Blood & Kisses (Hit #2)

1

“Have you been following me?” I ask, that charming smiling face as he checks the cartridge of the handgun he sold me and empties the bullets into his hand.

“Listen, babe, if you want to come over on the dark side, you need to be a little more discreet and have eyes at the back of your head,” he states, holding the gun's barrel in his hand and giving it back to me handle first.

“What do you mean?” I ask, taking the handgun from his hand and stepping back from that alluring cologne and dimpled smile.

“If it weren’t for me following you and guarding your back, you would’ve been caught,” Blake sits that toned ass on the edge of my bed. “There were witnesses, Rae.”

“I was in disguise,” I argue, swallowing over a lump in my throat, fearing where this conversation will lead and what he’ll do with the information. He’s a thief. Therefore, is he going to blackmail me with this? Did he take pics of me killing Coach?

“Running to your little yellow car, Rae, with the rego plate easy to read,” he rubs his unshaven jaw with his knuckles.

“It was dark,” I argue back.

“Not that dark. I could see it easily from where I was positioned,” he pats the spaces next to him for me to sit, but I rebel against him and walk to the window instead. “Why did you shoot your ex-coach?”

I open my mouth to give him a vague answer, but a solid knock at the door interrupts me. It’s early in the morning, so who could it be? As Blake stands up and offers to get it, I realize he knows exactly who is standing behind the wood.

He swings the door, and a tall, striking, athletic man strides in as if he owns the world, and the wind gushes out of me in shock.

“Great,” I snap, folding my arms across my chest, feeling that Judgment Day had come far too soon. “I suppose you’re going to tell your father.”

Cormac frowns as his size engulfs the small space that is my entire tiny apartment. “No,” he answers bluntly as he inspects the kitchen, glances into my bathroom, then out onto the balcony. It took him only three strides to go from one side of the room to the other. “He already knows.”

My body tenses as I imagine being arrested and put on trial for murder, and these two men are prosecution witnesses helping to put me in prison. I shouldn’t have trusted them. That was a stupid move on my part, and I shouldn’t have let them get too close. “How…” I’m about to ask : How long have you known? But I no longer want to incriminate myself, so I clam up.

“Has she told you?” Cormac asks Blake.

“No, she was about to answer when you knocked on the door,” Blake answers and turns to address me with those long dark eyelashes and dancing brown eyes. It’s all a game to them.

Cormac directs his ominous, narrowed glare at me. “You shot my coach?” He looks angry, but his tone is almost amused, as if I ate his ice cream, not that I just shot a highly acclaimed coach, who happens to be his coach.

“I’m pleading the 5 th amendment,” I state stubbornly, and Blake’s grin widens.

“I told you we should’ve taken her under our wing earlier,” he addresses Cormac as if I’m not in the room. “With correct training, she could’ve been dynamite.”

“Don’t you mean a rocket pocket?” Blake questions mockingly. “She’s hardly lethal.”

“Excuse me? I’m right here in front of you,” I bite, wondering how I will escape this…whatever this is.

Blake places his hand behind his ear sardonically. “Did you hear something?”

“Must’ve been the whistling wind since someone who pleads the fifth wouldn’t speak,” Cormac adds to the mockery of me.

“Can you please leave? And it’s not a question, it’s a demand,” I seethe, standing my ground.

“No,” Cormac snaps as the muscles in his smooth jaw pulsate from clenching. “You need to tell us why you shot Coach.”

“And we’re not leaving until you do,” Blake adds.

“What are you going to do about it?” I ask apprehensively, slightly confused by which direction they’re taking this situation in.

“Depends,” Blake says as sirens bleed outside and my body tenses, “on you.” He walks to the window and peers out.

“What do you mean?” I need clarification from him so I know where I stand.

“Tell us why you shot Coach,” Cormac grills again, refusing to drop it.

“He’s not who you think he is,” I hiss angrily, feeling an ache in my temples from the stress of this situation. This is not what I imagined would happen after I shot number one on my list.

“And who is he really, Rae?” Cormac tilts his head to the side, drilling me with those narrowed eyes, and I can’t read him. I notice Blake becoming a little edgy as his gaze is fixed on something down on the street, and his distracted body language makes me nervous. It’s as if he’s expecting someone, and I fear it might be the police.

“A horrible man,” I answer as I watch Blake.

“Rae,” Cormac stands directly in front of me to force my concentration on him rather than what Blake is doing on the balcony. “What did he do to you?”

Blake turns in our direction expectantly for the answer they’ve been waiting for since entering my apartment. I lick my bottom lip, unable to answer. The words won’t come.

Blake sighs disappointedly. “I think we should hurry this along,” he suggests to Cormac, and nerves tug on my spine.

“Why?” I ask, suppressing the panic stirring within me. “Did you call the police?”

Blake frowns with a smirk. “No, Rae, why the fuck would we call the police?”

“To have me arrested,” my voice trembles.

Blake scoffs as Cormac's frown deepens. “Girl, are you serious?”

“Why did you follow me then?” I ask as hot tears well up in my eyes, brimming on the edge, and I blink them away.

“Because I knew you were up to no good,” he replies warmly. “Buying the gun, pretending to know how to shoot it when it’s obvious that you’ve never touched one before, and the look on your face when you fire at that target. You had someone’s face in mind while you were shooting, and now I know whose face. Well…his face ain’t too pretty now, is it.”

I look to Cormac. “I’m sorry that I ruined training for you,” I tell him. That is the only thing I feel bad about, and maybe Lyon's wife and kids will be better off without him anyway. They don’t know that yet.

“What?” Cormac snaps, and I flinch at the sharpness behind his tone. “I don’t give a fuck about him, and there are other coaches.”

“Really?” I’m genuinely surprised by his indifferent attitude toward the man carving his path to the nationals and maybe the Olympics.

“Yes, really. But you still need to give us an explanation as to why you wanted to erase him from the earth. We know he was your coach when you were younger, so you owe us a reason why you wanted him gone.”

A stress-induced ache behind my eyes prompts me to rub them with my fingers to allow me a few moments to think this over while they wait impatiently for me to say something. “I can’t tell you,” I finally say, and Blake exhales in annoyance.

“We want to help, Rae, but it’s not going to be easy if you’re honest with us,” Cormac states.

“I don’t need your help,” I snip at them in a ruder tone than I intended.

Blake scoffs again, smirking. “Sure, babe,” he croons sarcastically. “I cut off a passing motorist who was about to see a masked girl shoot some old guy in a car. If it weren’t for me, he’d be a witness to the murder.”

Cormac steps to my closet, drags out the plastic trash bag containing my costumes, and tips out all the contents. “Got plans for killing anyone, Rae?”

I swallow over a lump in my throat. “No,” I lie.

“That question required an honest answer,” Blake cuts in. “Kinda looks like you’re planning on popping a few more brains. Who is the next one, Rae? Let me guess, another swim coach? Or maybe the swim team management.”

“He was blackmailing Lucy,” I try to make that my only justification, knowing they won’t be convinced. “He was forcing her to do sex acts.” I look to Cormac, hoping for sympathy since he’s good friends with Lucy's boyfriend, but confusion is fixed on his handsome face.

“I don’t buy that,” Blake hits while I still look to Cormac for my last ounce of hope, only to find he’s not conceding.

“I don’t buy that either,” he replies coldly, sliding his large hands into his sweatpants pockets. “Besides, the timeline doesn’t match when you bought the gun. You killed Lyons for you , and Lucy was an added motivation.” “Fine,” I surrender with nothing left to lose as I step to my chest of drawers. “I can’t say it aloud, but I will show you why.”

Opening the top drawer, I take out the photograph of me being gang raped by four men, five, including the fuckwit that was holding the camera. I slap the photo against Cormac’s chest and sit back down, ready for the onslaught of sympathetic memes. Spare me the sympathy, and I’d rather they forget what I did and let me move on to number two on my list.

Cormac’s face is unreadable as he stares at the pic, then silently passes it to Blake. Blake glances at it for a couple of seconds before placing it on the chest of drawers. An intense silence falls as regret comes in that they will see me as a damaged victim, and I can’t deal with that.

Blake clears his throat, about to speak, when I interrupt. “I don’t want to hear it,” I snap. “Just say nothing.”

Ignoring my plea, he snatches the picture and holds it in front of my face, “How much do you want the other men in this photograph dead?”

I swallow back the emotions lolling about in the back of my throat. “A lot,” I reply honestly.

“Alright,” he says upbeat, “Now we’re talking. Gather your stuff, and we’re taking you to Romano Terrace.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I anger. “And what’s Romano Terrace?”

“A house,” he replies as Cormac pulls open a drawer and pulls out my underwear, “that you’ll be staying in until we’ve completed the job.”

“Excuse me?” I seethe as Cormac dumps my underwear in the bed next to me. “Staying in? You don’t dictate to me.”

“Do you have a bag, or should I just put them in here?” Cormac asks, picking up the plastic trash bag that contained the masks and wigs.

“Why are you taking me to Romano Terrace, though? Explain to me what’s going on,” I demand, snatching my underwear and placing them back in the drawer just as he pulls out two sweaters and shoves them into the garbage bag.

“That’s where Gabe lives,” Blake mumbles, and I stall mid-rant.

“Gabe? His father,” I point my thumb to Cormac.

“Yes,” Cormac answers.

Addressing Blake, “His father, who’s a detective?”

“Yes,” Blake replies. “The safest place for a murderer is under the roof of a cop.”