It slides up.
Over the years, I’ve found “house call” jobs relatively easy. I’m amazed by how often people leave windows unlocked, forget to set alarms, or even forget to lock the front door at night. I’m surprised that this particular man has slipped up like that, but out here in the middle of nowhere, I can see how it’s easy to let your guard down.
My toned arms push me up through the window with ease, and I enter the room without a sound.
I look around and see a simple room with little decor. There is trash on the dresser, and I frown in disgust at the wads of tissue littering the floor. Apparently, this man has been living alone so long he doesn’t care to even clean up after jerking off. My brow knits in anger as I see pictures on the bed of girls far too young.
The sound of bubbling water down the hall gets my attention, and I hear the sound of someone moving in the kitchen.
I take out my gun.
Every step I take down the hall is silent, despite the old wooden floors. I stick close to the wall, where I’m less likely to make noise, and I know how to watch floorboards for signs that they might creak. Every step is measured, every move of my muscles is perfectly honed from years of experience.
I am a contract killer, a hunter of men, and I’m damn good at my job.
I take out a mirror from my pocket and use it to look around the corner into the kitchen. I see an old man with shoulder-length white hair around a massive bald patch hunched over the stove. A kettle is steaming in front of him, and he picks it up to start carefully pouring the hot water into a mug.
He looks frail enough that I wonder if the sight of me will just give him a heart attack.
Two steps into the kitchen, and I’m standing behind him, my gun aimed at his head. I open my mouth to tell him calmly to turn around.
Before I can get the first word out, the hot kettle flashes toward me as he slings it over his head.
My reflexes kick in.
I dodge the hot metal, sliding to the right, but the old man grunts and tries again on the upswing. I dodge backward. His brow his knit, and his eyes are cold and unfeeling. He knew I was there.
“You fucked up big time, you cock-sucker,” he growls, and he seizes a knife from the counter to lunge at me.
My hand is faster.
I seize him by the wrist, and I squeeze it until I hear the snapping of bone. He gives a cry of pain, but he brings his other fist up and catches me across the face.
There’s a lot more muscle behind the swing than I’d expect from someone his age.
I twist his wrist and wrench it behind his back, tired of toying with him. I kick the back of his knee and force him down over the stove, and I smell searing flesh through his scream as I press his face into the hot stovetop.
I pull him up and push him against a wall, pinning him, gun to the back of his head.
“You’re no fucking fed,” he growls.
“No, Geoffrey Mink,” I say, my deep voice even as if my heart rate hasn’t even picked up. “I am not.”
“Fuck,” he grunts. “You’re with the mob, then? They finally come to tie off loose ends? I was like you, you know.” He squirms in my grip, but he isn’t going anywhere. “A hitman. One day, it’ll be your ass on the chopping block.”
“Strike two,” I say with a smug smile. “I handed in my resignation to the mafia about four hours ago with the blood of the underboss and his capos in his penthouse. I’ll admit, you put up a little more fight than them.”
“Jesus Christ,” he gasped. “I’m not a big fish, kid, I don’t know why you’re fucking with me. Bosses didn’t tell you I’m retired?”
“Semi-retired,” I corrected him, twisting his broken wrist and making him croak in pain. I feel no remorse for the monster in my grip. He was a hitman for years, but his record is blotched with innocent blood. Murdered prostitutes, sexual assault on young women who came looking for shelter, senseless violence... this man’s long life is a crime against nature. “It’s not you I’m interested in, Mink. It’s your house.”
“The fuck?”
“You’ve been slipping up on payments,” I say. “This farmhouse was in foreclosure until I bought it three days ago. You’re standing in my new safe house.”
“When they find you,” he says, managing a dark chuckle, “they’re gonna skin you alive and feed you your own dick, kid.”
I squeeze his wrist and haul him around, pushing him toward the front door. “Move. I don’t want blood on my new floors.”
I march him out into the cold night, out the front door and into the yard of half-frozen grass.
Snow has started to fall gently over the house. It’ll be coating the ground by morning.
I force Mink to his knees, and he puts his hands behind his head as he looks down. There’s a world of bitterness in this horrible old man, but even I can tell by the way his hands are shaking that he’s afraid to face death after all he’s done.
“How the fuck did you even find me?” he asks, his voice starting to shake.
“Did my homework,” I grunt. “One of the dead men in New York was one of your last contacts. He was thinking about offering you a loan to save this house and keep you out of the way, quietly.
He lets out a rueful laugh at that. “Too little, too late. Figures.” He pauses for a moment. “I think I’ve heard of you. Some young killer who’s been making waves, and you fit the bill.”
I don’t answer, just staring at the back of his head down the barrel of my pistol.
“You’re the one they call the Angel of Death, aren’t you?” he asks, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper. I can tell by the movement of his ears that he’s grinning. “I’ll tell the devil you’re not far behind me.”
“Not without a jaw to say it,” I say, and I fire the silenced shot into the back of his head, sending the bullet through the base of his skull and out his jaw. Bloody teeth hit the grass before his lifeless body follows.
The snow will have covered the blood by morning.
Slipping my gloves back on, I pick up the pieces and the corpse itself, and I start dragging it around back.
His flesh is too foul for any animals that might come sniffing at him.
I wrap him up in a tarp and find a freezer to store him in within the house for now.
My refuge.
My safe house.
I pull the car up to the place, and look it over again in a new light—not as a hunter, but as a refugee.
If I’m going to survive this winter, with the mob and cops after me, I’ve got a lot of work to do.
2
Eva
The alarm goes off at six in the morning. I sit up and stretch, then slither out of bed. The tile floor is freezing cold and I put on a pair of slippers before padding over to the kitchenette across the room. I sleepily turn on the coffee maker, rubbing my eyes.
I live in a tiny studio apartment, admittedly on the rougher side of town. It may not be much to look at, but it’s mine. It’s home. And I work really damn hard to maintain it.
Rent is expensive when you’re on your own, and I’ve been on my own for a long time. I’m determined not to have a roommate, since I love coming home to peace and quiet. It’s easier to focus on work when I don’t have a bunch of distractions. I don’t need someone around asking me questions and taking up my time. The only person who ever really looked out for me was my mother, and she’s long gone now.
While the coffee is percolating, I hop into the shower and take my time washing my hair under the hot water. My apartment building is run down, a leaning, gray remnant of the seventies. The plumbing is, well, a little unreliable. Halfway through rinsing the conditioner out of my hair, the water starts to turn cold. I rush to finish up and turn it off, wrapping myself in a threadbare towel.
It’s fine. I prefer them this way. I always feel like the fluffy towels don’t dry as well. I quickly blow dry my long, gently curling, dark-blonde hair. I sweep it back into a bouncy ponytail and put on a little cu
rsory makeup, just enough to make it look like I got more sleep last night than I truly did. I don’t need to look perfect. I work at a daycare during the week, and the kids I look after don’t care what I look like as long as I’ll read to them and give them snacks.
I put on a no-nonsense green sweater and jeans, paired with some comfy boots. It’s supposed to snow later today, so I throw on a thick jacket and a heavy brown scarf. Then I pour my coffee, black, into a thermos, grab my purse, and head out to catch the morning bus to work.
Today is a good day. I can tell, because on my bus ride, no weirdos sit next to me. No creepy guys leer at me and waggle their eyebrows suggestively. That’s a good sign.
By the time I walk into work, I have a smile on my face. And my smile gets wider when all my favorite little kids come running up to me as I walk through the door at work.
They don’t care that I live in a shitty studio in a bad neighborhood. They don’t care where I come from or what my life is like. They just accept me for who I am.
And here, among the kids, I’m pretty popular. They like my singing voice that I inherited from my mom. They like the dumb knock-knock jokes I tell. They think I’m cool. Sure, it might be a little pathetic for a 23-year-old to be this happy to be liked and accepted by a bunch of kids, but whatever. I like working here. My weekdays here are a lot more fun than my weekends working at the sports bar. And my night classes for nursing school. There’s a lot on my plate, but today, I feel pretty good.
I go through the whole day with a smile on my face, and when I get off work, I stop by my favorite Chinese takeout restaurant to grab some chicken lo mein for dinner. I take the bus home and to my amazement, despite the long ride and the snow, my food is still warm by the time I get to my apartment.
I settle in on the couch and watch TV while I eat. I clean up and get ready for bed. But when I walk into the curtained-off corner of the room where my bed is, suddenly it’s not there.
In fact, when I look around the place, it’s not my apartment anymore. My furniture is all gone. The room isn’t even the same color and shape. Now, I find myself in a dark, cold, musty room I don’t recognize.
Where the hell am I?
“Help!” I cry out, and wake up with a start.
It was all a dream.
A memory replaying in my desperate mind. Just my brain trying to distract me from the horror all around me. I blink, looking around the room.
I’m not at home in my tiny but cozy studio. I’m still in this dark, gray place. I don’t know where it is or how I got here. I’m in a bed, but it’s not my bed. It’s just the bed that exists in this room. The room I’ve been trapped in for what seems like days. Maybe even weeks.
My stomach churns and I rush towards the toilet, heaving over it. But there’s nothing left in me to give to the porcelain god. My stomach is as empty as my soul, and my body is wracked with dry sobs.
My body aches for freedom, and I’ve wasted so many tears already. I haven’t seen my captor since the night he first brought me down here. I’ve been left alone, my thoughts bleeding together, wondering how long it’ll take for something to happen.
That’s probably the scariest thing. That I want something to happen. The monotony, the fear, the sorrow, it all blends together with an aching loneliness and a pit in my heart. Every time I think I’ve cried my last tear and built up my resolve not to cry and scream into the nothingness anymore, I break down again.
Isn’t that what he wants? To break me down?
I don’t even know, because I feel broken enough already.
There are no clocks and no windows here, so I have no idea how much time has passed. I sleep almost all the time, exhausted from my tears and worries. My face feels permanently raw, my body dehydrated and losing weight, and every movement takes more energy than it ever did before. I shower to try to free myself of the grim that I feel on my skin all the time, trying to forget that I’m a captive at the whim of a mad man who I don’t know the intentions.
I might as well be underground, hidden from all the world. In fact, sometimes I think I might be.
I look at the door on the other side of the room and wince at the sight of dents and scratches on the heavy industrial material. Signs of past escape attempts, when my loneliness and stir-craziness led me to beat at the door, throw things, bang canned food and the metal chair against the door, hoping desperately it might work. But nothing works. That door is solid. I don’t know who built this place or who put me here, but they’re got me cornered.
And under surveillance.
It only took me a little while of being here to notice the cameras. There are probably eight cameras in this small area, catching me from every angle. There’s even a camera above the cracked, dusty bathroom mirror. There isn’t a curtain around the bathtub, so I know my captor is trying to watch me bathe in the nude.
But I have a system: I take the sheets from my bed and drape them up over the metal rods, hiding my body as best I can. I’m not going to let this fucking scumbag win. No matter how much I scream, how much I cry, it’s anger in my heart that keeps me pushing ahead. It’s rage that fuels my ability to get out of the bed in the morning and not give up.
The water here is always warm. In fact, the whole place is kept at a balmy heat. It’s a ploy to get me to wear less clothing, to strip down to my underwear, I just know it. But I would rather be sweaty and uncomfortable than willingly strip down and parade around half-naked for some gross pervert, wherever he is.
That’s exactly what he wants, and he may have taken everything else from me, but I still have my dignity. And I intend to cling to that as long as humanly possible.
Being alone with one’s thoughts is torture, especially for days or weeks on end. Especially with nothing to look forward to, no release day at the end of your stay. I can’t countdown the days to my freedom. The only thing I have to look forward to is a terrifying man who kidnapped me, finally enacting the worst tortures imaginable.
I try not to think about it, pushing the dark fear into the recesses of my mind.
But in its place, all I can think about is retracing my steps of that fateful last day of freedom...
It was a normal day. Hell, even a good day. I woke up Saturday morning feeling energized and motivated. I had chores to do. Dishes to wash, laundry to fold. I blazed through all that quickly. That night I was scheduled to work the 3 o’clock to midnight shift at the sports bar. No big deal. I didn’t exactly look forward to my weekend shifts there, but some nights I made pretty good money in tips. Especially if there was an important sports game happening. But I had all morning and early afternoon to myself. After I finished my chores, I decided that it was time to do something for myself. Something I had been putting off for months.
I was going to get myself a pet cat from the shelter.
Once the decision was made, I was on cloud nine. I went to the pet store and picked out all the supplies I needed. Litter box, kitty litter, cat food, scratching post, little cat toys. I was so excited.
Is that where he first saw me? I didn’t recognize him at all, but if he weren’t following me that night, I’d never have given him a second glance. He just seemed so ordinary, like he would blend into any crowd.
How long had he been watching me? Was it just an impulse? Did he see me walking down the street alone and figure he got lucky?
Something tells me he was not an impulsive man, though. This horrific setup was done long in advance, the pantry stocked, the cameras put in place, the bed sheets washed. He had been planning this for a very long time.
But was he always intending it for it to be me down here in his disgusting box? Tears threaten my eyes again and I angrily swipe them away. He was no one I knew. He wasn’t the parent of one of the children I look after, he wasn’t a regular at the restaurant.
There was no way for you to know, I try to reassure myself, but the words ring hollow in my ears. There must have been something I could have done to prevent this.
; I revisit my last day once more.
I took up so much time buying cat supplies I was almost late for work. I didn’t have a chance to grab my boots to change into afterward.
I promised myself that tomorrow—Sunday—I would go to the shelter and check it out.
I’d find a sweet little kitty, maybe one that seemed neglected and afraid, and I’d nurse it back to health. I’d pour my energy into making the furball purr and feel content and safe. I was so excited.
After my shift, I was stuck walking to the bus stop in the middle of the night in my stupid work heels.
And that’s when that awful man started chasing me.
He caught me.
He brought me here.
And the rest is misery.
I get up and walk around the room, wracking my brain for the thousandth time. Who could this guy be? I couldn’t think of anyone who would want to cause me such harm. I was always kind of a loner, keeping to myself. Did he know that? Did he watch me and realize there was no one close to me that I could turn to?
I grew up poor, watching my mother struggle to keep us afloat. So by the time I was on my own at eighteen, I had one hell of a work ethic. I was going to tunnel my way out of poverty and make a life for myself, even if I had to isolate myself from the rest of the world to do so.
I also hated to frivolously spend money, so I always opted for public transit over taxis or ride shares. I hated working, and then spending my pay on getting to and from the restaurant. Is that why he targeted me? Did he see me on the bus one day?
I pour over my memories again, trying to piece together his wicked grin, his hunched posture, his bulky frame.
But I’d never seen him before. Whether I saw him a hundred times in passing, or never at all, the outcome would be the same. I had no clues to go off of who this guy was.
Except for one.
He was quiet the entire time, and I was blacked out for most of it, but just before the door closed, he spoke.
“I’ll be back for you when you’re... ready for me,” he had said before shutting and locking the bunker door, leaving my head spinning and my stomach reeling.
Abducted: A Mafia Hitman Romance Page 2