Read Gang of Lovers for Free Online

Lazar free and escaping to the far side of the planet with Sylvie.”
    â€œSouth America,” suggested Christine.
    â€œAustralia,” Luc proposed as an alternative.
    Max and I looked at each other, appalled, and immediately started racking our brains for an idea.
    Â 
    An execution in the middle of a large city like Lyon was a damned serious matter. The police exercised minute and extensive control over the city, and the all but certain firefight with the two Serbian women further complicated things. If we wanted to have a decent chance of coming out of this alive and free, we’d need the time to do thorough advance work. Instead, we’d only had one night to patch together a plan, a single violent blow based on the desperate awareness that Natalija was stronger than us and that we absolutely had to kill her that same day.
    After Luc, Christine, and Beniamino roared away aboard a pair of high-powered motorbikes that they’d stolen from the chop shop where they’d been stored until just moments before, I started running down the long list of unknowns that could undermine the outcome of the operation. Most of them seemed to have something to do with me.
    â€œYou drive,” I told Max, tossing him the car keys. “The way I feel right now, I might hit someone.”
    The fat man gave me a sour look.
    â€œDon’t worry, when the time comes I’ll be perfectly calm and everything will go off without a hitch,” I retorted irritably.
    When I reached my position, old Rossini was just entering the little garden. He was wearing a long raincoat over his motorcycle jacket and he’d perched a flat cap white as snow on his head. Details that any eyewitnesses would remember accurately, forgetting the other details that might actually have helped to identify him. Immediately afterward he vanished, tucked away into a providential recess in the apartment building’s façade. Another ten minutes and darkness would fall. Exactly when we expected our target to show up.
    In that kind of situation, time runs exasperatingly slow. I felt like I was about to lose my mind, and I couldn’t seem to sit still. Luc and Christine, on the other hand, were ostentatiously relaxed. No one would ever have guessed that they were both armed and ready to shoot at a moment’s notice.
    At last the car pulled up. Just as she had the day before, Bojana got out and opened the rear door. At that exact moment, I pulled out my cell phone and called her, praying that her phone would be on and that the gods of mobile telephony would look down kindly upon me.
    She answered on the second ring, just as she was helping Natalija out of the car. “A sniper has Ana in his sights,” I lied, hoping I sounded convincing. “She’s a dead woman if you try to screw us. It’s in your interest to get out of here fast.”
    The Serbian bodyguard snapped her phone shut. Her eyes scoured the street trying to spot me. I raised one hand to make it easier for her.
    Bojana walked her boss to the gate leading into the little garden and then went back to the car. A few seconds later, Ana started the engine back up and took off, tires screeching.
    Dini´c whipped around. She realized that she’d just been betrayed and accelerated her pace, hoping to find safety inside. But Rossini blocked her way, leveling a pistol fitted with a silencer straight at her chest.
    Natalija smiled and threw her arms wide. “My love,” she exclaimed and hugged him tight, whispering tender words. The same words that Sylvie would have used, a mixture of Arabic and French.
    The old bandit collapsed under the weight of the Serbian woman’s umpteenth brilliant ploy. Not only was she identical to his wife, but she knew all the secrets of their relationship. He couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. He couldn’t even break free of that embrace.
    It was Christine who finally put an end to the impasse. She raced