Stolen from the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance(86)

I walk in, and one by one, I began to end them. Grab, stab, slash. Grab, stab, slash.

It isn’t until there are only three of them left that they even begin to notice the silence of their fellows. Another is dead before worry sets in.

“Stop fucking around, where’d you guys go?” asks one of the two remaining, flanking each side of the drugged woman, her body lewdly revealed and left splayed upon the sofa between them.

Before I can kill another, the man on the left turns on his phone’s light, and it blinds me. But I don’t need my eyes and pain is nothing that can distract me. With gun in one hand, I put a bullet through his head, and almost simultaneously, I lunge into the man on my right, the dagger jabbing up beneath his jaw and into his skull, crunching through cartilage as I kill them both.

They’re dead. They’re all dead, but for the guards at the car. And this lone woman.

The light from the phone is still surprisingly bright, and I turn off the night vision. I’m now able to see her laying there, chest heaving as she looks up at me, glassy eyed but aware.

I point the gun right to her forehead. I’ve done my mission so far with no more than a low gurgle of alarm. I’ve done it all with pure professionalism, and more than that, I’ve done it all happily. I’ve not regretted or failed to enjoy a single death tonight. And while I keep a stoic facade, all business, inside, my heart’s racing with glee rather than anxiety.

No one lives. Or we’re all fucked, rings Gregor’s voice in my head.

What’s one more, anyways?





2





Alicia





I awake to a pounding headache, something worse than I’ve ever experienced. No hangover has ever approached this nightmare in my skull, and I’m pretty much the queen of bad hangovers. The light that ekes through my eyelids is already too much, and I keep them shut as I clutch my forehead.

How much did I drink? I ask myself, confused.

But no amount of nursing my skull is gonna make things easier on me, so I force my eyes open. The sun streaming in through the window takes a while for me to get used to, stars appearing behind my eyes. Eventually, I adapt, and I realize that the curtains are drawn, and it’s still a pain. The red drapes filter the light so that the Spartan, unfamiliar room is seemingly drowned in blood.

It reminds me of a nightmare I had the night before.

Me, lying there, blood spattering in the air as I watched some tall, dark, looming man pointing a gun at my head. He was like a specter of grim death. Stoic, towering, broad, and powerful. Hidden beneath dark clothes and a terrifying mask, blood soaking into his clothes.

A terrible dream, brought on by the drinking, I guess. Though I don’t usually have nightmares.

The memory sends a shiver down my spine, doubly so as I try to understand my foreign surroundings. The cold concrete floors and brick walls, the simple bed that looks more like a cot.

What the hell happened last night?

I brush back my blonde hair, the strands still clinging to each other with leftover hairspray. My red dress is almost eerie in the strange light, and for a moment, for just a single moment, I wonder if I’m dead, surrounded in the color of blood.

I stand, my feet bare, my high heels tossed to the side. I can’t be dead, I tell myself. Dead people can’t feel this damn hungover.

Every beat of my heart sends a throbbing pain right to my temples, and I nearly stumble back to the bed, giving up in agony, but now I’m a bit curious. Did my boss take me somewhere?

“Hello?” I try to shout, but it comes out as a groggy murmur.

There’s nothing, only eerie silence. The place is so still. The pain in my head seems to plead with me to relax and take my time, but the unfamiliar place urges me to get up and get out. So I head to the dark metal door of the room and try the handle. I fear that it’s going to be locked, but a simple turn and it opens.

And more dreaded sunlight spills in. This time, it’s unfiltered by curtains, and it’s abrasive on my eyes. I feel like a vampire, or the walking dead.

“Where the hell am I?” I mutter, because last I remembered, I was with the congressman at some hoity-toity dinner. And this doesn’t seem like the kind of place that my rich boss would’ve taken me. Even my place is less grey and unremarkable.

I step out into the room and slowly force my eyes to adjust. I can see a table, a kitchen, even a sofa. And while all of them are crisp and clean, they’re once again simple. There’s no real personality to the place at all, not even in a hotel kind of way.

“Sit,” comes a deep, dark voice from right beside me. I didn’t even see anyone there!

It’s a lone man, broad in the shoulders, with sleek black hair brushed back. He sits in that grey metal chair by the small table, one other seat waiting for me. He’s dressed darkly, a turtleneck and pants, both simple—clean, but definitely not a fashion statement. While his face… his face is chiseled, with a wide jaw and sharp, emerald eyes.