Night rain washed over the dilapidated streets.
The black SUV plunged into an abandoned alley in the Bronx.
Mother's Milk yanked the handbrake. Frenchie kicked the door open, grabbed Hughie by the collar, and dragged him into the leaky, rundown apartment building.
Kimiko vaulted nimbly over the hood, warily scanning the surrounding high ground. After winding through several blocks to shake off the killer who might have been there, they finally returned to their original hideout the next day.
After they returned to the basement, no one spoke or discussed anything for a long time. What had happened that day had badly frightened them. That had been the deputy director of the CIA. If even someone like that could be assassinated, who would be next? A congressman? The mayor? Or the president?
Had Vought arranged it? Could we really still fight this behemoth?
Hughie huddled in a corner of the couch. He stared at the dried, dark-red clots of blood on his clothes. The image of Susan's head exploding replayed over and over in his mind.
Why hadn't that head-popping killer killed them too?
The killer had silenced the CIA's deputy director, yet spared a car full of witnesses. Hughie rubbed his numb cheeks. This was no act of mercy. This was a warning. Someone was watching them from the shadows, watching them flee like headless chickens.
If he hadn't agreed to join Butcher back then, he would still be selling appliances at that electronics store.
Robin's death would have faded with time, and he would have gone on being a cowardly ordinary man. But now he had had a senior CIA official's brains splattered across his face. There was no going back.
Frenchie stripped a Glock pistol into its components, then swiftly reassembled it.
The clicking of metal against