The chaos outside was deafening — gunfire cracking through the air like lightning, men shouting over each other, glass shattering somewhere deeper in the building.
Neil stayed calm through it all.
He dragged Mary to her feet, slicing the ropes loose with a flick of his knife. Her legs were still shaky, wrists raw, but he didn’t care. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pressed the cold muzzle of his gun to her temple.
"Time to take center stage," he murmured.
Ben lunged. “Leave her—!”
Neil didn’t hesitate.
He turned and shoved Ben to the ground with a brutal kick to the ribs. Mary saw her father fall — hard, wind knocked from his lungs — and stay down, coughing, too weak to do anything but watch.
Neil kicked open the side door, dragging Mary out into the alley behind the Rattlesnake. Smoke still hung thick from a grenade someone had thrown moments ago, the echo of bullets bouncing off stone. Dead men lay scattered like broken dolls.
Then the smoke parted.
And Will stepped out.
His coat flared open in the wind, blood on his shirt from a fresh cut along his arm. His eyes landed on Mary — wide, terrified, breath caught in her throat — then shifted to Neil.
“Let her go.”
Neil laughed. “No.”
He pressed the gun harder against Mary’s skull, his grip tightening around her.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Neil said. “You’re going to come forward, nice and slow, and if you even think about pulling a weapon—”
He looked down at Mary’s hand, grabbed it roughly, and wrenched it upward.
“—I’ll shoot her fingers off. One by one.”
“Don’t!” Mary cried, struggling, but Neil’s hold was iron.
“You think I’m bluffing?” he called out, finger twitching on the trigger. “Let’s start with the ring finger. Maybe that’ll jog your memory of what this all cost you.”
Will stepped forward, hands raised.
“No tricks,” Neil warned.
Will dropped the gun. It hit the pavement with a dull clang.
Neil smiled.
Then, with no warning at all, he turned and fired — the bullet slamming straight into Will’s thigh.
Will cried out, collapsing to the ground in a spray of blood. Mary screamed.
“No!”
She reached for him, but Neil yanked her back, keeping her locked against his side like a prize.
Will lay in the dirt, face twisted in pain, one hand pressed to the bleeding wound. But his eyes — those burning, furious eyes — never left Neil’s face.
Mary sobbed. “Will, please—”
Neil crouched slightly, aiming the gun at Will’s head now.
“Goodbye, old friend,” he said.