A Hitman's Kryptonite Read online

  “I don’t want to die!” she cried out and she heard him start rustling up a crew.

  “You’re not going to today!” he affirmed. “Try to shake them off in an alleyway—”

  “But I don’t know where I’m going!” she sobbed.

  “Just go any direction that doesn’t say that it’s a dead-end; I’ll try to pull up your location and send help!”

  “I see an alleyway, maybe their car won’t fit,” she suggested as she turned the car into the narrow space. Expensive paint peeled off onto the walls as the rearview mirrors met brick on each side and folded towards the body of the car. Sparks flew as metal met with unforgiving walls and she tried not to flinch in sympathy for the car.

  “Have you lost them yet?” Salvatore asked, his voice rising in alarm.

  “No,” she answered. “I can still see them!” she gasped.

  “We’re on our way; just keep on going,” he instructed.

  “No; no; no!” she screamed.

  Salvatore’s panicked voice sounded over the car phone but she barely paid attention to him.

  “It’s a dead-end; it’s a dead-end!” she wept.

  He swore a blue streak as tires squealed in the busy air as she tried to bring the car to a stop before it collided with the wall.

  “Oh my God!” she muttered repeatedly as if chanting a prayer. Gabby’s cries joined with her words as Salvatore shouted at those around him and her voice rose with each passing second. Glass shattered in the stillness of a second where her heart felt as if it had been suspended in anticipation. Gabby’s cries grew and Salvatore’s voice rose as he tried to ask her questions, which she made no time to answer. Then there was dead silence.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “I accomplished something big and that’s a memory I will never forget.”

  —Gabby Douglas

  She stood at the window and watched, as Stephano’s men combed the area, through her binoculars. Staying near the site would’ve been too risky because they would’ve knocked on every door to find out what anyone had seen. Though she had selected an area where crime was high and few people had been about for that reason, she could never be too careful that no one had seen her leave. Being crafty, she had made it real hard for them to even identify her if anyone had seen her.

  Thankfully, she had also had the sense to wear an oversized coat to hide Gabby under when she’d dropped her off at the daycare in the opposite direction. She’d been dressed as a boy with her hair neatly braided. Raine had left them strict instructions and that she’d be there to collect her in under two hours so she just needed monitoring until then. Her heart had squeezed with fear as she’d left her behind looking convincing enough as a too cute little boy but this had to be done.

  She watched as the same police who’d shown up for Stephano’s murder now combed her car for evidence. Hopefully, they’d be lazy enough and satisfied to leave everything as is so that she could be sure that she wouldn’t be trailed. Evidence bags came out as they dusted and cut and put away in little baggies. Q-tips were run over different surfaces before drops of liquid were applied and they too were sealed away. One thing she could be sure of was that the blood all over the front seat and dashboard would be an exact match to her DNA and the droplets in Gabby’s expensive car seat was a mixture of the child’s and hers. The clean slices in the leather could never be matched to anyone because a thousand of those very knives were purchased every day. And even if they’d managed to find it in the dumpster blocks away, it was empty of all fingerprints.

  This had been planned for years and executed over a number of days. Whoever had taken Stephano out had done her a huge favor; it had opened the opportunity for her to store the blood in the deep freezer that he normally used for his torture subjects, without being detected. Rosa’s high-tech phone had allowed her the privilege of splicing videos and sounds together to make her magic CD of Gabby’s cries for the occasion before her brilliant little girl had dumped the phone in the toilet by ‘accident’ erasing the evidence. She just needed to stick around for another day to ensure that she hadn’t been caught out.

  ∆∆∆

  Wyatt watched Brooke as she watched Salvatore and his lackeys. She sure as hell has to be some form of agent, he thought as the men collected all the samples that they could but he knew that they wouldn’t get anywhere. When she’d turned into the alley earlier, he had found parking and had gone to higher ground to observe. He had known that she hadn’t been in any immediate danger unless she had planned to ram her car through the brick wall. Even then there wasn’t much that he could’ve done; it wasn’t time to reveal himself yet because if what he was seeing was correct Mrs. Brooke Genovese was trying to make a failsafe escape plan with the oldest trick in the book.

  He had tapped into her audible whilst he had found higher ground to see her clearly and he had heard her conversation with Salvatore; there hadn’t been a single car following her but even listening, it had felt so real. He’d watched as she’d pressed the car glass breaker tool up against the tempered glass of her Cadillac whilst she screamed for dear life and heard it shatter before she had moved on to the others. Driving down the narrow alleyway had done some serious damage to the expensive car already and the broken glass had just been icing on the cake. The high level of construction noise in the area from the constant fixing of the roads had made it easy for her to mask the sounds and it had proven to him that she had done her research well.

  She has to be government trained, he thought as he continued to observe.

  The fact that Salvatore men had to hook the car to a Hummer to drag it from the alley to collect evidence, showed her skill as to how she had gotten out of the car, retrieved her containers from the trunk and had proceeded to shock him even more. She had brought out professionally stored blood bags and turned the car interior into a bloody crime scene without a drop touching her expensive clothing. Then she had stripped the gloves and her clothing off to become a totally different person before she’d walked out of that alleyway without a scratch.

  He had followed her to pick up her daughter whom he was still yet to digest was by blood his niece but was really just a subject of interest. Then she had led him here by booking into a motel far away but close enough to keep an eye on Salvatore and his team whilst Gabriella napped.

  “There’s not one blasting witness?” Salvatore questioned the detective in charge and the other man shrugged in response.

  “We will send the samples in but this looks like another professional hit and therefore I doubt that there will be any evidence,” he started. “From the looks of it, she didn’t go down without a fight and they probably just dumped her and the kid somewhere else.”

  Wyatt’s lips twisted at the ease at which the man said it as if it was no big deal; just another couple of lives snuffed out unwillingly. Normally, statements like that didn’t ruffle his feathers but as he glanced to his left to take another look at her, something shifted in his chest and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

  “You’re just a bundle of mystery, aren’t you Mrs. Genovese?” he murmured into the still room before refocusing on Salvatore’s audio.

  “What the hell am I going to tell Ignacio?” he demanded. “That they both just disappeared?”

  “Knowing him, he probably ordered the hit,” the cop grumbled and the other man’s sculpted face paled as if the thought had truly never occurred to him.

  “But wouldn’t it draw too much attention?”

  “Who’s going to care, Sally Boy?” the cop chuckled. “We’re the lead on the case and this can get buried real quick.”

  Brooke made a sound in his other feed as he tapped into the smart TV in her room, drawing his eyes to her as he continued to listen in. When he realized that nothing was wrong, he returned his attention to the dirty cop.

  The man puffed on the expensive Cuban cigar contaminating the scene even more than his movement of the crime scene had, but he obviously didn’t care. This case was alread
y a write off for him and he didn’t have to face Ignacio so that was a win-win for him.

  “But what if he hadn’t ordered the hit?” Salvatore questioned.

  The potbellied man shrugged, causing his man-boobs to shift under his too-tight, overly stretched, white shirt which was barely holding onto the buttons. “Then you all better watch your backs,” he answered simply.

  “I don’t even know who the hell is for us or against us,” Salvatore complained.

  “Well, now is a good time to find out.” The balding, salt and peppered hair man turned to the rest of his crew members. “You better wrap it up guys; it’s getting hella dark, and whoever did this might just come back to ensure that the job held no witnesses.”

  At his words, the men moved visibly quicker as if they were afraid of whoever had caused it. Pity they didn’t know that it was just a smart-ass, five-foot-six-inch diva.

  In under an hour, the crew had everything packed away and a wrecker came to tow the car to wherever Salvatore had deemed fit. Whether he wanted it for evidence to show Ignacio or he wanted to send it to be crushed, only God in heaven knows and at this point, Wyatt no longer cared. As long as they continued to believe that they were both dead, Brooke would get the opportunity to escape and return to her normal life with her daughter; that was if she could ever be reconditioned into society after everything she must have been through for this case.

  Activating the cheap laptop camera in her room, he monitored her while he trailed the men and ensured that they left the area before he returned to see what she was planning to do next.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “It is never safe to look into the future with eyes of fear.”

  —Edward H. Harriman

  Raine closed her eyes and allowed a bit of euphoria to flow through her as the dark dye swirled down the drain. For almost three years she had been forced to have her natural color stripped from her hair to suit Stephano. No one really knew what she looked like before he had brought her to his mansion as his wife. Her high-colored skin had made it easy for her to get away with the blonde locks and many had assumed that she was white when she was actually mixed. Observing her hairstylist and getting professional samples had been one of her main goal at escape; no one from Stephano’s camp would recognize her with her true color.

  A sob gathered in the back of her throat and she covered her lips as to not wake Gabby because the walls were thin and she knew that this would be one of her ugly cries. She leaned against the stained tiles of the motel's bathroom as her body quaked from the pain in her chest. Being with Stephano had felt like an eternity and now that she was free she wasn’t even sure if she could make the right decisions on her own. However, every time she looked at her little girl, she would remind herself why she needed to keep fighting. But even now, her heart ached at the thought that after all this someone might bump into her and recognize her one day; would she ever be safe? Would she forever be running?

  “Even in death, Stephano, you still hold an iron fist of fear around me,” she muttered into the warming spray as her fists tightened at her sides. “I will not let you win this war!” she vowed.

  Twisting the handle, she shut off the flow of water and reached for the dark-colored towel that she had picked up at a dollar store for this very occasion. Water dripped from her body and onto the towel which she had laid on the floor before she had stepped in the shower. She might not have grown up being used to this but a quick observation had told her that she’d have to quickly adjust to this motel lifestyle until she could decipher if what she had planned to do next was the right thing.

  Reaching for the cheap blow-dryer, she started to remove the water from her weighed down curls, hoping that Gabby would remain in one of her sleep comas. That she had definitely taken from her father. Even so, ever so often, she would give the dyer a rest and listen for the little pit patter of feet or her daughter’s little but high pitched voice.

  By the time her jumbo curls bounced back when she pulled them, the chipped mirror was steamed over. Plucking a cheap, white towel, that had been provided, off the bar, she wiped the glass down until she was shocked at the reflection she saw. She touched the hair that she felt as if she hadn’t seen in forever with a swelling heart. Her mossy-green eyes shun with tears as her fingers trembled with each stroke.

  For many, it would seem vain to be crying over the color of her hair but for her, it was another victory that she had reached in reclaiming who she had been before Stephano had consumed all that she had known and introduced her to a life of fear and hate.

  “Mommy?”

  Raine jerked back at Gabriella’s soft and uncertain voice. After all, she had only ever seen her mother one way. Slowly, she turned to her daughter, whose eyes widened.

  “Mommy, you look so beautiful!” she exclaimed and Raine’s heart spilled out right there on the floor as she swept her daughter up and into her arms.

  Not long after, Gabby pulled back and looked at her with a frown.

  “Mommy, why are you naked?” she questioned softly.

  A blush rose onto Raine’s cheeks before she gingerly put her daughter down and wrapped a towel around her slender frame. “I’ll get dressed and then we’ll head to the library for a bit,” she stated softly and the little angel smiled up at her.

  “Can we get ice-cream after?” she questioned tentatively.

  Raine pushed the lump in her throat back down because she knew why her daughter was so hesitant to ask for anything. She had seen the result that asking had brought out from Stephano and having been indulging her with everything for the past three days might have brought about some confusion. Slowly, she came down to Gabby’s level and stroked back her wild, scattered waves. “As long as you eat all your lunch,” she responded and excitement flashed through her innocent, navy blue eyes as she nodded her head eagerly.

  ∆∆∆

  Wyatt sat at the back of the library, close enough but hidden from their view. Her soft voice cascaded over him on and off when she spoke to her daughter but she was mostly silent, researching whatever she had come here to find out about. Wyatt's mind, however, wasn't fully on whatever she was researching and at this point his resolution was-whatever he missed now he could double over later.

  He squeezed the bridge of his nose as he tried again to erase the images from his mind. Truth be told, he had no right to even be thinking of her in that manner; she was his dead brother’s wife. Wasn’t there a boy code somewhere on that, even if he hadn’t known that his brother had existed? A puff of exhausted air left his lungs and forced its way between his lips as her supple body burned it's way back to the front of his cornea. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down nervously as he swallowed the lust-fueled saliva that had sprung into his mouth at the sound of her frustrated sigh.

  She hadn't deliberately done anything for him to see because she hadn't even known that he was watching her, but each stroke, each movement as she had rubbed the lotion into her bronze skin had his whole body tightening up. Now, it was impossible to see anything, even with her clothes on, that image was burnt into his mind and it was so hard to get it out. He didn’t even know if he wanted it out because his body was sure as hell reluctant to let it go!

  He bit down on the inside muscles of his cheeks as his mind started wandering to how her supple skin might feel beneath his fingertips, and how beautiful the contrast between their skins would be. It blew his mind completely as to where these thoughts were coming from but he could not contain them. He hadn't had these kinds of thoughts since before he had met his ex-wife but those feeling had died a quick death after the hell they'd been through leading up to Aiden's death.

  Now, he didn't want to feel it but he couldn't get rid of the feeling. Every time he would cast his eyes in her, Brooke did something to him that not even Angela had been able to. His first marriage hadn't been love or lust at first sight; they had just known each other growing up and had formed an affectionate bond that had one night led to the idea of just g
etting married and having a kid before he was blown to bits on his next tour. Leave a legacy behind before his next tour and all that; especially with his mother getting scared the first time he’d caught a bullet in battle.

  So they’d done the deed and gotten married. It had been high excitement when they had found out that they were pregnant with Aiden; but not long after, Angela had started to get sick and then they had found the reason. Her pregnancy had exposed a genetic condition that she had which had proven fatal for their son. Oh, they had tried patching their marriage after that but with a shaky foundation, it had been better to just break apart and remain, friends, than keep tearing each other apart. After the loss and separation, he had gotten a fearful precision on the battlefield but killing himself with work hadn't been a sensible solution to remove the pain that he had felt. Ticking off the boxes of terrorists he had taken out the game hadn’t done much for him either; just made him angrier.

  It was a pain that he had thought had faded somewhat; he could look at the few pictures that he had of his son and not feel as if he wanted to tear the world apart for its injustice. But strangely, that pain was now refreshed each time he looked at Gabriella. He saw everything in her that he could’ve had with Aiden and it was as if someone had reached deep within him and ripped out his heart without any warning.

  At this point, it was clear that his heart was getting too tangled in this case but Oliver didn't want to pull him from it. He was the one with the best chance of seeing this mission through even though he was no longer in Florida where most of Stephano's squad remained. Oliver had sent Crew to cover that segment but that should've been the most important part. He didn't understand why Oliver was so obsessed with him tailing Brooke and the child. Even Trent had been roped in to shadow Ignacio in New York. According to reports, the old man was determined to find out who'd put out a hit on Brooke, and the more he came up empty, the more war he sought with the other gangs. In a way, that was good across the board: scum getting rid of scum, but if he kept on digging, he might just find what Brooke didn't want him to.