by Elodie Colt
I watch a ball of crumpled newspaper rolling like a tumbleweed over the dirty concrete. Ella sacrificed everything to get her freedom, scrambled for a victory, but in the end, it was all in vain.
“She reported multiple stalking offenses against Luka Sokolov back in Russia,” James goes on. “Gathered pictures and videos as evidence, but he turned the tables and complained that she was harassing him. They dropped the charges.”
Jesus Christ, our legal system is a joke. My next investment will go into bribing some hot shots to remodel our jurisdiction.
“Did you see him?” I ask through clenched teeth.
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, scuffing his shoe on the ground. “I did.”
“Did he do anything to her? Did he—”
“He kept his distance,” he interrupts me in a clipped tone. “And before you ask, the answer is no, Crawford.”
I curse under my breath, raking a hand through my wet hair. “Money isn’t an issue.”
“But the Russian government is,” he hisses. “No hitman jobs for civilians, remember? The deal was that one job and nothing more. You want this guy dead, you take him out yourself.”
He retrieves a piece of paper and slaps it into my palm.
“Zoya Benson’s address,” he says. “Good luck, Crawford.”
And with that, he turns tail and sneaks off, blending in with the skateboarders so fast, I lose track of him within seconds.
I glance down at the paper in my hands to memorize the address and make my way back to Crawford Crescent. I don’t want to show up at Ella’s doorstep in my business attire. Too impersonal.
‘You don’t even know her real name’, Luka had said.
Now I do, fucker.
Half an hour later, I’m on my way to Coney Island. While I steer my BMW through the afternoon traffic, I mentally go over everything James told me. Now, it makes sense why Ella wanted to protect her anonymity at all costs. Too bad I’d made it my mission to raze it to the ground.
After taking the turn to Surf Avenue, I slow down, my hands strangling the steering wheel the closer I get to my destination. Fixing my concentration on the house numbers, I let my car roll down the street until a small, white-painted house with cross cables comes into view.
I halt at the opposite side of the street from where I have a good vantage point, right next to a park, and kill the engine. A familiar blue Toyota parks in the driveway. I remember Ella disappearing in a car like this one when I ran after her that first time I recognized her. Craning my neck, I peek around the house to see if I can spot a black Honda Hornet, but there’s no bike in sight.
Rapping my fingers against the steering wheel, I munch on my lip. Maybe she’s not home, but it looks like her sister is. It wouldn’t hurt to have a chat with her first. I could use some backup, just in case Ella turns into full stubborn-mode again and refuses to hear me out.
“Showtime,” I mumble to myself and slide out to make my way up the driveway. When I arrive at the door, I take a moment to get my shit together.
You’ve sweated blood, bent over backward, and shelled out six grand to find this place. You better not fuck this up, Nathan.
Taking a deep breath, I ring the bell. My stomach somersaults when I pick up shuffling footsteps before someone answers the door. A small woman with short, black hair and tattoos crawling up her neck appears on the threshold.
She perches against the door frame, crossing her rocker-style boots at the ankles. Now that I’m face-to-face with her, I can see the similarities between her and Ella. Same lips, same skin tone, same symmetrical face.
“Yes?” she asks, her tone bored yet wary.
“Hello, uhm… Zoya Benson?”
She just narrows her eyes at me and pops her chewing gum when another female voice hollers from inside, “Who is it, honey?”
A second later, a cute girl with short-cropped, bleach-blonde hair skips down the staircase, her colorful skirt flaring around her legs, and snakes an arm around the other one’s hip.
The blonde’s eyes go wide. “Oh, you’re Nathan Crawford.”
I blink at her. People recognize me all the time, but now that I’m close to her, she seems strangely familiar. “Do I know you?”
She grins. “I’m Holly Benson. I was working at your gallery in Manhattan a few years ago.”
Now, that she’s saying it, it triggers a memory. “Oh, yeah, I remember.”
Zoya’s gaze flickers between the two of us before it settles on me. “Are you here to offer my sister another interpretation gig?”
I swallow, wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans. “I’m here to meet your sister, yes,” I say hesitantly, “but this has nothing to do with business. Is she here, by any chance?”
“No, she went to—” Holly starts, but Zoya puts a hand on her shoulder, pinning me with a wry look.
“Are you two dating, or what?”
She’s suspicious. Good.
“Something like that,” I mumble, sliding my hands into my pockets.
She scoffs. “Busted, buddy. Believe it or not, but I know for a fact that my sister isn’t dating anyone, let alone a Crawford.”
“She’s not dating a Crawford,” I argue, “but… she’s been dating Ross.”
As soon as the name leaves my lips, both give me a bugged-eyed look, their mouths popping open.
“You are Ross?” Zoya asks, stunned. “Ella’s Silent Sins match?”
I click my tongue. “Yep.”
The two shoot each other a pointed look but make no move to let me in.
“Listen, you have no idea what I went through to find her,” I explain. “I know she quit the program because of Luka Sokolov. I want to help her. I want to let her know that…” I meant it when I said I loved her. “Please, give me a few minutes, and I’ll explain everything.”
Zoya checks my face for a moment longer before she steps back to invite me in.
Inside Ella’s home…
Wherever you are, dragonfly girl, you will come back.
And when you do, I’ll be waiting for you.
10
Ella
Funny how the climate can change when you cross the border. When I set out this morning, it had been drizzling so heavily in New York, it felt like a one-hour drive through a giant sprinkler, but as soon as I passed the Delaware Water Gap, sun rays broke through the clouds to promise a beautiful, warm day.
I flash a glance into the side mirror as I angle my bike to the left, leaning into the curve. There’s no vehicle behind me, but Luka is sure to watch me from somewhere.
Officer Nancy Scott contacted me today to tell me that they hadn’t caught him yet. Said they had enough evidence to pinpoint my case to Luka Sokolov (finally, duh), but he seemed to have disappeared from the radar. I told her I’d spotted him lurking in the park opposite Zoya’s house. She promised me they’d patrol the streets, but I know they can’t outsmart him. Deep down, I’ve always known that this battle is mine, and mine alone. It’s like Harry Potter’s prophecy. He can’t live as long as Voldemort lives. In the end, one will have to kill the other, and as I’d rather not be on the receiving end here, I took Jack’s advice to heart to get a hang on my gun.
After cruising through the Pennsylvanian landscape for a few miles, a faded sign with ‘Jack’s shooting range’ comes into view, and I follow the arrow to the left. My back wheel throws up sand as I maneuver my bike over the bumpy pathway with nothing but high grass growing on either side. Soon, a modern ranch-style house that resembles a big barn made of dark-red wooden planks, and windows with white shutters materializes in the middle of a large, open field. I bring my bike to a stop in front of the low fence, kill the engine, and hop off.
“There’s my stranded girl,” comes a male voice from a few feet away, and I pull down my helmet to see Jack approaching me with a slow, easy swagger. He’s wearing his hat and cocky grin again, an unbuttoned, gray-checkered flannel shirt floating around his white wife-beater.
I rub a h
and through my wind-whipped hair as I move toward him, nodding to the ‘Jack’s shooting range’ sign installed on the fence. ‘Jack’ was never a fake name, then.
“I thought this place belonged to your Dad.”
He gives his hat a flick. “He’s a Jack, too, just like my granddad, and grand-granddad.”
“Inventive.”
My heart flutters inside my chest when he roams a hungry gaze down my leather-jacket-and-jeans attire, but I brush it off as simple excitement to demonstrate my non-existent shooting skills. His hand finds my hip, and he pulls me closer to put a lingering kiss onto my cheek, making sure to scrape his stubble over my skin for extra sensitivity.
He leads me into the backyard that’s basically a vast space of greenish-brown grass molding into rolling hills. Tin cans are piled on hay bales, and paper targets with bullseyes nailed to banged-up barrels are positioned at various distances. I follow Jack up the stairs to a wooden porch featuring rocking chairs and a cozy porch swing. He fetches two beers from a mini-fridge, pops them open with his lighter, and hands me one.
“Thanks.” I set down my bag, and we clink our bottles in a toast.
“Now, let me see that gun,” he says after taking a sip, making a gimme-motion with his fingers.
I pull my Glock from my waistband and place it into his hand. He sets his beer bottle down to examine the Glock, shooting me a glance from under his lashes.
“No serial number?”
I bite my lip, clueless as to what to say. He chuckles when he sees my pinched expression.
“Relax, honey. You don’t want to have a registered gun, anyway. Just make sure it never falls into the wrong hands.”
He racks the gun like a pro to check the magazine, swings it around his finger revolver-style, and hands it back to me. Then, he fishes out a key from his jeans pocket to shove it into the lock of a metal storage box in the corner. The inside is jam-packed with square packages of all colors and sizes. He pulls out two from the top labeled ‘9mm Luger.’
One of his lopsided grins lifts his lips. “Now, let’s see what you’ve got, Mary.”
I tag along as he heads for a make-shift wooden shade in the backyard where a table and a plastic seat are set up. Putting the ammunition onto the table, he nods to the closest target.
“That’s ten yards,” he says, pulling a wrinkled cigarette package from his shirt pocket along with a lighter. “Go for it.”
Brushing my hair behind my ear, I step up to the mark on the ground, unlock the safety, and plant my legs. I lift my weapon, adjust my fingers around the handle, and squeeze one eye shut before I pull the trigger. A sharp bang thunders over the space as the recoil snaps my wrist up an inch, and I squint, trying to see if I’ve hit anything. Nope, that one went flying up the hills.
I glance at Jack who lights up his cigarette, his expression neutral.
“Go on,” he says. “You’ve got six bullets in a magazine.”
So, I fire off the remaining five, inhaling the scent of lead and gunpowder. Each shot leaves my ears ringing, but from the looks of it, I still haven’t hit anything.
I glance at Jack who continues to enjoy his cigarette with his eyes on my target.
“For what it’s worth, I could position myself in front of that bullseye, and you wouldn’t even leave a graze.”
His mocking tone makes me send him a scowl. “Is that a dare?”
He winks at me before he drops his cigarette to the ground, stomps his boot on it, and saunters over to me with a box of ammunition in his hand.
“Let’s skip any follow-up shots for now.” He loads my gun and positions himself at my back. “They are not difficult to do with that gun but a little more challenging than with other Glocks. This one doesn’t have bad accuracy,”—he taps my gun from behind me—“but its lightweight construction makes it a little snappy.”
Wow, this guy knows his business.
I try not to dwell on the fact that his forefront is now flush with my back, his breath wafting over my neck, and the rim of his hat tickling my ear. One hand comes up from behind me to wrap around mine holding the gun.
“It does have an excellent trigger, though,” he goes on. “The break is very clean. You want to do that move smoothly. Don’t jerk it or tighten the grip, or you will shoot too low. And don’t droop your head.” He chugs my chin with a flick of his finger. “Keep it straight.”
I quickly elongate my neck.
“Your first shots were too high,” he explains, gripping my hands with both of his. “That’s natural because you’re afraid of the recoil. It snaps up your wrists and makes you shoot into the sky.”
He imitates the move to demonstrate what I did wrong.
“Now,” he croons into my ear, way lower than before and not without sending a massive shiver down my spine, “take a breath and shoot.”
I quickly replay his instructions in my head, expand my lungs with an inhale, and pull the trigger as gently as possible. His strong hands around mine absorb most of the recoil, but the bullet still misses the target.
“Don’t straighten your wrists,” he instructs.
I do as I’m told, and he nods, silently giving me the go to shoot again. This time, the bullet drills a hole into the outer corner, and bits of paper drift down. A grin builds on my lips, one that quickly wavers when his leg wriggles its way between mine.
“Bend your knees slightly and put your support foot to the front.”
I shove my left foot a few inches forward. Next, one of his hands moves down to the thin strip of naked skin on my hip.
“Bend your waist, too.” He gives said body part a light pull backward so my ass presses into his groin, the cool metal of his belt buckle scraping against the small of my back. “Yeah, just like that…”
We’re entering dangerous terrain, and I don’t mean the shooting range per se. His drawl gets lower with each instruction he fires off, the words purred in a tone that is nothing but suggestive and meant to hit one target only—me.
And hit it does, right at the center of my core where heat explodes on impact.
Focus, Ella. You’re supposed to be the shooter, not him.
I sense his lips stretching into a smug grin at my ear, but I try to channel my concentration on the gun in my hands—hands he’s now adjusting so both thumbs are pointing downrange.
“Breathe.”
His deep order sparks something inside me, an old memory of Ross that tugs at my heart, and I snap my lips together to keep it below the surface.
“Now, shoot.”
I pull the trigger. More snippets of paper fly through the air as the bullet hits a spot in the outer line of the largest black circle.
“One more time… Breathe…” I take a gulp of air and blow it out slowly, trying my damnedest not to think of my first Silent Sins date with Ross. “And shoot.”
The next bullet sails through the air, sinking in somewhere closer to the middle.
“You’re almost there…”
His lips are now brushing my neck, but I’m too absorbed in my task to finally hit the fucking bullseye that has transformed into Luka’s ugly face at some point. I aim at his head, right between his eyes, take a deep breath, and—bang!
The bullet hits dead center. Jack removes his hands, confident that I can handle it, and I pull the trigger one more time, sending the sixth projectile to impact right next to the fifth.
Chuckling, he detaches himself from me and claps his hands.
“Now, would you look at that,” he drones. “A dozen tries, and this girl can beat John Wick.”
I grin, lifting my gun and making a show of blowing the steam away from the nuzzle.
“You’ve got good core strength.” He nods to my stomach before he squeezes my biceps. “And some nice muscles here. Are you into sports?”
“Yoga,” I say with a smirk.
“Yoga?” He laughs. “Come on, you’re too kick-ass for that shit.”
“I am, right?” I tap a finger against my lips.
“Maybe I’m going to switch to shooting.”
“That’s more like it.” Winking, he tosses me another package of ammunition.
For the rest of the afternoon, I riddle fifty more Luka-faces with bullets. I even manage to hit five of the six tin cans stacked in a pyramid at fifteen yards. Jack amuses himself greatly watching me in action, cheering me on and giving the occasional, unhelpful comment like, ‘aw, that was close,’ or ‘oh, that one will hit someone in Pittsburgh,’ or ‘turn that way a little so I have a better view of your ass.’
“I think my arms are about to fall off,” I mutter after my last round, rolling my shoulders and giving my hands a shake.
He whistles. “Wait until tomorrow. You won’t be able to wipe your ass.”
I help him pack our stuff before we make our way back up to the porch. My beer from earlier is hotter than tea after boiling in the sun for the entire afternoon, so Jack offers me a new one straight from the freezer. We collapse into the porch swing, listening to the orchestra of crickets in the wilderness.
“Now, tell me, who was that guy?” Jack asks.
“What guy?”
“The one you pictured on your targets.”
I take a slow pull from my beer, keeping silent.
“Ex-lover?” he presses. “Abusive father? Asshole step-dad?”
God, I wish.
“Stalker.”
His eyes cut toward me, but I keep my gaze on the vast landscape. I can hear him working his jaw for a minute before his arm comes up to lower down on the backrest behind me.
“He ever touched you?” he asks in a placid, yet sinister tone.
“No, but he touched everything else in my life.”
He smacks his lips after taking another sip of his beer. “Well, a good thing you know how to blow his brains out now. Just make sure you’re close to him. Don’t shoot from a large distance with that Glock. Too risky.”
I snicker, shaking my head. “How come everyone encourages me to kill him?”
Tilting his head, he fixes a stare at me. “Maybe because everyone sees that he’s killing you.”