by D B Steward
There was another car behind them that had been empty and idle for too long. Other cars had come and gone since she had arrived and begun her surveillance. She knew every car that was supposed to be there so she knew that one had to be with them. There were eight men then, two outside and six inside the building. Probably two or three of them were waiting inside her apartment. One in the stairwell and one by the back exit, she surmised. At least that was how she would stage them.
She sighed and finished the last sip of her coffee. Well, better get started then. She got up and walked back toward the restrooms in the franchise-style coffee shop. She pushed open the emergency exit door that was hidden away from the main section of the cafe and the alarm instantly sounded. The blaring noise of the siren created the desired chaos and confusion among the customers and staff that she was counting on. Checking around her to see if anyone saw her, she slipped into the empty ladies room. On the other side of the bathroom door, she removed her tactical knife from its holster that was strapped behind her back. She slipped the blade up the sleeve of her baggy blue hoodie. She waited until she heard the police sirens draw near and slipped back out of the restroom unnoticed by anyone, walking calmly outside through the emergency exit.
Now outside and still unseen, she walked through the alley and around the coffee shop where she emerged onto the street. The gathered crowd, along with the police cars and fire trucks, allowed her to cross the street. The two killers in the car kept their eyes on the commotion around the coffee shop and she was able to enter her building’s lobby without them noticing. Inside the sparse lobby, she looked around and saw that it was completely empty. Anyone inside at the time had most likely gone out to investigate the commotion from the coffee shop, so she marched swiftly to the stairwell door. Quietly, she opened the door and peeked around it; no one was right behind the door so she entered and shut it slowly behind her. She glanced at the back exit door and found that it was unguarded. So there would probably be three of them in my apartment. She would really need a gun for that many and she didn’t have one on her. But there are four kind gentlemen waiting for me and surely one of them would let me use one of theirs.
Looking up the flight of stairs, she couldn’t see anyone by the second-floor door. Either the man was on the other side of the door on the second floor or he was waiting on the stairs above the door looking down. If she was lucky, he would be behind the door, but she had never relied on luck in the past and was not about to start now. She slipped the knife from her sleeve, kicked off her flats, and removed her jacket, placing both by the door. She stepped slowly in her bare feet and climbed the stairs. Halfway up, she saw just the tip of the scalp of a man waiting for her.
Her luck had run out. She could only hope that she had been quiet enough so far that he had not been alerted to her presence. Taking a deep breath beforehand, she leapt up the stairwell, hit the landing on one foot and vaulted upward toward the next flight. In the blink of an eye, she saw two things that were to her advantage. One, the man didn’t have his weapon drawn, and two, he was standing on the steps with his right leg open toward her and resting on a higher step than his left leg.
The man’s eyes went wide in surprise for about a second but she saw his hand was already moving to his jacket to draw his gun. He was not going to make it, however. In the blink of an eye, she slashed upward on the inside of his right thigh close to his crotch, tearing into his denim jeans and sinking easily into his flesh like butter. His jaw dropped open but he didn’t cry out, the expression on his face telling her that the man knew he was already dead—a slice like that couldn’t be fixed even if he was in an ER waiting room. His expression went from shock to anger in a moment, but his hand had stopped going for his gun and instead traveled toward the large gash on his leg that was gushing dark red blood. She landed firmly in front of the door and grabbed onto his coat, pulling his gun from his shoulder holster. He was going pale already and slipping into shock while she was trying to stay out of the way of his blood spray. He lunged for her throat with wild eyes and the palms of his hands covered in blood, but she was able to pivot her body to the side, lift her leg, and kick him down the stairs.
He finally made some noise and tumbled down the stairway with a furious yell. He would not be coming back up the stairs after her; with the slash inside his thigh streaming blood like that, he had maybe four minutes before he bled out completely. She checked his gun, a nine millimeter Beretta, and it was fully loaded. She carefully opened the door to the hallway on the floor of her apartment and looked around. Her apartment door was still closed like she figured it would be and the hallway was deserted. They wouldn’t be foolish enough to have someone just loitering outside her door, as that would attract unwanted attention from the neighbors and also tip her off to their presence if she had made it that far. She walked confidently to her apartment with the gun pointed toward the door and her finger off the trigger, resting securely on the guard. Knowing where all the loose floorboards and creaks were in the hallway helped her to remain silent as she padded lightly on the balls of her feet.
She put her ear to the door, listening intently and discovering that there was no noise coming from inside her apartment. Shit. These guys are good. They hadn’t turned the television on and they were not talking loud enough to be overheard from outside of the apartment. She supposed that she should feel flattered that they had sent such skilled technicians to kill her.
Fuck it. She placed the barrel of the borrowed gun under the peephole and fired off one shot. Then she quickly shot the lock off the door. Swiftly, she swung the door open as far as she could before it hit the heels of the corpse behind it and was stopped. She was thin enough that she could move through the narrow opening quickly and enter her apartment. She drew her gun up just as a man came from around the corner with his weapon drawn but not pointed at her yet. She fired two rounds into his chest and the force of the bullets put him down fast.
She did not chance even a momentary glance at the doorway to her bedroom that was now on her right. Instead, she dove to the floor near the man she had just dropped with the two chest shots. A bullet hit the wall two feet above her and hit the place where her head had been before she hit the deck. Yep, these guys were good. She only had a second to roll the man on the floor up and onto his side, allowing her to rest her arms on his corpse to steady her aim. The man did not have a shotgun in his hands—maybe she was lucky after all because if he did have one, she would have surely been dead already. With him as close as he was and the cramped space they were in, it would not matter how good his aim was; with the spread of the shells, she would be cut to shreds. Another round hit the man she was using as cover, striking his leg while she was closer to his shoulders. A thought about if the two of them had been friends before crossed her mind. Maybe that was why the shooter had not fired closer to the head where she had positioned herself. Was he hoping that his friend was going to make it? During that thoughtful second, she had taken the time to breathe and center her sight on the man’s head and squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit him right in the nose and exited the back of his head. She was on her feet and past him into her bedroom as his knees hit the floor.
She had hit his nose instead of between the eyes where she was aiming and the perfectionist in her knew that would bother her later. Maybe it was the fault of too much coffee while she sat waiting across the street. For now, she had sixty seconds, maybe ninety, before the police from across the street heard the gunshots and made their way to her apartment. Swiftly, she stuck her hand under her bed and pulled the small lockbox out from its hiding place underneath. She allowed herself an exhalation of relief before sprinting to her closet and slipping on a workout jacket with a pair of sneakers. She grabbed her go bag, dropped the lockbox inside it, and took off out of the apartment. The elevator was only a few strides away and the doors opened right away. Glancing over her shoulder at the stairway door, she did not see the police bursting through it yet. She figured that she now
had maybe thirty seconds left to get out of the building unseen. The elevator doors closed and then ten seconds later opened up to the lobby. The area was as clear as it had been when she had arrived just minutes before so she hurried out the front door.
Police officers were just exiting the building next door and turning toward her building. They had not seen her coming out so they ran right past her and into her building, on their way to see the mess she had left of her previous residence. She adjusted her gym bag on her shoulder and slipped into the crowd like any other woman on her way to the gym for a workout.
Chapter Three
Kelly King entered her tiny, dark apartment and her foot kicked the brown manila envelope that had been slipped under the door. After picking up the portrait-sized envelope, she locked the door and decided on not turning her lights on. It was already past midnight and she should really get some sleep…at least that was what her tired muscles informed her. She slipped off her high heels with a moan of relief and padded her way to her bedroom in bare feet.
She tossed the envelope on the bed and began to undress, ecstatic to be free of her tight dress. She grabbed a pair of sweatpants from the floor and snatched a T-shirt out of her dresser. She placed her phone on her nightstand after glancing at the screen. There were no notifications, no missed calls, not that she expected to see any. Feeling like a bag of cement, she plopped down onto her bed. Opening the envelope, she slid the contents out on her bed, there was one photograph and one printed sheet of paper.
She looked at the photograph first and her eyebrows went up. This woman is gorgeous! The picture had been taken from a distance and had been enlarged. The image was not the best quality—it looked grainy and slightly unfocused—but it was good enough to see how stunning the woman was. She had long jet-black hair that extended a few inches past her shoulder. She had a slim face with high cheekbones, reminding Kelly of a model, or even a supermodel. Her lips were full but not overly large, and they looked pretty damn soft in Kelly’s opinion. She wasn’t wearing any makeup but the woman looked like she did not really need to either. This woman was a natural beauty. She had a nice long neck that Kelly found really hot, but the picture did not go past her shoulders so she was not able to see just what that neck was attached to, unfortunately. Kelly could fantasize though, but she decided it was best to try and push those counterproductive thoughts away. This was supposed to be a contract after all, not some kind of dating service. The eyes were on the small side but appeared to fit nicely for her face, her eyebrows real and perfectly shaped. This woman was not high maintenance, which Kelly found extremely attractive. She had been with her share of ‘lipstick lesbians’ and ‘butches’ and she found herself more attracted to women who were somewhere in between the two. She wished she could make out the color of the woman’s eyes but the picture quality made that impossible. Placing the picture on the bed next to her with a sigh, she looked at the other sheet.
“Sonny Moretti, short for Sonja,” she murmured out loud to herself. She liked the name; Sonny seemed to fit the beautiful face in the picture perfectly. Twenty-eight years old. Hey, she just had a birthday. “Happy belated birthday, Sonny,” she muttered through a smile as she looked at the picture again. A ‘button’ girl for the Don since she was twenty. Her father used to work for the Don until he was killed when she was twenty-four. He was a hitman too. So she followed into the family business.
From some of the details about the jobs she had done, Sonny was good at her chosen profession too. Extremely good. Tony wrote a message to her along the margin of the sheet saying that Sonny preffered to hit her targets from long distance. Girl’s a sniper. The note continued to say that Sonny Moretti also had some experience with close kills too, very hands-on type stuff. She knows Krav Maga? Damn. This girl could fight too. Fuck. This was going to be hard. No wonder the Don is paying so much. This Sonny Moretti is a killer.
A notification flashed on her phone; it was a breaking news headline. Four men had been killed in an apartment building downtown. So far, police had no suspects in custody. Shit. Four men? This had to be the handiwork of her target, Kelly reasoned.
This was going to require an absolutely flawless plan, and she was too tired to think about it now. She turned the light off and laid back on her pillow, hoping she would dream of a brunette with a slim face and high cheekbones.
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Sonny closed the front door and flicked the wall switch that turned the lights on in her small townhouse. It happened to be one of three safe houses she kept in Chicago. Its meager accommodations consisted of an empty living room, a small bedroom with a full-sized bed, and a sparse kitchen with a small refrigerator, oven, and microwave. There were some non-perishable provisions, toiletries, and a few clothes. The basement was where she kept her real supplies: guns, ammunition, and her other tools of the trade. In the attached garage was a brand new Ducati Supersport motorcycle, gassed up and ready to go.
She sat on the bed and opened her go bag. Inside, she had another change of clothes—an unassuming T-shirt and a pair of jeans. There were two sets of fake IDs and ten prepaid Visa cards, each carrying a balance of two hundred and fifty dollars. She had one burner phone that she could use and then dispose of but there was really no one she could call anyway. Finally, she removed the lockbox from the bag and placed it gently, almost reverently, on her bed.
Sonny Moretti lifted her five-foot, ten-inch frame from the bed and headed to the bathroom. She turned the shower on and stripped down, placing the clothes she had worn on the tiled floor to burn later. Using her long, tan fingers, she tested the water and stepped inside the glass-enclosed shower. Hot water and soap streamed down and dripped off tight and muscled limbs. She washed her long black hair and closed her eyes, allowing the fragrant shampoo to ease some of the tension that was coiled inside her. She knew the danger she was in; there were most likely over a hundred men in the city looking to kill her. She was not going to run from them, however. Had she wanted to, she could have slipped away and then vanished without a trace. She could hide in any number of countries around the world and never be heard from again.
Sonny stepped out of the shower and dried herself off. She brushed her raven hair and went back to the bed. She laid down and picked up the lockbox again and opened it. She removed a small .38 pistol and an old photograph, the only two items inside the simple metal box. For a moment, she held them both to her chest and closed her eyes, relief flooding through her that they were still in her possession. The photograph was old and the paper slightly frayed on the corners, but the image was still clear. It was a picture of a raven-haired nine-year-old girl with a tall man in his forties. They sat near a shimmering river on vividly green grass, smiling in the sun during a spontaneous fishing trip. She could still remember the smell of the grass and the sound of the water. She could recall the feeling of the hot sun on her arms and the wet scales of the fish. The sound of her father’s laughter and his deep voice when he showed her how to bait a hook. Sonny and her father shared the same slim face and high cheekbones. He was a slim man, six feet and four inches tall, and he was a giant to her. A gentle giant, he was always soft spoken and fair to her. Anthony Moretti was not a pushover—he could be a strict disciplinarian when he needed to be—but he was always patient with his only child, his baby girl who he always called “Sonny.”
Sonny’s mother had died while she was giving birth, forcing her father to raise her all by himself. Anthony did the best he could but he really was not built to raise a daughter. He did not know what dresses to buy or how to braid his daughter’s long hair. But that did not stop him from showering his daughter with all the love and attention he could. Anthony Moretti was a hitman. He lived in a violent world and contributed to it with violence of his own. The only thing that mattered to him was his daughter, so he trained Sonny to be able to defend herself as soon as she had taken her first steps.
Sonny fired a gun for the first time when she was seven. He held her little hands to the weapon and pulled the trigger. The gunshot was the loudest noise she had ever heard in her life; it had frightened her and she had cried. Her father had held her and dried her tears but when she was calm again, he made her shoot it over and over again until all the bullets were fired. He explained to her afterward that the gun itself was only a tool, like a drill or a jackhammer. It might make noise or perhaps even kill you if you did not know how to use it properly, but if you practiced with it and understood its power, you did not need to fear it. It could be like a paintbrush: if you mastered it, if you respected it, then you could become an artist with it.
An artist is exactly what she became. Through her father’s tutelage, she learned everything about becoming an assassin, and she had excelled far beyond his expectations. He taught her to be an expert in every firearm possible and she had so much talent, he would often tell her that she could win a gold medal if she wanted to. Public accolades did not interest her in the slightest though, only the approval of her father mattered; he was the most important person in her life. He taught her how to use a blade on someone close up and to minimize the mess. He instructed her on the use of explosives and poisons, although he loathed using the two. Their use was too showy for him and he never used them unless the contract specifically asked for it. Sometimes people wanted to send a message and insisted that the hit be done a certain way. Doing that kind of thing too often was a surefire way to get a reputation he had warned her. He taught her, however, that an assassin gained a long successful career only if they never drew attention to themselves. Each hit should look as generic as any other, he explained to her.