21. CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY
SASHA
T here were three gunshots in total. The first one caught my attention and I looked up, then the second two flashed through the bedroom window. Zeke grabbed my arm and dragged me across to the shed.
It was definitely not Barrett who decided to drop by unannounced.
I followed his lead but was on autopilot. We ducked down behind the trunk and I felt my heart thunder.
“What the hell is going on?” I managed to breathe out.
“Whoever is upstairs just tried to kill one of us,” Zeke mumbled. “They obviously thought we were under the blankets just like you did. Except they decided to kill us instead of running away.”
“They’re gonna find us,” I panicked, then stood from my position. “We’re gonna die.”
Zeke grabbed my hand and dragged me back down next to him. “No, we won’t,” Zeke said. “It’s a good thing you tried to leave me otherwise we would have been at home when they arrived.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I have some guns and ammo in the toolbox,” Zeke whispered. “Ethan gave it to me and I’ve kept it hidden. Do you remember everything I told you?”
“Guns?” I quipped. “You never told me anything about guns.”
Zeke snuck a quick look around and then disappeared behind the car. There were a few clinks and clanks when he opened and closed some drawers before he returned with two guns in his hand. One rifle and the other a handgun.
“Safety on, Safety Off,” he demonstrated. “Point and shoot. There’s gonna be a little kickback so prepare yourself.”
He placed the weapon in my trembling hands and it almost slipped out of them. “I’ve never shot anyone, Zeke.”
“You might not have to,” he said to me. “You’re going to stay here and I’m going to go deal with whoever is out there.”
“You’re gonna leave me?”
Zeke rested his hand on my shoulder. “It’s safest for you to be here rather than in there with me.” He reached behind his back pocket and pulled out his phone before dialing a number. “Ethan, it’s me. No time for that now. Someone’s broken into the house and they’ve got guns. Not sure how many there are. Yes. You still around? Okay. Great. You know the address.” Zeke hung up the phone and glanced at me. “Ethan’s gonna be our backup and he’s gonna bring along some people though it might take them a bit to get here.”
I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just stay with me in the shed. We both had guns, albeit I didn’t know how to use one, but at least we’d be next to each other.
He grabbed the back of my neck and dragged me to him with a simple kiss on the forehead. “Stay low.”
The door creaked lightly when Zeke ducked out, stealth mode, with his rifle in his hand and a few extra ammos.
I sat down on the cold floor and kept the gun tight at my chest, afraid that I would have to use it. I’d never killed anyone in my life. Sure, my dad was the exception, but I didn’t actually pull the trigger. I didn’t have it in me.
Any minute now I expected some more gunshots, probably some screams too. But Zeke had experience in the special forces. He’d probably kill each person, one by one, or torture them for information if he needed to.
I wanted him safe. I didn’t want him to die.
I strained my ears to hear something. Anything. I even snuck out from behind the car and pressed my head to the shed door to see if there was an inkling of noise, or any voices I recognized. There was nothing. Just silence over my rapidly beating heart.
How the hell did they find us? Was there anything else of mine they tracked? Another GPS device that was planted? But we’d been here for so long they would have come sooner.
I did have another theory. We were betrayed by someone else…but who? Who wanted me dead? Who wanted Zeke dead besides Nick?
I shuddered at the thought that there was another person out to get us. How long was this going to go for? How far were we going to have to run? And if I had to run now, my legs were like jelly and I wouldn’t even be able to stand.
Out of nowhere were another three gunshots. I ducked back behind the car and prepared myself for whatever was going to happen to me, but I wasn’t prepared for anything to happen to Zeke. I needed to put my trust in him that he would be okay when all of this was over.
Suddenly, there was another scream with a few more gunshots. I was in the dark in the detached shed which was still close to the house. Any minute someone could barge in and shoot to kill, and I’d have no time to react.
“I know you’re here, Zeke,” A female voice called out. “And I saw the goodbye letter from that little bitch. She left you, huh? Where did she go?”
Her voice wasn’t familiar but I understood some of the Turkish swear words she yelled out afterward. I assumed it was my uncle’s wife, the dangerous one now after both of us.
“It was you who killed my husband,” she continued. As the woman yelled, her voice grew distant but I could still hear her. She may have been on the other side of the house. “If you come out now, I’ll make your death a painless one, unlike that FBI agent who folded after we chopped off his finger.”
Crap. It was Barrett who led them here. I hoped Zeke wouldn’t fall for her bullshit.
“We looked everywhere, but we couldn’t find him,” a male voice said.
“Check again. Check the garage, the shed, everywhere,” she yelled. “I want every bit of the house scourged. He has to be somewhere.”
They were going to find me sooner or later. I looked around the shed to see if there was any place I could conceal myself, but every corner was filled with tools and junk.
I thought about getting into the trunk of the car but I’d only be like a waiting target there.
The snow crunched at the rhythm of footsteps and they were getting closer, whoever they were.
The trunk sounded like my only option.
I pressed down on the button and slowly opened the door. Thank god it was unlocked. Gently shuffling a few things aside, it gave me more room to get in. The gun was still in my shaking hands but I managed to slowly close the trunk again. Despite the coldness outside it felt warm. If I stayed for too long I would surely suffocate.
I laid down and aimed my weapon upward so that if anyone tried to get me I could at least attempt a shot.
The creek of the shed door opening made me cease breathing and I froze. Footsteps stomped around the concrete floor but the intruder never spoke. They rustled with the tools, threw things on the ground, and even moved the freezer before opening it. The clinking sounds made me want to close my eyes but I forced them to stay open.
The person’s footsteps slowed down next to the car. I assumed they’d peek inside to take a look, but when they found nothing, they moved to the trunk.
This was it. I’d press down, shoot, and ask for forgiveness later.
My mouth went dry and I tightened my forefinger on the trigger. I’d never held a gun before in my life. My arms felt heavy as I kept them raised, waiting for the little gap to widen when the person finally opened the trunk.
Light filtered in slowly when the door clicked, then suddenly it swung wide.
The man smiled and was about to yell out but I took the shot.
Zeke was right. There was some throwback and it hurt my shoulder. When the bullet struck his cheek, blood splattered right on my face and I gagged. His body thumped to the ground.
I dropped the gun and tears swamped my eyes. I felt filthy, not just because the evidence of the man I killed was all over me, but because I had killed someone in cold blood. It was going to take a lot of therapy to deal with that.
The sound of my gunshot probably alerted the others to my whereabouts. I had to leave.
I maneuvered my way out of the car and then quickly grabbed my gun back. If I had shot one man in self-defense then I knew I’d be able to do it again, if I really needed to. That kinda scared me. What kind of person had I become?
But when I turned around to run toward the exit, someone already stood in the doorway and blocked me from escaping. In fact, there were two people. One was a stranger whom I’d never met and the other was Nick. Both of them had guns pointed at me.
“Drop it,” the man said. I wanted to aim it at him but I knew my reflexes weren’t the best.
I had no choice but to gently place my gun on the floor. “Why’d you do this, Nick?” My question was aimed at the guy I used to call my friend. “What happened to you?”
“You did,” Nick said. “I’ve waited for you, Sasha, for years, and since I knew nothing would ever happen between us, when the opportunity came to make some extra cash, I took it. Nothing personal.”
But it was personal to me. Everything about this was personal. I had no doubt he didn’t know what he was getting into when he signed up to betray me, but I felt like he was still holding back on the truth. The real reason he chose to watch me be killed.
The man came forward and picked up my gun that was used to shoot one of the others not long before. He glanced down at the body and looked back up at me. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”
“You know nothing about me.”
He came closer and grabbed me by the arm then dragged me toward the exit of the shed. There were two guns pointed at me. One from this guy and one from Nick.
I thought about fighting them off the way Zeke taught me but I wasn’t confident enough I could do it without getting shot.
“Found her,” the man yelled. I was escorted back into the house and thrown onto the couch in the living room. “She was hiding in the shed.”
From the corner of my eye, I noticed a woman dressed in white. Golden earrings looped around her ears, partly covered by her dark brown hair. She had piercing brown eyes to match and she was a little taller than me. Almost the same height as Zeke, she was clearly older than us. And when the bitch stood in front of me, there was another gun in her grasp. Three guns aimed at my head and I was just a damn girl wanting to live her life, who’d done nothing wrong.
“You had your father killed.”
Except that. I did that.
I kept my cool and looked her straight in the eyes. “My father wasn’t a good man.”
“And what about my husband?” she quipped. “Zeke killed him.”
“He wasn’t a good man either.”
That earned me a slap across the cheek. My head swung to the side; it burned as much as my eyes did. I needed to be careful with my words no matter how true they may have been.
I slowly looked back at her and glared. “What do you want from me?”
“I didn’t believe my husband when he said you were alive.” She paused for a minute and nodded at one of her men to bring her a chair. She sat down right in front of me and leaned forward. “It was by accident he found out because his friend was on one of your cruises. And when he saw you he was taken aback. He thought he was looking at a ghost. So, when he told my husband, we did our homework and then figured out it was the same old little brat but with a new name.”
I might have recognized the man if it was my uncle on the cruise, but not one of his friends. “That still doesn’t answer my question.”
She laughed and looked at Nick and the other man “Leave us.”
“Are you sure?” the man asked. “She killed Hoxton.”
“I’m sure,” the woman replied. “She’s no threat to me. Keep looking for Zeke. I want to have a chat with him too.”
Then it was just the two of us. Their first mistake was not tying my hands or covering my mouth. Sure, she still had a gun but there were two less people to worry about. I just needed to wait for her to be distracted by something.
“At first I wanted to find you so we could discuss you and Reece,” she continued. “Maybe our plan to have the two families brought together would still be possible.” The woman waved her gun around to make me feel threatened. It was kinda working. I froze, not wanting to move. “And then after you and Zeke killed my beloved, the situation changed. I am not just looking for money anymore, I’m looking for revenge.”
“My family is dead, and Reece’s family is dead,” I told her. “We don’t have any power anymore.”
“But you do, you just don’t realize it,” she replied. “Because you two are still breathing, that gives you the power that should have never been yours to start with.”
“So, is to kill us the only option?” I raised my voice.
“Yes, but you see there’s one problem,” the woman said. “I have no idea where Reece lives. Barrett didn’t have a clue either as he was your handler and didn’t know who Reece’s handler was. If Reece even goes by that name anymore.”
“I’m not telling you where he is.”
“I’m sure you will.” She shrugged then stood from her seat. The woman placed one hand on my knee while the other still held the gun tight, but rested it on the couch. “You see when I start to torture you, Zeke will hear your cries and he will have no choice but to come and rescue you.”
“Why’d it take you so long to get to me?”
“I had other matters to attend to, so I let you fester in your fear of me and let that fear grow. Maybe it would give you the false sense of security that you were safe.”
She was a psychopath I needed to flee from.
“What about Nick?” I questioned. If he wasn’t going to give me the truth then maybe she could. “How’d he get involved in this? Has he always known who I was?”
“Not at first,” she replied. “Let’s just say his gambling addiction and us threatening his family may have been a major factor in why he’s doing this to you. He owed my husband a lot of money and since he had no means to pay it, we sought other options. He didn’t want to die, so as long as he did everything we asked of him, he was still able to breathe.”
I knew it was more than me just rejecting him, but the feeling of betrayal still swam in my blood despite the truth.
“Now.” The woman leaned even closer to me. “Let’s see what we can do about getting Zeke here.”
I slanted my head to the left and then to the right before I softly smiled. “Those are pretty earrings you have on.”
She scrunched her face in confusion. “What?”
“Your earrings,” I repeated. “They’re so pretty.” I hooked my finger in the loop that dangled from her left ear and pulled down at the same time I slammed my fist against her right hand.
Blood oozed out of her and she screamed. When she tried to pull back away from me, I allowed her to slither from under my grasp, but I had a hold of the gun. She resisted at first until I braced myself on my ass and kicked my legs forward into her stomach. She stumbled back a few steps and then fell onto the floor. I rose from my seat with the gun in my hand and stood over her. This woman tried to kill me and I didn’t even know her name.
I aimed the gun in her face but she could see they were trembling in my hands. “If you’d just left us alone, this wouldn’t have happened,” I told her. “Your husband would still be alive and there wouldn’t be a gun pointed at you, at least not by me.”
I probably had only a minute before Nick and her henchman came through the doors again. Maybe killing her would send a message to anyone else who tried to come after me that it was a bad decision.
The front door barged open and in came Zeke with his rifle. Once he saw me he lowered it down and ran over. “Jesus, you scared me.” Zeke kissed my forehead quickly before he looked down at the woman. “You haven’t shot her,” he stated. “Why haven’t you shot her?” He reached out to me when he saw me tremble. “Give me the gun,” he said gently, coming to the realization that maybe I was still afraid. “You don’t have to do this.”
I wanted to kill her. I really did. I’d already had a few deaths on my conscience. What was another one? “There’s still Nick and the other guy.”
“I got all of them except Nick,” Zeke said. “Hand me the gun, Sash. You don’t have to do this.”
“Ahhhh!” A familiar voice yelled as he ran into the room. Nick aimed his gun in our direction and pulled the trigger at the same time Zeke aimed his rifle and took a shot.
A bullet went straight through Nick’s skull before it dropped on the carpet. I watched him fall to the floor, dead. I felt nothing for him. No guilt, no heartache, I was indifferent.
The woman took the opportunity to try and escape by crawling away. I still had the gun in my hand and I aimed it at her before shooting her in the back. She collapsed onto the floor as red blood pooled on her white suit.
“It’s over,” I wept. I tossed the gun aside and turned to Zeke ready to throw myself in his arms.
He had fallen back onto the couch. Blood soaked on his shirt on the left side just under his shoulder. His breaths were weak and he gasped for air.
Zeke was shot.
I didn’t have it in me to watch another person I loved die, but sometimes life was just cruel like that.