Princess: A Private Novel(69)

“Or what, Jack? You goin’ to get this girl killed too, just like you did Jane?”

Flex was at the top of the staircase.

“Open the door,” he told the girl, who squirmed awkwardly to obey. Flex kept her body between himself and Morgan. The girl’s own frame wasn’t enough to cover the entirety of his muscular bulk, but it was enough for Morgan.

“Let’s just do this, you and me,” Morgan tried again.

Flex spat at him instead.

Then he backed out onto the top of Britain’s tallest building.





Chapter 120


ONE THOUSAND FEET above the country’s sprawling capital, the wind slapped Morgan hard in the face as he followed Flex onto the highest level of the Shard, nothing between them and the elements but guard rails. Morgan kept the revolver trained at Flex’s head, but he knew there was no way he could pull the trigger. The shot had been a difficult one before—now, with the wind, it was a near certainty the girl would die first.

“Let her go and I’ll put my gun down,” Morgan said, his voice raised against the wind.

Flex backed himself into an area of the roof where the glass panels that gave the building its name would cover his back from heli-borne snipers.

“You’re out of options, Flex. London is covered in cameras. Your crimes are on tape. You can go to prison, or you can die.”

Flex snorted, and Morgan knew he was holding out for a third option—to keep the girl as a hostage, and bargain his way out.

Morgan hadn’t considered that there could be a fourth.

Suddenly, with no warning, Flex shoved the girl forward at Morgan, the massive muscles of his chest and arm propelling her like a rag doll. The girl’s arms flailed and her hair was blown in the wind as she stumbled and tripped the few meters toward the American. Morgan knew instantly what Flex’s ploy was: to buy himself two seconds to reload his empty pistol, and finish Morgan, so he made to sidestep and fire while Flex was reaching for his spare magazine. But the girl came at him like a lost child to her parents, her eyes wild with terror, unable to see that by grabbing at Morgan, she was sealing both of their fates.

“Off!” Morgan screamed at her, pushing the clutching girl away and expecting 9mm rounds to begin punching into the bodies of both of them. “Off!” he yelled again, grabbing a scruff of her jacket and sending her spinning toward the door. But her flailing arms knocked the pistol from his hand, and sent it skidding across the metal floor.

Now unarmed, he knew that he would die.

He looked to Flex. The murderer pushed the fresh magazine onto his pistol and was raising it up to face Morgan’s body. As it came, the thumb of Flex’s left hand moved to push down on the release catch, which would allow the top-slide to come crashing forward and chamber the round that would kill Jack Morgan.

Morgan knew there was no escape now, so he steeled himself to look Flex in the eye, desperate to avoid showing a single ounce of fear that the man could enjoy.

Flex’s thumb hit the weapon’s release catch.

Prepared for death, Morgan watched as the top-slide came forward.

And jammed halfway.





Chapter 121


FLEX LOOKED DOWN at the weapon in his hand, seeing the top-slide stuck halfway forward, the weapon rendered useless.

“No!” he shouted. The reason for the malfunction was instantly clear: Morgan’s gunshot on the bridge. It had hit the ammunition pouch and caused enough of a bend in the magazine to pinch the top, which now stopped the spring from feeding up the bullet as the carrier came forward to collect and chamber the round. Even if he were to clear the obstruction, the same malfunction would occur over and over again. Without another magazine—which Flex did not have—the semi-automatic pistol was useless.

Looking across at the man he longed to kill, Flex realized that Jack Morgan had come to the same conclusion.

His eyes went to the floor, and Morgan’s dropped revolver.





Chapter 122


JACK MORGAN HAD been ready to receive death. Now, seeing that Flex’s weapon had been rendered useless, relief flooded into him like sunlight. Still, he knew his reprieve would be short unless he could put Flex down, so he lunged toward the revolver that the girl—now a memory rushing away into the stairwell—had knocked flying from his hands.

At least, that’s what Morgan convinced Flex he was doing.

The big man took the bait, and went diving for the weapon like a linebacker onto a quarterback. Morgan had pulled himself up short and stayed on his feet, and now he delivered a crushing kick into the side of Flex’s thick skull.

Flex roared in agony, but still he reached for the pistol. Morgan stamped quickly on his fingers, feeling something crack and give way. He was about to deliver another kick when Flex forgot about the pistol, and instead rolled toward Morgan’s leg like a hungry gator, enough of his fingers unbroken to grab a boot in a vise-like grip, and his free hand moving to a knife on his belt.

Morgan threw himself forward. Flex lost his grip as Morgan bounced off his broad back, his hands going for the knife that was now free in Flex’s left hand. Like a drunken rodeo rider, Morgan hooked his legs around Flex’s own, attempting to keep the man’s bucking body pressed down to the floor as he wrestled the blade from Flex’s meaty hand.

“I’ll kill you!” Flex screamed. “I’ll kill you!”