Better Off Dead: (Victor the Assassin 4) by Tom Wood Read Free Book Online

men finding humour after a moment of unnecessary tension.
    He closed the distance to the two guards, still smiling, and held the coat out in both hands, elbows bent and near his waist, and gestured with it to the smaller of the two.
    ‘Hold this for me until I come back out.’
    He asked no question so there was no need for the man to decide on an answer. They were all smiling and relaxed now there was no threat. The man didn’t hesitate. He didn’t think to analyse the request. He took a step nearer and reached for Victor’s coat, bringing his hand out of the pocket so he could take it in both. His fingers gripped the coat.
    Victor released it, grabbed the guard’s wrists and yanked him closer.
    He stumbled, off balance, into the headbutt that Victor launched at his face.
    The strongest part of Victor’s body – the curve of the forehead – collided with the bridge of the man’s nose. Bone crunched. Cartilage flattened. Blood exploded from the nostrils in two downward jets and drenched the man’s shirt.
    Victor sidestepped away to let him stagger forward under his own momentum. That he didn’t go straight down was testament to the man’s toughness, but unconscious or not, he would be out of the fight for as long as Victor needed him to be.
    The larger man was quick to react but slow to move under the enormous weight of his unnatural musculature. He swung a well-executed punch that would break Victor’s jaw with a significant bone displacement should it connect, but it was too slow to have any chance of hitting its mark. Victor dodged it, struck the Russian in the sternum with his right fist, over the liver with his left, twisted around the man as he reeled from the blows and tried to grapple, and kicked him in the back of the knee as he turned, trying to follow Victor’s movements.
    He collapsed on to his knees, breathless and grimacing. Victor wrapped his right arm around the man’s neck, bracing with the left, and squeezed until he stopped fighting and fell face first into the snow.
    The other man had turned and was staggering Victor’s way, blood streaming over his mouth and raining from his chin. The Russian’s eyes were wide in an attempt to see through the haze of pain and tears. He threw a straight punch that Victor slipped, stepping inside the man’s reach and hitting him on the point of the chin with an open-palmed strike. His head snapped back and he dropped next to the other guard.
    He patted them down, finding phones and crushing them under his heel. Both were armed – Baikal handguns and telescopic coshes. Victor tossed the weapons down a nearby storm drain. The two guys would wake up within a few minutes or not at all. It made no difference to Victor. He hadn’t tried to kill them, but he hadn’t tried not to.
    He pulled open the bar’s back door and stepped inside.

NINE
    The air was hot and heavy and loud. There was no music playing, but the dense mass of people, discretion eroded by alcohol, all shouted to be heard over each other. It was warm, heating on full blast to fight off the winter outside, and several dozen people packed inside, drinking and eating bar food. Coat stands near the main entrance were overloaded. A barman mixed cocktails while flirting with a group of young women in heels that could easily kill if employed with a modicum of skill. He wore a bowtie. An ice sculpture of what Victor guessed used to be a naked woman slowly melted behind the bar. The patrons wore stylish clothes and business attire, now wrinkled and dishevelled after a few hours of post-work partying. Victor had never had a day job. He’d never worked nine-to-five. He knew he would go insane confined in an office all day. Assuming he wasn’t already insane.
    There were no unoccupied tables and only enough room at the bar itself for one elbow. That wasn’t an accident. The man he was here to meet could have selected any number of quieter locations. He wanted to be surrounded by people. This time it