The Assassin’s Heart

by Alexis Abbott

  “Oh my—oh my gosh,” I gasp, closing my eyes tightly and arching up to meet him as he shoves through that aching boundary, straight through to fill me up, stuffing me to the hilt. A burst of mind-numbing pain mingled with incredible pleasure overwhelms me and I cry out, whimpering and shaking as the head of his cock strikes against a deliciously pleasurable spot deep inside me. It’s almost too much to bear, and yet I don’t want him to stop.

  “More,” I choke out. “More.”

  Jake pulls back out, and I open my eyes, looking up at him in desperation and worry, but then he just pushes back inside of me, faster and harder this time. Again, he strikes against that special spot and I shudder. A ragged moan rolls out of my throat as he pulls back and pushes in again and again, building pressure and moving faster each time.

  He’s getting less cautious, treating me less like a fragile piece of china and more like, well, a woman. I roll my hips, clenching involuntarily as he fucks me harder and faster. He leans down to kiss me, swallowing down cry after cry from my lips. The rhythm is pounding now, his cock sliding in and out of me with effortless, natural ease. We fit together so well, his huge cock nearly fully sheathed inside my virginal pussy.

  “It feels so good,” I mumble, reaching up to dig my nails into his muscular back as he pumps into me hard. He’s starting to lose control now, with less regard for my pain. That’s exactly what I want. I need him to use my body, fill me up, pump me full of his cock until I can hardly breathe. Before long, I’m convulsing with one powerful climax after another, his shaft spearing into what my magazines call a g-spot, pummeling my insides until I’m an incoherent, gasping mess beneath him.

  “Fuck, you’re so tight. So perfect,” he snarls, his hips snapping back as he pistons in and out of my cunny. I arch my back and groan, wrapping my legs around his waist. He reaches down under me to hold me up as he fucks me harder and harder, gaining momentum. His rhythm is growing erratic as he starts to use my body for his own pleasure, beads of sweat appearing at his temples. His beautiful face is twisted in an expression of gorgeous ecstasy, his cock pounding my pussy with abandon.

  There’s not a force in the universe that could stop us now. We’re moving together as one moaning, writhing tangle of limbs, desire mounting us higher and higher, closer to the ultimate peak. Finally, with a few more rapid thrusts, Jake and I come at the same time, both of us going rigid and grasping at one another as we cry out each other’s names.

  We stay this way for a long few moments, just reveling in our shared bliss and clinging to each other for dear life. And then he cradles me back down and kisses me on the lips, my cheeks, my forehead, the tip of my nose, making me giggle. Still inside of me, Jake cups my face in his hands, peering into my eyes with wonder and fondness.

  It’s like the two of us are wrapped up in a big, warm, joyous cocoon, clutching each other, neither of us wanting to move and disturb the sense of peace and safety over us. But finally, he slides his cock out of me, and we sit up, our backs against the headboard. I lean my cheek on his shoulder and he kisses the top of my head. I look down to see my honey glistening along with his seed and a slight tinge of pinkish blood leaking out of my pussy. There is a throbbing undercurrent of pain, but it’s faint underneath the reverberating waves of warmth and pleasure I’m still reeling from.

  “Was it everything you wanted?” Jake whispers softly.

  I nod and smile, tears of happiness burning in my eyes. “It was everything. And more.”

  “Good,” he answers, kissing me on the top of my head and pulling me into a hug.

  “I can’t believe I waited this long to feel this way,” I murmur. “But I’m glad I did. I’m glad I waited for you to come along. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else.”

  “Come on. Let’s get cleaned up. There’s an en suite right there,” Jake says, smiling. He takes me by the hand and helps me gingerly slide off the bed. I wince a little, having to take a rather wide stance as I walk at first. The pain is definitely there, but it doesn’t bother me somehow. It feels like a small price to pay for the pleasure and joy I received in exchange.

  The two of us step into the tiny stall shower, rinsing off our bodies even though we don’t take the time to wash our hair. Jake lathers up my body, lovingly cleansing every inch of me, kissing me throughout the whole process. I have never felt so adored, so taken care of. When we’re done, he gives me a towel from under the sink. We dry off and I yawn as we pad back over to the bed. I’m so exhausted and overwhelmed with the events of the past few days. All I want is to crawl under the sheets and snuggle up to Jake and fall asleep for as long as fate will let me.

  But just as Jake and I are putting on some of his old t-shirts and boxers to sleep in, there’s a blood-curdling scream from upstairs. We both freeze up, looking at each other wide-eyed for a moment. Then Jake bolts for the stairs, and I follow after him, my heart racing. He bounds upstairs and throws the door open, racing into the living room with me two steps behind. I nearly slam right into Jake as he comes to an abrupt stop, raising his arms up. I peer around him and gasp, clapping a hand over my mouth at the horrific sight before us.

  There’s a man holding Maude with an arm around her chest and the other arm grasping a large knife, the sharp point of which is aimed straight at her throat. It doesn’t take long for my instincts to determine who the man is.

  I don’t know how I know, but I know. It’s the man from the hotel room. The one who hired Jake to carry out the executions. And he looks maniacally angry.

  Jake

  There are certain things that set people off in ways they can barely control, ways that tap into very basic fears and trigger equally base responses. I’ve never been able to stomach threats against my mom. That reaction was beaten into me as a kid by my stepfather, and I’ve never lived it down. It’s the whole reason I’m in the situation I’m in now.

  And just like those dark days when I was too young and too small to defend either myself or her, I find myself unarmed but burning with fury.

  Anger burns white-hot in my blood as I look at the sight of Gabe holding my mother at knifepoint. It feels like the whole world is falling apart around me, and I feel a deep, cutting coldness in my heart. This is my worst nightmare. This is the one thing that I feared most when I first fled my home at sixteen and turned to crime—that it would come back to bite the one person I had left to care about. Now, I have two that I care for, and they’re both in danger because of my actions.

  I can’t live with that.

  But since I’m unarmed and he has a knife on her, he has taken away the one means I have of fighting back against that.

  “Gabe,” I growl in a deep tone, slowly holding up a hand and glaring at him with a deadly serious gaze. “You are making a very big mistake. Let her go and set the knife down. That’s your one warning.”

  “Are you fucking serious?” he laughs, a cruel grin on his face and an unstable spark in his wild eyes. “After everything you put me through, you think you can give me orders when all the cards are in my hand? I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gabe,” I said in slow, careful words, not making any sudden movements. One of my arms has gone up to half-wrap around Charity protectively. “The job is done. You know that. We had a deal.”

  He scoffs, shaking his head. “You have no idea what you’re up against, do you?” he muses. “Of course you don’t.”

  “Then help me understand,” I urge him, desperately wishing he would lower the knife just long enough for me to lunge at him and snap his feeble neck in my bare hands.

  “Here’s something you can understand,” he says. “You’re going to meet me at the bridge east of town at dawn. Call the cops, and not only will she die, but I’ll take you down with me for the deal we had together. If I get so much as a fucking shadow of an idea that you’re following me, she’ll be dead before you even get close enough to see my face. I lowjacked your bike, and if you take it off, it’ll deactivate. If
I see your signal so much as flicker, you won’t even see her body. Do I make myself perfectly fucking clear, Jacob?”

  I want to tear this man’s head off. He’s thorough, I’ll give him that, but every fucking thing about him fills me with fury that I have to keep bridled just a little while longer.

  “I said, ‘do I make myself clear?’” he bellows again, and my mother winces, clenching her eyes shut as she tries to fight back the stream of tears trailing down her face. There are no words for the pain the sight gives me. I heard those same words from my stepfather too many times to behave like a rational person around a man like Gabe.

  He doesn’t deserve that dignity any more than my mother deserves this kind of treatment.

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding slowly. It takes every ounce of strength I have to keep my cool. “I hear you, Gabe. You’re in control. I’ll comply.” I have to talk to him like a child throwing a tantrum, because that’s all he is. There’s no room for bravado here, not until he gets that knife away from my mother.

  “That’s right,” he snaps in a lower tone, and he turns his face to my mother. “Alright, bitch, we’re going for a ride. Walk with me slowly, backward.” While I hug Charity tighter to me, we both watch in painful anticipation as Gabe slowly backs out to the front door with my mother in his arms, ordering her to open the door and let them out. “You two don’t move until you can’t see my headlights anymore,” he snarls.

  And just like that, he’s gone.

  Every nerve in my body wants to race after him, to pull him out of that car and beat him to a bloody pulp...but I can’t risk my mother’s life. That would be more than a risk. It would be a death sentence. As soon as the car engine starts up, I watch the lights start to move outside, and Gabe’s car pulls away, rumbling down the road.

  “Jake…” Charity’s voice says softly, but I’ve already let go of her. I put a hand on the wall and lean against it, my head down and my body nearly shaking. I clench a fist so tight that my fingernails cut into my palm. I want to throw my fist into the wall, but I won’t do that. I did that enough when I was younger to learn what an unhealthy and damaging habit that is.

  Besides, I’ve got to save that rage for Gabe.

  Charity sets a small hand on my shoulder, and I feel a bit of the tension in my back relax at her touch. I never thought she could have a calming effect on me in the middle of a situation like this, but she does, and I’m grateful for it. So grateful that I open my palm and lay my hand over hers, squeezing her gently. When I turn to face her, my eyes are rimmed with red on my stony, rugged face, and I can see her heart breaking as she looks up at me.

  “She’s going to be okay, Jake,” she assures me, trying her best to be comforting and soothing. “We’re going to get her back.”

  “Charity...this is even worse than it looks,” I say in a low, raspy tone. Once the headlights are out of sight, I stride toward the window and peer out it, staring with a hollow gaze. “That man, Gabe. He’s the one who hired me to handle this contract. He was the man in the room with me when I first found you. You probably guessed that already.”

  She nods softly.

  “I’ve walked into a trap,” I say. “She’s in danger because of me.”

  “You can’t think of things that way,” she insists, stepping forward and hugging me from behind. I lay a hand over hers on my stomach, and I close my eyes.

  “I must. I won’t shy away from my mistakes.”

  “He sounded like you two have bad blood,” she says.

  “That was as much of a surprise to me as to you,” I say. “I wouldn’t knowingly take work from a rival. If I’ve wronged him in the past, I didn’t know it. I should have seen it coming. I’ve made enemies. Of course I would have pissed someone off along the way who noticed. I started so young that I wasn’t as careful as I am now.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for this, Jake, you know that. You can’t hold yourself accountable for every single mistake.”

  Oh, but I can.

  “Charity,” I say, turning to face her, looking at those gleaming eyes, “there’s more to it than that. The way I started this life is so closely tied to this house that I can’t escape it.”

  “What do you mean?” she asks. I take a deep breath.

  “I...did not start this life of killing when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. It started well before then. I’ve told you about how life was for me in the early years, growing up with my stepfather. He got physical with both me and her. Often.”

  Charity’s eyes are wide and shimmering, and her mouth falls open as she realizes where this is going. I don’t draw it out.

  “One afternoon, it got out of hand. Far worse than it should have. My mother dared talk back to him for hitting me when I forgot some groceries on the way home from school. He was already drunk.” I’ve never told this story before, and as I relive it, I feel old feelings creeping through my nerves like poisoned thorns digging into me. I have to stay strong.

  “He laid into her, hard. He wouldn’t stop. I wake up sometimes with the sounds in my ears, ringing. We were in the garage. He was waiting for me when I rode in on my old bicycle. At the time, he...he had been building something in there. I barely remember what it was. A shelf, maybe. There was a long cast-iron rod leaning against the wall. I didn’t think. I just swung it.”

  Charity’s hands go to her mouth, but I’m staring out the window again.

  “It caught him in the side of the head, and he went down immediately. My mom was passed out, either from getting hit too hard by him or from the shock of what she saw. So, I put her on the couch with an ice pack and cleaned up, made it look like an accident. I’ve been on the run ever since. I knew I couldn’t stay home. I sent my mother letters, but it was never safe for me to come back until much later.”

  “Jake…” Charity pauses, and a long moment of silence passes between us. “I don’t blame you.”

  I chuckle. Maybe she really has come around to my way of thinking.

  “Thank you,” I say. “But it doesn’t matter now. Only one thing does right now,” I say, turning to look down at her with purpose. “Getting her back safely.”

  Four hours later, dawn is just starting to breach the darkness of night as my bike approaches the bridge. My headlight shines down its foggy length, and Charity’s grip around my waist tightens when it reveals the form of Gabe standing there, my mother in front of him, in his grasp.

  “No sudden movements,” I tell Charity in a low tone as I stop the bike, leaving the headlight on to light the way as I climb off the bike with her slowly. “We still don’t know what he wants. It’s probably me. That’s the best case scenario,” I add. “Follow my lead.”

  “I’m with you,” Charity whispers.

  I’m wearing my jacket again, and this time, I’m armed. Gabe surely knows that. The element of surprise is completely absent. He has me at a disadvantage in every way, down to the fact that he knows how I usually operate. Bastard played me like a fiddle, and I don’t even know why.

  “Nice ride?” Gabe calls across the bridge as I start to make my way toward him slowly. “Hey hey hey, hands where I can see them.”

  I hold my hands palms-up at my sides as I approach, slowing down.

  “What is all this for, Gabe?” I call. “Why all this trouble? Why hire me? Why not settle things back at the house?”

  “Because I wanted to give you a show,” he growls. I’m close enough now that we can talk in even tones. Barely ten feet separates us, but as I start to step closer, he presses the knife to my mother’s throat.

  Mom’s eyes are looking at me in terror, and I can see the silent plea in them. She hasn’t spoken yet, but I can tell she’s trying as hard as I am to keep calm. To say this is a delicate situation is an understatement.

  “Level with me, Gabe,” I say, my anger barely contained. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me why you’re doing this.”

  “Help me?” he spits with a cruel laugh. “You could have helped m
e by dropping dead eleven years ago before you ruined my life!”

  Eleven years?

  “I…” I start. “There was no way I could have known you back then, Gabe.”

  “No, you didn’t,” he says. “But we had another link. I had a family, Jake. It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine. I had a loving mom and dad just like you. Dad wasn’t around that much, but that didn’t matter. It worked. We made it work. We adapted. We survived.”

  There’s a crazed edge to his voice, and in the headlight filtering past me, I can see the madness and obsession in his eyes as he goes on.

  “But one day, Dad didn’t come home. Just vanished. Mom was heartbroken. I didn’t know what to do. I had to come back from school to take care of her. But I wasn’t about to just let that sleeping dog lie. No. I did some digging and found out what happened to him.”

  My mind is already racing, and I realize that eleven years ago, I was just sixteen.

  The year of my first kill.

  My eyes go wide.

  “Turns out, Dad had a whole ‘nother family,” he growls, and I can hear the pain in his voice. “A wife and a kid. He told Mother and I that he went on long business trips. I suspected Mother was naive, and that he was having an affair, but it went deeper than that. He was married. He even used a different name. You have no idea how hard it was to track him down. You can’t imagine how it felt when I learned that he wasn’t even alive.”

  Charity gasps as it clicks for her, too, and my jaw sets. Gabe glares at me with raw hatred, hands almost shaking.

  “He died under suspicious circumstances with his fake family. Blow to the head. The police couldn’t even get enough evidence to pin it on this bitch,” he adds, jerking my mother and holding the knife closer to her throat. “I cased her house, you know. Watched her. I could tell it wasn’t her. But her son was missing. Police suspected him, but couldn’t find him. That’s how I found you,” he says with a murderous edge to his voice. “When I finally tracked you down and contacted you, I know exactly who the fuck you were. Step-sibling,” he chuckles darkly.