twenty million,"" Dominic murmured smoothly, shifting his left boot three inches back against the floor runner. ""Paul doesn't have twenty million liquid. If he told you that, he’s going to execute you the moment you ask for the transfer."" That hesitation was all Dominic needed. Before Marcus could register the psychological hook, Dominic’s left hand struck like a coiled viper, slapping the cylinder of the revolver upward. The gunshot roared inside the enclosed coach like an explosion, shattering an overhead luggage rack and raining plastic shards across screaming passengers. June Harper jerked awake with a horrified gasp, clutching her heart as chaos erupted. Panic tore through the bus as people ducked and screamed. Marcus snarled, lunging forward with his full weight, but Dominic drove a vicious palm strike directly into Marcus’s nose, crunching bone and sending blood spraying across the gray carpet. Behind Marcus, the two young men in baseball caps drew heavy Glock handguns, scrambling down the narrow aisle to corner Dominic. ""Kill him! Drop him now!"" Marcus shrieked, clutching his ruined face. But before the first cap-wearing shooter could level his sight, Walter Bell—the supposedly fragile retired history teacher in seat twenty—moved with terrifying, impossible speed. Walter didn't scream or flinch. In one fluid motion, the old man swung his heavy stainless-steel thermos like a mace, slamming it straight into the temple of the nearest shooter with the brutal crack of breaking bone. The young man collapsed instantly, unconscious before hitting the carpet. Dominic didn't waste a second asking questions. He vaulted over the armrest, catching the third hitman with a flying elbow across the jaw that drove the man's head into the emergency window. The glass webbed with white fractures. Dominic wrenched the dropped Glock from the floor, kicking the dazed hitman into the rear stairwell. Marcus was scrambling backward toward the driver’s cabin on hands and knees, blood pouring through his fingers, frantically reaching for his fallen weapon. Dominic stepped forward, cold fury in his eyes, placing the heavy heel of his shoe directly on Marcus’s hand, pinning it to the floor. The driver slammed on the brakes, tires screeching in protest as the heavy coach slid along the highway shoulder, throwing screaming tourists against the forward bulkheads before coming to a violent, shuddering halt on the grassy median of Interstate 95. Dominic stood upright in the smoky aisle, breathing evenly, his gun aimed down at the groaning assassin. Beside him, Walter calmly adjusted his wire-framed glasses, reached down, picked up his crossword puzzle book, and tucked his thermos under his arm. ""You're Rose's boy,"" Walter said quietly, his voice dry and gravelly. ""I promised your grandfather fifty years ago I'd look after you if things went sideways. Let's get these civilians off this bus before Paul realizes the hit failed.""
