“You… you burned the entire estate.”
“I told you twenty minutes ago,” I said, stepping closer until our breath mingled in the cold, dry air.“I’m a gardener.
When a bed has root rot, you don’t prune the leaves.
You pull the plant up by the roots, dig out the poisoned soil, and set the whole damn plot on fire.”
Julian lunged.
His right hand whipped out of his overcoat, bringing a compact, titanium-framed .380 automatic up toward my sternum.
He was fast for sixty.But old-money men who practice on private pistol ranges in Virginia don’t understand that violence is not an action; it is a space between two heartbeats.
Before the barrel cleared the lapel of his suit, my left hand closed over the slide, driving it backward out of battery, jamming the firing pin.My right forearm struck his clavicle like a dropped railroad tie.
