Silent Echoes

by Aleisha Maree

  I couldn’t do that shit. I couldn’t kill her. She’s a woman, and a fucking sexy one at that, and he could be the reason she’s so sad.

  “I work for the Ragen Family.”

  “I don’t know what that is.” I frowned at her.

  “Are you serious?” She nods at me turning her eyes to look behind her at the back door to the house. “No-one is coming,” I say. “I can see right inside from here.” She nods her eyes turning back to mine.

  “I seriously don’t know who they are.”

  “We’re the ItalianIrish Mafia. We’re the biggest crime family in the city.” She looked away from me. My palm itched to pull her eyes back to mine.

  “I guess my Uncle pissed you guys off.” I laughed, shaking my head.

  That was a fucking understatement.

  “You’re Damon’s niece?” I asked.

  “Not by choice,” her tone was filled with hate. I could feel the pain roll from her as a tear washed down her cheek. “Kill me,” she said knocking me back with just her words. My eyes snapped to hers as she held my stare.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Kill me.” I shake my head at her.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” I said.

  “But I know who you are. I could go tell him.” Her voice shook this time; gone was her false bravado, in its place was fear.

  “No, you won’t.” Cupping her cheeks in my hands I moved up closer to her so my body was inches from her. Touching, but not touching. The heat rolled from me into her as I watch her shiver under the weight of my stare.

  “How do you know I won’t,” she whispers out, the warmth of her breath hitting my lips. Her breath smelt like caramel and cream.

  “I don’t,” I said back into her lips, closing my eyes for a split-second.

  “Save me then,” she mouthed just as my lips crashed into hers. I took her with all I had pushing promises, hopes and dreams all into this one kiss drowning us both. Evoking feelings and thoughts a man like me doesn’t possess. It was strange; I had never kissed anyone before. Ever. Not like this. Your Mom and Nana don’t count.

  Just then the door opens catching us both unaware. She freezes, biting down hard on my lips as I try to pull away to slink back down into the dark.

  “Layla-Layla-Layla,” Damon calls out. I know that voice, that sick twisted voice. It has my skin crawling and me wanting to shoot him from where I hide and steal her away from his twisted shit.

  “I know you’re still out here. Get the fuck in this house. Now!” he screams as my eyes meet hers. “I will save you. You’re going to be mine.” I kiss her fast before she can say anything. “Go inside, Layla. I will see you soon.” She just nods at me. Her eyes say all I need to know as she stands while I slink into the dark.

  “Coming, Uncle,” I hear her say, quivering with the fear I heard before.

  I need a new plan. Extract Layla and then choose a new time to kill Damon.

  Chapter Five

  Dreams are lies our mind tells us we need to feel. She was all but a dream.

  ~ Micha Ragen

  I turn to watch Layla through the coffee shop window while I slip out of my car, unseen.

  Strays of wildfire colored hair fall out of her braid around her face. She tucks the strands behind her delicate ears and continues through her orders smiling at customers and thanking them. Making idle chit-chat that sounds like choir music coming from her lips.

  I rest the back of my boot against the brick building behind me and settle into the dark shadows of the street, watching her.

  The urge to slip closer, touch her body again, taste her kiss, is all-consuming. I don’t know what the fuck possesses me to do it, but with my cigarette firmly pressed between my lips I cross the darkened street, lit by a few old streetlamps and trees wrapped in tiny, bright white light strands.

  Flicking my cig to the road in front of me and stubbing it out with my boot I shove my hands into my leather jacket pockets and step inside the coffee shop. The smell of coffee and sweet treats has my guts grumbling and my mouth watering. I didn’t even realize that I was hungry.

  Her gaze collides with mine as I pull out a seat. Nodding at her I pick up the small card that lists what this unique place has on offer. I feel her eyes on me as she finishes with the customers paying for their takeaway coffee. My eyes roll up her body until they land on her rosy, plump lips that drop open in an enticing little O that makes my cock stir to life.

  Heat rises to the apples of her cheeks, coating her face and neck in a wash of bright red when she sees that I am staring at her.

  I cock my head to the side, assessing her. She’s different. I can tell just by staring at her. Just by watching her fidget uncomfortably under the weight of my gaze. Her fingers curl over the note pad as she steps from behind the counter toward me. I feel what used to be the place where my heart was beating fast and it scared me because I have no such thing. I know no such feelings. I have trained my body to not react, to not feel. She though, she is unarming.

  She nervously tucks those invisible stray hairs behind her ears as she reaches my table. I lean back slightly in the chair, my cock hardening under the weight of my jeans while I smile up at her.

  “C-can I get you s-something?” Her stutter is quiet but loud. Her cheeks change to a deeper shade of red as her nervousness bleeds through her voice.

  “Just a latte, doll. Caramel, thanks. On ice.” I watch her register what I ordered as she thinks over what I said. Yes, darling. It’s your favorite. I know this because I stalk your fine ass. She also knows that I stalk her.

  “Oh, and a croissant with the end dipped in chocolate, thanks. Hold the cream.”

  Her hands shake as she writes it down on the pad in her hands. Her eyes flicker from mine back to the pad then out the window.

  “I-I’ll be right b-back.” Again, with the stutter. She didn’t stutter that night in the rain, so I wonder if it’s mine or their presence un-nerving her.

  I have to admit, the sound of her stutter and voice stirs my cock. Just like the way she looked at my lips as I spoke and the way she bit her bottom lip, watching me. She wouldn’t know how to hide her arousal even if someone coached her how to do it.

  I like that.

  A lot.

  I wonder if my moral contract has a clause in it about fucking the Mafia princess. Is she off-limits to my cock or can I indeed fuck the good out of her and replace it with the dark I see lurking in the depths of her blue eyes. She is Damon’s niece. Her father was his brother. Unsure where he is, what happened. There is only so much digging Jimmy could do before he stopped to hound me with questions. He told me under no circumstances was I to fuck her, kiss her, fall for her. It was a straightforward we kill them all and move onto the next hit. Little did he know I had already kissed her. My mind dreamt of fucking her even while I sat there awake in meetings. That’s all I thought about; we will kill them all, just not Layla.

  I rest my forearms against the table before she can walk away, her eyes on mine and mine on hers. I lean closer into her personal space looking up at her.

  “I-is there anything else you would l-like?”

  Again, that sexy as fuck stutter that has my cock in full jerk mode as she tries to speak each word.

  “No, doll face. That should be all, for now at least.” I wink at her as she steps back from me, before turning and heading to the glass display case. Taking out the croissant and placing it on a plate she then turns to the coffee machine. She begins to make my coffee as I roll a cigarette around in my fingers, tapping it on the table then rolling it around again. Repeating this over and over while my mind wanders to all the things my erect cock wants to do to her.

  For some reason as I watch her, my mind travels to the image of her tiny body fitting into my arms. She looks like she would be around 5 foot 8, the perfect height to have her thighs wrapped around my waist as I slide into her slick, warm pussy.

  It’d be so
easy to fuck her.

  To take her and ruin her sweet cunt with my thick cock.

  I bet she’d bend to my will perfectly.

  She has dark inside her. I see it and I want to be the one who pulls it out from depths within. To have her nails dig into the flesh of my back as I drive into her.

  Running my tongue over my lip, then placing the cig to my lips needing a smoke just because of the assault inside my mind alone, she walks over placing down my ordered items.

  “T-there i-is n-no s-s-smoking in h-here.” Fuck me, that stutter. I want it wrapped around my cock.

  Looking up at her as I take the smoke from my lips. “Wasn’t going to smoke it, babe. Just breathing the smell in is all.”

  My accent is sharper than I had intended it to be. I try hard to hide the Irish in me until I wipe out Damon. That is when it will be the uprising of the house of Walsh and the world will bow at my feet.

  “R-right. O-o-o-ok then,” she says, turning a whole new shade of red. Shit, she is hitting the 3rd shade of red tonight. Imagine what I could do given the chance. It’s surprising how much more you see in the light than what I had seen from her in the dark. And that night in the rain, she didn’t have the goon-squad breathing down her neck like she does here.

  “Y-you’re Irish?” she asks me.

  Nodding as I take a sip of my coffee, a groan leaves my body. It’s that fucking good. No wonder she likes it.

  I raise a single brow at her as I drink. Her arms cross over her chest pushing her ample breasts up. My eyes dart down to said chest, appraising the swell and curve of her tits. I can already picture what the little buds would look like. A soft rosy pink, just like the color that her cheeks are while fading from the deep red of before. She is settling into my presence and I like it.

  I dig a hundred-dollar bill out of my pocket sliding it across the table toward her.

  “Take your break with me?” I ask her and this time she raises her brow at me.

  “Because we are both Irish?” she asks me, picking up the bill, folding it in half and placing it inside her notebook.

  “No. Because I wanna spend time with you.”

  Her cheeks heat instantly and just like that there is the fourth shade of red for the evening. Her eyes fall to goon one as he leans closer off his stool about to step down and this way. I have felt his eyes on me the whole time.

  “Not tonight, Irish boy. Not tonight.” With that, she flicks her wild red braid over her shoulder and walks away from me out the back. I sit in silence as I finish my coffee and croissant, she doesn’t appear again, so I pick up my smoke lighting it inside the shop before walking out the door to my car hidden in the shadows.

  This job may just be the test to all of my skills, for my body feels crazy shit while she’s around. Jimmy’s right, I should just kill them all, but Layla, oh the beautiful Layla has gotten under my cemented skin causing my body to feel all kinds of random shit.

  Driving towards the Warehouse, I see him walking from church slowly when he stops to speak with the priest pulling him in with a handshake. He’s laughing like he’s a saint tainting the holy house of god.

  My knuckles roll over the steering wheel burning in pain as I grip it tight.

  Pulling back out onto the street I carry on with the job I have been set out to complete for a new contract the old boy secured from a new organization in the area. My name comes with power, my mind and body hold credentials my grandfather doesn’t mind exploiting much to my mother’s disgrace. I have a 0-79 body count. A 100% job success rate and I have made thousands fighting in the underground for the organization’s fight nights.

  ***

  I pull up inside an empty garage. Popping the trunk of the Camaro, I grab the black duffel and lift the board inside the trunk, revealing a secret compartment. I sift through the firearms, taking out the extended mags, a Glock, my silenced Ruger handgun and a sub-machinegun. With my weapons holstered, I slip out of the garage and stick to the shadows. Walking across the road I stay out of sight.

  On the outside, the building looks like an old school. Venice Beach Automotive Shop is just a dilapidated building. It’s an old school building like that doesn’t raise any questions or suspicions. But men like me, we know better. I know just what goes on inside its walls and just how sick and fucked the men are that run the trafficking ring. I turn the corner and sure enough there they are, crowded in front of the beat-up townhouse that sits next door. Men are playing dice on the road, with beer spilling from their cans as they laugh and joke around.

  Taking out my phone I snap a few pictures for Jimmy, sending them to his email. He’s with Lucas, the guy who ordered this hit. Family wanting to kill family I can sympathize with him on that; I want to run Ian from this world the dick bag that he is.

  Lowering myself to my haunches, I slip a cigarette into my mouth. Lighting the tip, I watch and smoke while awaiting confirmation.

  GO

  That’s all I was waiting for.

  Stubbing out my smoke I close in on them and the house. I pause when I see the young girl being passed around between the men. They’re drunk and probably high on everything this side of the border.

  Well, this fucks up my plans. Really fucks them up. Why did the muppets choose tonight to torment this young girl? The one night I’m there to make them bleed.

  Killing a woman doesn’t bother me in the slightest. It does, however, complicate things. Sure, I can do it. I don’t really have an issue. A kill is a kill and really when you look at it, and where she is, there is a high chance she wants to be dead. She’s young. Too fucking young and it’s obvious she doesn’t want to be there. Oh, fuck. I sigh and rake a hand through my hair, making the hood of my hoodie fall from my head. I’m just about to say to hell with it and leave when I hear gravel crunching behind me. My body stills as my pulse quickens holding my breath. I take one step forward like I am walking away, I pivot on the soles of my boots and strike out at whoever is behind me. They dodge the blow. I curse out and his fist comes fast toward my face. I duck and jab at him. Once, twice. He stumbles back and my third punch lands in a harsh, violent blow to his temple. He catches me with a hit to the eye as he falls forward. My fist is balled as I pull my knee up fast checking his chin on his way down. Before he can fall, I snake my arms around his neck falling back towards the gravel while wrapping my legs around his waist. Holding him in place, my arms lock around his head and neck and all my strength goes into squeezing until I hear the distinct pop of a gun. Letting go of him, his body is slack, so I roll it from mine. I stand and look toward the shop. I see that I have been discovered. Shots ring out toward me with men yelling. Fuck me. This isn’t how it was meant to go. It’s messy and loud. I rip my Ruger from my holster, firing off shots into the one advancing on me, hitting him in the shoulder then the head. The next person comes at me fast from the side of the building as I gain on them walking right into their line of fire.

  Show no fear.

  To fear you have to be alive.

  A hiss escapes my clenched mouth as a fucking bullet grazes my arm. Hot, burning pain searing through my flesh.

  Right, no plan. Salvage is happening here now. I spot the girl, forgotten, huddled against the wall of the house.

  Firing again I hit my target in between the eyes. The girl yelps as her hands fly up to cover her face as he falls in front of her.

  I scour the men left firing aimlessly at me. They aren’t the ones I need dead. When the last body hits the ground, I glance around the neighborhood before closing the distance between me and the girl. She’s younger-looking now that I am closer and really look at her. She’s scared, tears streaking her dirty cheeks.

  I help her to her feet.

  “You hurt?”

  She shakes her head. I need to get her out of here. I need to think of a brand-new plan after how epically this one went to shit. Fuck! “You have somewhere you can go?” I ask her as I lift her over the dead man at our feet,
kicking him as I step over the fucking piece of shit.

  Looking at her as I place her down, she nods at me.

  “Ok, sweet. Where?” I ask, taking her hand and dragging her off toward my car.

  Chapter Six

  Make it rain blood for your sins.

  ~ Micha Ragen

  Two days later, I’m parked in my usual spot watching the stunning Layla from the privacy of my car. It’s officially been two weeks since I was given her file. Two weeks since her father reached out for me to keep her safe. Two weeks of watching her. Two weeks of wanting her. I got here a little later than I usually do. I got held up on one of my kills and I had to check on the girl from the other night. She’s been haunting my mind. The place I dropped her wasn’t any better than the place I took her from.

  I would never admit this out loud, but I love the nights where I can hide in the dark and just watch her, the beautiful, intriguing woman that I piece together from afar. She’s quiet, stutters while at work, smiles shyly, and hides behind her hair. I clench my fists at the sight of her, at the image of how good my hands would look wrapped around the porcelain skin of her neck, slowly restricting her airway while I slammed my thick cock into her, hitting her conscience and pulling out to repeat all over again.

  I can’t help it. Fuck! I want to steal her and keep her safe from that sick cunt Damon and from the bad men of the big wide world. Well, what about me? I fall into that category.

  It’s nights like this that get me hard while watching her work, talk, smile through the glass of the coffee shop. I enjoy watching her routine, the little things she does. Like placing little Hershey Kisses on the side of the coffee saucers. The little mints she leaves them when they pay. The sweet purple flowers with a bright yellow center that she places on the side of the plates of sweet slices of cake she plates up. The way the light hits her hair setting the room on fire.

  She tosses her head back in the most enticing way when she laughs with her customers. When she’s concentrating on something, she nibbles on her bottom lip My phone buzzes in my pocket pulling my eyes away from the red-haired beauty.