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  A Hitman’s Kryptonite

  Written By: CAGE Thompson

  Copyright © 2019 CAGE Thompson

  Published by T’Ann Marie Presents, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written consent of the publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locals are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents are entirely coincidental

  This book is dedicated to my support team through this trial Donnace, Abigail and my publisher T'Ann. Couldn't have done this without you guys and my better half.

  Author's notes

  This one took all of two months to complete, even though it played out like a movie clip in my brain within two seconds. It took that long because for a month and more I was off my game due to life trials. I am grateful for the support and understanding I received during that time and I'm thankful for my readers' patience. God's willing, I am now in a better place to do more for my fans.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “There are many who don’t wish to sleep for fear of nightmares. Sadly, there are many who don’t wish to wake for the same fear.”

  —Richelle E. Goodrich

  Her hand shook as she raised it with its unusually heavy load. It felt strange for her but for him, she knew that it was all too common. His snoring permuted the air, no doubt amplified by the lines he had snorted not too long ago, as she stood at the foot of the bed. The room was pitch-black- just the way he liked it but tonight it might work in her favor. She hated the darkness with a passion but she had to get used to it after living in this hellhole for three years.

  Her breath quickened and her mossy, hazel green eyes widened as he shifted ever so slightly. The ticking of the clock could be heard loudly in the room as her heart pounded while she waited for him to resettle. Her finger trembled over the sleek, silver metal with its serial number intricately removed as his words resounded in her head.

  “You’ll never find the courage to do it, retch, no matter how badly you want to, and that snooty brat of yours will make it all the easier for you to stay!” he’d snarled, but what if he could see her now; this was for that brat? “You know what will happen if you run, don’t you?” he had jeered sinisterly at her as he’d held a chunk of her hair in a painful grip. “As soon as you even think it, I’ll put a nice fat bullet between those tiny brows, after I break every bone in her little body. Then I’ll give you another and remind you of your place!” he’d laughed. “You belong at my side forever!”

  Her hand faltered ever so slightly at the terrifying image but she instantly righted it. She swallowed as her heart squeezed at the thought of losing her beautiful little girl.

  There has to be a way out, doesn’t there? She pondered as her eyes welled and her vision of the devil blurred just a bit.

  She had been so foolish to ever trust him that first day. He’d been charming and sweet and had shooed away the bullies who’d constantly targeted her on her way from school. Looking back now, she’d trade him for those bullies any day. She hadn’t seen her family in more than two years; for a few months, she had seen them from the other side of a TV screen. She knew that they thought that she was dead because he had made certain of it, but she still missed them terribly. How could she ever get away from a man so powerful? He had the whole America believing that she had been murdered by her high school sweetheart, Andy.

  The poor boy was there languishing in jail because Stephano had wanted her to disappear without a trace. Her breath stopped when anguish ripped through her body as she wondered how she’d gotten herself into this mess. She had been the quiet, nerdy one who no one had seen. Andy had been her only friend since they were in kindergarten. She had the cleanest record in school; aiming to get a scholarship to go to law school and prove to her parents that she didn’t need to be forever supported by them. What an awful mistake it had been to have even entertained him the next day.

  Her body jerked as Gabriella’s cry tore through the stillness of the night. She dived for the monitor on the dresser and quickly silenced it, knowing that in this state he would have no limit to what he could do to her. He could barely tolerate seeing their two-year-old when she was sitting perfectly still, much more when she was screaming her lungs out.

  Stephano grunted in his sleep and she muttered something soothing, the gun glistening in the dim, blue light of the monitor. Replacing the safety, she quickly slid it into the waistband of her pajamas under the thick robe. With a regretful shudder, she turned and quietly exited the room to go to attend to her daughter. A few of Stephano’s cronies littered the hallways and for the first time, she was grateful for Gabby’s cries because if she had killed her father tonight, his friends would’ve surely taken her life.

  It was rare that men patrolled the inside of the mansion in the dead of night but after the massive party he had thrown earlier, his security team probably thought that he needed some backup when he was so incapacitated. She hastened her footsteps as Gabby’s cries increased and she could hear her nanny hushing her but to no avail.

  “Rosa, I’ll take her,” she volunteered as she pushed open the door, her once shaking hands now steady.

  “Ahhh, Mama is here,” Rosa whispered to the little bundle and her heart squeezed.

  Inky, navy blue eyes flashed in her direction and chubby tiny hands reached for her with a broken sob.

  “Oh, honey,” she breathed after muttering a thank you to the generous older woman and claiming the fragile bundle from her experienced hands. “I’m here, baby, I’m here,” she cooed as she brushed back wavy, black hair to reveal a scrunched up, innocent face with a shade that was normally slightly lighter than her mother’s light hazelnut tone but was now a bright shade of red. She peppered gentle kisses across her wet lashes and button nose making the little girl settled some.

  “Dream; dream,” she gasped as she tangled her fingers in her mother’s curls and hid her face in her neck.

  “You had a bad dream, my little star?” she inquired as the little girl started to fully settle, her sobs now periodical.

  “Papa cut Uncle Rubi and he hurt,” she mumbled into her mother slender neck and her heart stuttered behind her ribcage.

  Reuben had been missing for a few days but Stephano had claimed that he had no idea what had happened to him. That son of a gun! She thought as she pressed her daughter closer. No doubt he had dismantled him in front of their daughter because he’d been kind to the little girl after Stephano had kicked her over deliberately.

  “It’ll be okay,” she breathed.

  Will it? A voice demanded and her gut clenched.

  I have to get you out of here, she whispered internally as chubby fingers gripped her blouse tightly. I just pray that I can do that safely.

  She rubbed a soothing pattern across the child’s back as she held her to her heart, searching for bumps and bruises that she might have missed during bath time.

  How did he even get you by himself? She pondered and threw Rosa a look as the child resettled then fell into a deep sleep once more. She kissed her forehead before placing her in the large crib. The child whimpered but remained asleep and she untangled her fingers from her clothing. She stroked the cherub, rosy cheeks as the once cold but now warm metal pressed into the base of her bottom rib. I won’t let this happen again, she vowed as she turned away and beckoned for the baby sitter to huddle in a corner of the room with her, free from preying eyes.

  “How did he get her alone?” she questioned, her jaws flexing.

  “He said that you sent for her; I truly didn’t know
,” Rosa wept silently; in sympathy, she reached out to touch the woman’s hand gently.

  “I know that you don’t want to anger him,” she started. “But Gabriella goes nowhere alone with him,” she stated firmly and the other woman nodded her head. “I’ll head back to bed and see you in the morning,” she murmured before exiting the door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me and I think He has, I believe I am ready.”

  —Abraham Lincoln

  She placed a large plate of eggs, bacon, and toast before him and he barely spared her a glance. His too-long, jet black hair fell forward in waves identical to his daughter’s as his piercing eyes ate up whatever report he was reading.

  His tattooed laced hand thumped the glass table causing her to jump back before he swore bitterly in Italian. Today, he was alert and bright because he was going to be in the stoplight with the other minor bosses from each fraction of the Genovese Family. He was the son of the second in command but that did not lessen the pressure on him. If anything, it increased it and with the increase came a shorter temper towards her and Gabby.

  She kept her breathing steady and even just to ensure Gabby didn’t become frightened. As she moved around the kitchen, she knew that there was something brewing and that it was never anything good. He was more tense than usual and he poured over the papers one too many times as if he had spotted a mistake. In an instant, the phone was at his ear and he was barking some order down the line to one of his right-hand men, Felix. Just as quickly, the phone was gone and he reached in his breast pocket for a cigarette but came up emptyhanded. His fingers flexed as he bit out another curse and Gabby eyed her uncomfortably.

  She bit her lip and touched her daughter’s hair in reassurance, reminding herself of the job that she had to do as a mother. She couldn’t keep on putting her daughter through this especially with what she’d found out a few days ago; enough was enough. Stephano, however, knew the intricacy of the gang to a ‘T’ and that was what made it hard to take him out. Though she couldn’t do it the way she had initially wanted to, another way had presented itself. Her eyes flickered over him, observing his jerky movements; she knew that he was dying for a fix; as whatever was wrong was starting to grate on him.

  “You’re making me late for my meeting with The Boss, idiot!” he barked at her from the breakfast table and she bit her lip to hold back her irritation. Her nervousness and jitters evaporated slightly as she stirred in the white powder in the guise of sugar. His constant partying as of late had his father along with the Big Boss irritated and it made for an even easier overdose story. “Hurry up!” he snapped and Gabby’s little heart-shaped mouth trembled.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” she reassured softly as she stirred away his life in the coffee cup. Her navy eyes searched her mother’s and for good measure, she shook out a little more into the dark liquid.

  “Are you trying to give me diabetes, woman?” he demanded. “Carry the damn coffee here before I choke on this blasting dry toast.”

  Without hesitation, she brought the cup and gently placed it before him; her heart shuddering ever so slightly when his large hand replaced her small ones on the glass. The bruise that she had found on Gabby’s leg last night had been her final straw; Rosa’s apologetic sobbing had given her the tool that she had needed: access to the internet and there she had found an even better tool.

  She didn’t stop to watch him bring the glass to his lips but she heard his satisfied indrawn breath and she pulled closer to her daughter. Gabby dipped her hand in the applesauce and brought it to her mouth to suck on, creating a bit of a mess. She hummed under her breath as she moved to wipe her now sticky hands before she could hand her over to Rosa, glad for the excuse to get her from the room. Stephano slurped his coffee in the background and she quickened her movements, not wanting her daughter to be a witness to this.

  What she’ll do after this was anyone’s guess but she could feel the first tingling of jubilation ebbing and flowing through her veins as she prepared for a life without him- a life without a dark cloud hanging over her head.

  “Where are you going?” he inquired as Gabby’s little fingers tangled in her wild curls.

  She pressed her lips together dispassionately before hiding her expression in her daughter’s bountiful waves. Taking a deep breath, she raised her head in order to meet his dark eyes. “I’m going to hand her over to Rosa,” she answered calmly.

  “That’s why we have a paging system,” he muttered. “Use the damn intercom; I might need a lay before I go.”

  Over my dead body, she thought bitterly, her stomach flexing at the mere thought.

  He shifted ever so slightly as her mossy green eyes flashed and she knew that that was a warning that his patience was already stretched to its limit. She wouldn’t like what would come, even though she knew that he didn’t have the time to carry it out now. It would be worse if he waited because Stephano held a grudge like no one else did and his temper would be at its hottest after one of these meetings.

  Logically, she knew that if her plan worked he wouldn’t be stepping out of the house much less coming back to do anything; mentally and physically her body was already shying away from the memory of pain that she knew he could invoke. So, she obediently walked over to the intercom and pressed her thumb against it.

  “Rosa, come to the kitchen for Gabby, please,” she instructed and the door instantly opened as if the other woman had been pressed against it, listening to be summoned.

  The elderly woman gently claimed the sweet, applesauce and powder-scented bundle from her arms, her eyes still full of apology from the night before. She squeezed her arm in reassurance before she disappeared through the doors. She jumped as his coffee-tainted breath rustled her hair.

  “That was some good stuff,” he mumbled. “I’ll have to start waking your lazy butt up to make me coffee every morning so I’ll start off my day just right,” he stated.

  A frown pulled her brows together as he placed the now empty coffee mug beside her trembling hands on the counter.

  Why the heck wasn’t it working? She wondered as his fingers stroked down her arm before he used one hand to brush her curls over one shoulder. He stroked her neck with his lips and a shudder passed through her instinctively. Her fingers curled into her palms as all the times he had pinned her up against something and forcefully taken what he wanted ran through her mind. God just, please, please, she breathed internally as he hooked his finger under the slender strap of her summer dress.

  “Won’t you be late?” she asked softly as one strap fell down her arm.

  “They’ll wait for this,” he murmured against her neck and she struggled not to flinch.

  His fingers tightened on her arm as she moved for the sponge to rinse out the plates in the sink before putting them in the dishwasher.

  “We have a maid for that,” he hissed as if she had brazenly disrespected him.

  Her fingers flexed around the sponge and at this point she just wanted to grab the knife and impale his chest. How long will this be? How much more would she have to endure? She wondered as her heart bled.

  The shrill of a cell broke the sudden silence and he bit out a curse as he moved towards the table while relief flooded through her.

  “Vince, what the hell do you want?” he snapped.

  She didn’t know what Vince said to him but his expression paled and he sank into the chair that he’d left only seconds before.

  Then it happened. Initially, all she’d heard was a little clink as lightning-fast, hot metal tore through the hurricane-resistant glass and a soft thud as it crumbled into stainless steel. Stephano’s ranting stopped midsentence and her brows crumbled in confusion until she followed his gaze. Crushed metal formed a perfect hole in the freezer door of their three-grand fridge. She must’ve made some sound because he looked up at her, his eyes
widened in shock.

  Thick, dark red liquid ran a perfect line down his orthodox nose until it dripped off the tip and splashed onto the pristine, white top of the breakfast table. “Brooke,” he breathed as her eyes took in the perfect circle between his brows.

  “It’s Raine,” she whispered, defying him for the first time as he took his final breath.

  His shoulders lost control and his expression changed as life quickly left him. She just stood there, the sponge dripping water onto the wooden floor planks, imitating his blood as his slowing heart pushed out even more. She wasn’t sure how to feel as she looked beyond him to the window that overlooked the idyllic island La Gorce Miami’s shoreline.

  Am I finally free? She pondered as his whole frame slumped in the chair with his eyes still wide open.

  Should she feel joy or fear of the unknown? She truly didn’t know but she must’ve done something because Rosa tore into the room with Gabriella on her hip before she quickly covered the little girl’s eyes and a guard quickly followed her. Someone grabbed her asking questions but it seemed that she just kept on screaming; then the alarm sounded, shutting down the mansion’s grounds but she knew that whoever had pulled that trigger was long gone.

  Salvatore’s hand connected hard with her face before she tasted blood but at least that stopped the screaming. “What the heck happened, Brooke?” he demanded as she shook her.

  “Vince,” she breathed, her voice hoarse as one of the rookies came in to check Stephano’s pulse.

  “What are you talking about?” he questioned before he barked at the new comer. “He’s dead, idiot!”

  “He was talking to Vince,” she clarified as he turned his attention back to her with blood in his eyes. I didn’t do this, she thought. Even though I wish I could’ve.

  “Tony, grab the cell,” he instructed as Vince’s voice carried throughout the room in the sudden silence.

  Salvatore pressed the cell to his ear and spook rapidly in Italian. Raine could hear Vince shouting back before Salvatore replied and cut the call.