Killer

by Jessica Gadziala

  Oh, god. A thought I didn't want to think popped into my head.

  "See, Ben had a soft spot for you. He was the one who installed all those locks on your door, wasn't he?" he asked.

  There seemed to be no reason not to answer that. "Yes."

  "Of course. That was stupid of him, but certainly not the final straw."

  "Final straw?" I prodded.

  "Yes. I can take a lot of insolence from my men. They tend to have more brawn than brain which comes in handy, but makes them too stupid to realize who runs things."

  "How was Ben insolent?"

  "Imagine, after all I had done for him, to threaten me."

  "Ben couldn't have threatened a fly."

  "Ben threatened me with the promise of a visit from his son."

  "Johnnie?" I asked, too confused to care that prying was probably not the best bet. I should have been begging him to let me go or something, but, well, this was much more interesting.

  "As you know, I knew Shooter from a few years back. I didn't know who he was, of course, no one really does. But then there was Ben, claiming his son was the best sniper in the country and he could take me out."

  "Ben and Johnnie weren't even on speaking terms," I objected.

  "Johnnie may not have been interested in the whereabouts and well being of his father, but the same could not be said of Ben. He made trips up here, you know..."

  "To Jersey?" I asked, shaking my head, not quite believing it.

  "Indeed. As soon as he got clean. He traveled up here to check on his offspring. And I guess he got some ideas in his head that all could be forgiven between them, all the bad blood swallowed, that he could call in a favor and have me shot from a hundred yards out no matter my location. I couldn't exactly sit around and wonder if that threat was a viable one or not now could I?"

  My eyes closed and I sucked in a breath. "What did you do, Luis?"

  "What needed to be done. First, he hides my supply. It used to be behind your refrigerator, darling. Then when one of my men finally got through all those locks of yours, imagine my surprise when it was no longer there. And he wouldn't tell me where it was." That was why he noticed the scuffs on the floor. It never occurred to me that if he was the one putting the drugs in my apartment, why he would point those out to me. He was just figuring things out for himself. Ben had moved them.

  I felt tears tease at my eyes. "It wasn't a heart attack was it?"

  "Sure it was," he said, nodding. "A heart attack brought on by inhaling a lethal dose of heroin."

  "Ben. Didn't. Do. Heroin," I snapped.

  "No, darling, he didn't. That was why a brick of it needed to be shoved in his face, wasn't it? I could let him play his little hide and seek games with my product. I knew I would get it back eventually. But then to threaten my life... no, Amelia, no."

  Oh my god.

  No.

  Too much. It was all too much. I just... couldn't take any more.

  A pained animal sound ripped from my throat and Luis' face softened yet again. "I know this is all hard for you right now..."

  "You know nothing."

  "I know you think..."

  "That you're a drug dealer who killed the only person in the world who cared about me? Yeah, I do think that!"

  "Amelia, darling, he wasn't the only person who cared about you. I care about you."

  "Why? Because I looked like some drugged out girl you used to..."

  I didn't get the rest of my sentence out, mostly because Luis' control slipped and his arm flew out and backhanded me across the face.

  "Don't," he growled and, for the first time, I could see how ugly he was behind his handsome face. "Don't make me do that again, Amelia. I don't know what that man has done to you, but this behavior doesn't suit you."

  "You don't know the first thing about me, Luis."

  Luis sighed like I was exasperating him and shook his head. "Good thing we have nothing but time," he said, turning away from me. "I do hope you're not afraid of heights, darling."

  "Heights?" I asked, despite not wanting to engage him anymore.

  "Private plane in an hour. We need to get out of this god-forsaken place."

  No. Oh, god no.

  "I'm not going anywhere with you, you son of a..."

  I'd never seen someone move that fast before. One second, his back was to me and he was halfway across the room. The next, he was in front of me and his hand was spanning my neck and pressing in hard, sealing off my air supply. "You are going to learn to behave, darl..."

  The rest of his sentence got cut short.

  This was because suddenly the side of his head had exploded...

  Nineteen

  Shooter

  "Don't want to put my hands on you, sugar," I said, my teeth hurting I was clenching my jaw so tight. "So I need you to let me go, Lo."

  We were standing around the corner from the building where Luis and his men were holding Amelia. And every second that Lo was blocking me was another second that god-knew-what could be happening to her in there. I knew that sleazeball wanted her, as in wanted her, and I could never live with myself if she ended up being violated while we were standing around with our thumbs up our asses.

  "Shooter, you're too hot for this," she reasoned, shoving her hand into my chest when I tried to push past her. Lo had spent a lot of time training, getting herself into shape so she could go toe-to-toe with most men. When I said she shoved me, I meant back a foot. "I can't let you go in there."

  "All respect, honey, but I don't see how you can stop me."

  Nothing, literally nothing was keeping me from charging in there and getting her out.

  "Do you think we need a fucking bloodbath?" she asked, her fingers curling tighter around my bicep, hard enough for there to be bruises the next day. "We've stayed under the radar because we keep our wits about us."

  "So you kept your wits about you when charging into V's compound, guns blazing? And Janie had her wits about her when she blew the fuck out of Lex's place? And Cash had his wits about him when he blinded the fuck who put his hands on you?"

  Lo exhaled a breath, knowing I had a point. "Look, I get it, Shoot. But you're not going in there."

  "And, again, I don't see how you can stop..."

  Then I did see how she could stop me. Because her hand dropped from my arm and she waved it in a small circle and two sets of arms grabbed both of mine. Fucking Hailstorm.

  "Sorry, Shoot, but we need to do this smart. Me, Cash, Breaker, Wolf, and two of my guys will go in and get her out. I'll bring her right to you."

  With that, she did another hand wave and all the men just fell into step behind her. I watched them move around the corner and disappear, Breaker giving me a shrug before he was gone. I yanked at my arms uselessly. If there was one thing Lo and Hailstorm knew how to do, it was train and the men holding me were solid walls of muscle.

  There was a small, feminine sigh from my side and my head turned to see a slight, dark haired, blue-eyed, tatted girl in black jeans and a black tank walking up. Janie. She was Wolf's woman. She was also Lo's protege and the best tactical mind that Hailstorm had to offer. "Hey Shoot," she said, stopping in front of the guy on my left, her gaze toward the apartment building. "You know..." she said as if she was having a casual conversation, but I could tell from her pursed lips that she was trying to get a point across, "the top of that Chinese food place has a direct view into the fifth floor of that apartment building."

  "Fifth floor," I repeated, back straightening.

  "Can see right in through one of those broken windows. Know what else is interesting?"

  "No, kitten, what?" I asked, smile tugging at my lips.

  "Someone left some kind of abandoned sniper rifle up there. Careless, that. Don't you think?"

  The smile was no longer tugging, but full. "Yeah, careless. Who would do such a thing?

  "Who indeed?" she asked, turning to face the three of us.


  "Janie..." the guard on my left started, his voice a warning.

  "One two three," she counted way too fast for me to gauge her plan before the guy to my left was flying back a foot. I didn't stop to see what she was doing to him, just wrangled free of the other guard, slammed him backward and tore off down the street toward the Chinese restaurant in question, my heart seemingly wedged up into my throat and I realized that Lo was right; I was too hot to go in there. If I went in there, the cops would be finding entrails, blood spattered across the walls like a horror movie. But I was never too hot to handle a gun. In fact, as I jumped up and pulled down the ladder to the fire escape, I felt a strange calm sweeping over me.

  By the time I got on top of the building and found the gun nestled up against the edge of the wall, I knew that Lo and the rest were likely breaching the bottom floor, working on taking out the three guards Luis had with him. I lifted the gun, positioning against the wall and bending down to look through the scope. It took all of two seconds for my eyes to find Amelia. She was standing, arms bound around a brick support beam, the side of her face busted, drops of blood running down her arms from rubbing against the sharp bricks. Luis was halfway across the room, saying something to Amelia that made her straighten, her face twisting in horror as she muttered one word I couldn't make out. Luis responded, still on the move across the room.

  Then Amelia wasn't looking horrified, she was looking livid. And then whatever control she had on her temper snapped, her face twisting up as she started yelling something at Luis, something that had him moving like a whip, turning and flying across the room back at her. He was a blur before he stopped, his hand raised, curling around Amelia's throat. And I could tell by the way her body jolted and her mouth fell open that he wasn't doing it just to scare her, he was hurting her.

  My finger rose to the trigger as Luis started to say something. It took me a second to make sure the shot was right before I squeezed. Even from the distance, I could see the red explode, could see the horror overtake Amy's beautiful features as Luis' body wobbled then fell right at her feet. Her gaze flew toward the window, her eyes huge, her body starting to shake slightly from shock, or fear, or disgust, or all three. And though I knew she couldn't see me, she was looking right at me and she knew I was there.

  Two seconds later, the room exploded with Lo, Cash, Wolf, and Breaker. The Hailstorm guys were missing. Lo went right to Amelia, slicing through the ropes at her arms and Amelia collapsed against her. Even from a distance, I could see her body start jolting with sobs. Lo looked over at Wolf who walked over, peeling Amelia out of Lo's arms and picking her up like she weighed nothing more than a down pillow, cradling her to his chest and moving out of the building.

  I grabbed the shell, threw the strap of the gun around my back, and flew back down the fire escape, my heart slamming in my chest as I tore down the streets, oblivious to whether or not I was seen, and not fucking caring if I was.

  I had just rounded the building when a hand slammed into the center of my chest, knocking out my air and stopping me mid-stride. "Gun and shell," Janie's no-nonsense voice demanded and, seeing as I owed her for the opportunity to take out the bastard who put his hands on what was mine, I dropped the shell into her hand and ripped the gun off my back, before running away from her toward the building where Wolf was walking out with Amelia in his arms, her arms around him, her face buried in his neck.

  "Angel," I heard myself say and Amelia jolted, her head lifting and looking for me. Then she was squirming, wiggling in Wolf's arms until he walked up to me and deposited her in my arms.

  "Woman," he said, nodding at her, then moving back over toward Lo.

  "Get her in the car," Breaker said at my side. "She needs to go to the hospital," he said when I didn't respond. "Look at her head," he pressed. "She needs to get checked out."

  "I have a headache," she grumbled up at me, making my heart seize in my chest.

  How the fuck was I supposed to let her go?

  I leaned down and kissed her between her brows, making the lines there settle and disappear.

  I didn't know how.

  But I knew I had to.

  "Let's go get you some feel-good medicine then," I said, carrying her toward my car and settling her into the passenger side. She was silent when I belted her, her hand covering her eyes, trying to simultaneously block out the sun and ease the pounding there. "Coupla minutes, angelface," I promised her as I got behind the wheel and turned in the direction of the hospital.

  I had just parked when her voice filled the car. "You killed him," she said. It wasn't an accusation. It wasn't anything but a recollection of events. There was an unusual emptiness in her tone that I didn't like, a emptiness I knew I put there. Because she knew that part of me existed, but she never got to see it. All she saw was the light, the fun and teasing, the good, the pretty. I had exposed her to my ugly and there was no going back.

  "Yeah, baby," I agreed, turning to look at her, waiting for what I knew as coming next.

  But she didn't say anything. She nodded tightly, unbuckled, then opened her door. I ran around the car, putting an arm around her, and leading her inside. We were admitted and stashed into a little room off of the emergency room and left there to wait for the doctor. I stood beside the bed that she sat off the side of, her head ducked, her shoulders up by her ears, flinching at any noise around us.

  Finally, not able to take the silence anymore, I started, "Amelia..."

  But the door opened and the doctor walked in, middle aged and portly, his glasses low on his nose. "Miss. Alvarado," he said, looking up at her. "How'd you get that nasty cut?" he asked, trying to sound casual but I could feel his eyes searching me, trying to determine if I was the girlfriend-abusing type, as if there was a type.

  I opened my mouth to answer, skirting the actual facts, but keeping it as honest as possible when Amy's head popped up, she looked the doctor dead in the eye, then lied better than most criminals I knew. "I was mugged."

  The doctor's head jerked. "In broad daylight?"

  "I'm not from around here," she said, letting a little more Southern twang slip into her words and one look at the doc, I could see the sweetness of it was melting him. "I didn't know it was a bad area and I was walking down the street and I heard someone behind me and I freaked and went down the next side street, but it wasn't a side street, it was an alley and they..."

  The doctor's eyes slid to me, "Can we have a minute?"

  "No."

  "It's okay," Amelia said, shaking her head. "He can stay. They didn't..." she swallowed hard and it looked like it hurt, the bruises starting to darken around her throat, "rape me. They just grabbed my neck then stole my purse and, um, slammed me against the wall."

  The doctor exhaled a breath, his body visibly slackening. "Okay," he said, grabbing a rolling stool and moving toward Amy. He grabbed gloves and sat down, reaching out toward her face. "Let's just take a look at this, shall we?" he asked, pressing around the gashes. "This could use a couple stitches, but you shouldn't have much of a scar. We're going to want to do a CAT scan to see if you have a concussion and we'll get your arms wrapped up." He scooted back on his stool, snapping off his gloves and jotting something into a chart.

  Outside the door, I could see the outline of Lo and Breaker talking to the lady at the desk who was shaking her head at them.

  "Alright, hold tight, Amelia," the doctor said. "I am going to send a nurse in to clean you up real quick and then you'll be taken down for your scan."

  The doctor left and the silence in the room was deafening. I needed to do it. I needed to get it over with. I knew that, but the piercing in my chest was drawing all of my attention. That was until I felt her delicate hand wrap around my wrist. "Johnnie..."

  Fuck her voice was sweet. I could listen to it saying my name until the end of time.

  But I couldn't.

  Because that was selfish.

  I had to get it over with. I had to let her
go.

  My gaze went to hers and she saw something there, her head starting to shake. "No..."

  "I can't do this to you, angel. You don't belong in this life. It's no good for you. You deserve better."

  "Johnnie... no..." she said, her voice getting thick as the tears pooled in her eyes.

  "I'm sorry, honey. I'm so sorry," I said, my own voice a little thick as I pulled my wrist from her grasp and moved toward the door.

  "Johnnie, don't..." she called and the effect of those words was physical, a blow right to the center and I swear I could have doubled over from it. But I sucked in a breath and I walked out, closing the door behind me.

  I stood outside the door for a second, my gaze moving up and finding Breaker's who took one look and pulled away from Lo.

  "Fuck," he said, moving toward me.

  Lo's gaze snapped up at Break's voice, eyes landing on me and sighing.

  "Seriously?" she asked, looking annoyed. "After all that, you're walking away?"

  "She deserves better," I said simply, moving past her.

  "That's not your place to decide," she countered, sounding angry.

  "It's done. Let it go, sugar," I said, taking off out the door and making my way to my car.

  It felt like the swirling hollowness in my chest was spreading.

  That's what leaving Amy felt like - like the darkness was going to swallow me whole.

  Twenty

  Amelia

  I cried through the nurse swabbing the blood off my face and arms, through her numbing and stitching my face, through her wrapping up my arms. I laid as still as possible through the CAT scan that did, in fact, prove that I had a slight concussion. Then I cried while I waited for the pain medicine to kick in and dull the jackhammering in my brain.

  A while later, sitting there, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do since Johnnie made it clear I couldn't go back to his place, the door slid open. There was a surge of hope that welled up inside despite my better judgment before my eyes landed on a middle aged man with a hangover of a waistline in moss-green colored slacks and a cream dress shirt with a badge on his belt. Great. Cops. Just what I needed.