Randall and Arilio caught sight of Nick beating on Dance, but they were too late.

Shannon sprang to his feet, and his fist caught Randall square on the nose, exploding it in a crimson mess as he stumbled back against his car, dazed and confused. But Shannon continued moving toward him, unleashing two massive body blows into Randall’s soft belly, sending the middle-aged cop to the ground barely conscious and in agony.

As he turned, he knew Arilio would be a far different opponent, younger, faster, angrier, and still holding on to his gun, which was now aimed at Shannon ’s head.

“ Shannon, back off or I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Shannon didn’t answer. He had never understood why people in fights, in life-and-death situations, felt compelled to talk.

With a sweep of his rising left arm, Shannon deflected the gun up and away from his body as he wrapped his hands about Arilio’s wrist, twisting the police-issue Glock and compromising the cop’s ability to effectively use it.

Arilio’s instinctive reaction was to battle for control of his gun, which was exactly what Shannon was counting on. Arilio twisted his wrist while grabbing at Shannon ’s arm, trying to free his weapon. Shannon ’s right fist cocked back and unleashed his fury into Arilio’s throat, stunning him, sending his hands to his damaged esophagus. Shannon tore the pistol from the cop’s hand, all the while continuing a massive succession of blows to Arilio’s head and body. The cop had no chance, as his hands had instinctively wrapped his throat trying to catch his breath. And within ten seconds, he was disabled upon the ground.

DANCE WAS STILL alive. The gun’s hammer had fired against an empty cylinder.

“You can’t kill me, can you?” Dance said, taunting Nick, who stood above him holding the Colt Peacemaker.

“It was never my intention,” Nick said as he looked down the drive at the approaching car.

The black Mercedes limo drove up the drive behind Dance, pulling to within a few feet of where he lay.

“There are some people who are better equipped for that sort of thing.” Nick looked up as the rear door of the black car opened.

Dance turned his head and saw the two large men emerge from the driver and passenger doors of the black stretch Mercedes. Their shoulders were wide, each wore a short-sleeve button-down shirt. Imposing pistols rested in shoulder holsters on the left side of their bodies.

Without a word they walked past Nick, reached over, and effortlessly hoisted Dance to his feet.

Dance’s face went white with fear.

“No way,” he screamed. “I said I’d pay you tonight.”

A short man emerged from the rear of the vehicle, his good eye squinting in the bright sun while the milky one was wide open, oblivious to the glare.

Dance ripped his arms away from the two bodyguards, threw his shoulders back in defiance, and stared at Rukaj. “You said I had till midnight.”

“I got a call a little while ago.” Rukaj looked at Nick before casting his eyes back on the cop. “I was told you had no intention of paying me, that you were going to fly out of here this morning.”

Nick began taking small steps backward, moving away from the Albanian and his two-man wrecking crew. He had lifted Rukaj’s number from Dance’s phone near the end of the eleven o’clock hour, finding the cop’s cell on his dead body. Nick knew it was the last call Dance had received, and he had seen how terrified the caller had made him. He dialed Rukaj just after 10:00 A.M., knowing that the Albanian would pay a personal visit if he learned he was being lied to and betrayed.

Dance stood, flanked by the two hulking guards, and glared at Nick. “You son of a bitch. It was all bullshit: the watch, that box. It was all a trap, you bastard.”

And without warning, Dance spun about, ripping the pistol out of the driver’s holster, and in a fluid motion, he continued his momentum spinning toward Nick and firing a single shot.

The bullet hit Nick in his right side, the force of the nine-millimeter bullet knocking him off his feet.

The bodyguard grabbed Dance’s arm, twisting the gun from his grip, snapping his wrist in two with a loud crack. The two guards each took an arm, pulling them outward, sending Dance into agony.

Rukaj walked over and knelt over Nick. He laid his hand against the wound, seeing the blood bubbling through his shirt. He silently stared into Nick’s pain-filled eyes before exhaling and rising to his feet. He turned back and walked up into Dance’s face.

“I came here to scare you, Dance, not to kill you,” Rukaj said in his thick accent. “If you were going to run you had fourteen months to do it, you wouldn’t wait until the last minute. But now… You just shot a man, most likely killed him.” Rukaj stared back at Nick lying upon the tarmac, blood pouring from his side. He caught sight of the dead dog, lying in a pool of blood twenty feet away. “Did you kill the dog, too?”

Dance stood there like a rag doll, his arms being torn apart by the two bodyguards.

“Sometimes in life,” Rukaj said, “we don’t realize how one simple action, one single mistake will affect our future.”

Rukaj nodded to his bodyguards, who twisted Dance’s arm even harder, sending him into a crippling agony.

“You’re useless to me now,” Rukaj continued. “A cop committing murder doesn’t play well. They’ll hunt you, and I can’t afford you leading them to me.”

Rukaj pulled out his knife, its polished metal shimmering in the morning sun. “I don’t do many favors, and I certainly won’t get in the habit of it, but I believe your slow death will allow more than a few people to go on with their lives.”

Dance looked back and saw Shannon and Paul Dreyfus fifty yards away sprinting madly toward them.

Rukaj laid the blade under Dance’s eye, trailing it down his cheek. “Time to pay up.”

Dance’s eyes filled with terror as the bodyguards pushed him into the back of the Mercedes. Rukaj took one last look at Nick and, without a word, climbed in and shut the door.

And the limo pulled away, driving out of the parking lot, disappearing around the corner, leaving Nick to die.

JULIA RACED THROUGH the main entrance to Westchester Airport, her foot burying the accelerator of the Lexus. She looked at the clock: 10:58. She was determined to make it, she wasn’t about to let her plans for the evening, her plans for surprising Nick, disappear because she was late for a flight.

As she zipped past the private air terminal she couldn’t help wondering what the unmarked police cars with their flashing lights were doing.

And then up ahead, racing toward her, were two TSA cars, the lights upon their roofs spraying the air with their red, white, and blue strobes. An ambulance could be seen in the distance coming her way. She hoped whoever they were racing to was all right, that it wasn’t a matter of life and death.

But her curiosity quickly waned as she thought of Nick and the baby inside her. She couldn’t wait to surprise him tonight.

NICK LAY ON the ground, blood pouring out of his right side. Paul Dreyfus arrived and knelt, tearing off his own shirt, applying it to the large exit wound at Nick’s back, trying to stem the bleeding.

“Oh, man,” Dreyfus said, trying to make light of the severity of the situation. “How are you?”

“Ouch.” Nick tried for humor, but it slowly faded. He had no idea what the bullet had pierced but whoever said being shot didn’t hurt had never been shot. It felt as if he had been hit by a rocket, the tip of which had passed through his side.

The blood loss was enormous, pooling out beneath him on the black tarmac. His eyes began to drift as he grew ashen.

Suddenly, Nick’s body seized up, his limbs rigid, his jaw clenched. And then he fell limp.

“Shit, we’ve got cardiac arrest. The blood loss is too much,” Dreyfus yelled as he started CPR. “I really need a-”