🔫as-sas-sIN’S
LOVE đź’•
CHAPTER 1
My name is Mikhail Berlusconi. I’m a brutal as-sas-sin, but I only kill bad guys. Those unscrupulous criminals that make this town unsafe.
Today, I was here to meet two people who apparently had someone for me to kill.
I sp©tted them standing in a corner of the fifth floor of the abandoned uncompleted building. A middled aged woman called Rita, and a young man called Mateo.
The woman had an impatient look on her face while the young man beside her looked bored out of his mind. When she finally sp©tted me approaching, she frowned.
“Yo man you’re finally here.” Mateo said, stepping forward, hand outstretched.
I glared at his hand until he withdrew it and went back to stand beside his mother.
Rita blew air out of her nose, giving me a look of disgust. She then turned to her son.
“Is he the one?” Rita asked.
“Yes mama.”
“Really, Mateo? This. . . man?”
She was a tall and slender woman and middle aged but she still looked good all round with her exotically cut blonde hair and expensive chiffon dress. If attitude was excluded.
And she’d better not irritate me.
I’d told Mateo that I was past the point where I accepted contracts to kill bad guys. He’d had to beg me before I agreed to meet up with his mother in this godforsaken uncompleted building.
Only to earn her disrespect in return.
“Trust me, Mama. He’s the best we can find. Never fails his job and leaves no trace.” Her son answered.
“How can you be so sure? He doesn’t look like…”
Before she could say something more, I acted. I’d noticed something in the air rushing by. Without wasting any time, I pu-ll-ed out my gun which had a silencer and pu-ll-ed the trigger.
A small squeal told me it was a bird. One of its feathers danced and fell onto the ground in front of me. Rita screamed, stepping backwards.
“Do you still think I’m incompetent? ” I ground out, glaring at Rita. “Or do I have to do that to you before you believe me?”
I hated it when people questioned my capabilities due to my size. I knew I wasn’t the tallest person on earth, but if you would asks me, then I thought standing at five feet seven inches was quite okay for a man.
What? Were as-sas-sins supposed to be six feet or more?
“You don’t have to prove anything. That woman made my son lose his father. I can’t die too.” She sounded terrified, and that plea-sed me.
“Yeah, man, take it easy.” That was Mateo, trying to look all br@ve as he said that.
I snorted, focusing on his mother. “Who is this woman you people want me to kill?” I asked impatiently.
I’d targeted an unscrupulous child trafficker for quite a while, and I wanted to deliver on my promise to my self to free the world of one more terrible person.
The woman pu-ll-ed out a ph0togra-ph from her hvge handbag, handing it over. “Here.”
Taking the picture, I looked at the woman in it. She was staring away from the c@mÂŁra and into space blankly.
Her expression and posture were unre-adable, and there was something sad about the way she sat.
Something hit me in the che-st, ma-king me feel like I’d seen her somewhere before.
I immediately dismissed the reaction, turning to Mateo’s mother. “I’m going to repeat myself. I only kill bad guys. What’s her crime?”
“Her name is Montserrat. She is my late husband’s daughter, but he never acknowledged her legally. When she found out that he’d left her completely out of his will–only God knows how–,she decided to exact revenge.”
Tears brightened her eyes. “She chased my husband down on one of his business trips and. . . and stabbe-d him four times in the stomach. She called me to gloat about it. I had the police arrest her but they couldn’t detain her for much long because she left no traces.”
Rita wra-pped her arms around herself. “Now she’s threatening to kill my son if I don’t make sure everything my husband left for the two of us is transferred into her name. That woman is the devil herself.”
I took everything she was saying in quietly, but I nodded when she was done. “I’m going to nee-d more info. Where does she live? Is she normally around people?”
“The last the police went looking for her, they said she lived in this filthy little cottage in the middle of the woods downtown.” She replied spitefully.
Filthy little cottage in the middle of the woods. She was living there probably because of her own laziness. And she’d been waiting for some inheritance to lift her from poverty to riches.
fv¢king golddigger.
“Could you plea-se put away the gun? It gives me the heebie-jeebies.” The woman requested, staring warily at the weapon in my hand.
I tucked my gun behind my belt at my back, feeling its reas-suring dig against my skin..
“So I’ll give you the money after the job is done.” She said.
I chuckled scornfully at her. “I don’t nee-d your money.”
She studied me like I had cut a string or two in my head. “Nob©dy does such a job if they aren’t in nee-d of money.”
“Try me.”
“I’ll give you money anyway. That way I can be reas-sured that you will remember to do this job before that woman fufils her threats.”
I stared at her in silence and watched her reach into her bag. She pu-ll-ed out a paper bag with quite some weight.
“I’ll give you half the amount first, then…”
“If you insist on paying me, then I want the full amount. I don’t do halves.” I said sternly.
I would just give the money to a random stranger on the street.
Rita stared at me defiantly for a while. Then she let out a sigh when she looked at her son’s reas-suring face. “Fine. Here. Take it.”
She practically threw the bag at me. I caught it in time and made sure to give her a heated look that made her flin-ch.
“Hey man. Call when it’s done.” Mateo said.
Nodding curtly, I left the deserted building and the area re-ady for my next mission. It was time to kill another bad guy.
Or should I say bad girl?
The thought made me smile with relish as I got onto my bike, turned the ignition and stepped on the pedal.
Get prepared to die, Montserrat.
_______
🔫as-sas-sIN’S
LOVEđź’•
CHAPTER 2
I hid in the shadows, among the trees. I was re-ady to put a bullet throu-gh her skull and free this town of another murderer.
The woman I’d been paid to kill sat by a building bonfire, obviously to keep her cold soul warm.
She wore a checkered blue blouse on t©p of denim jeans. The fire illuminated her face, and I could see that she was even more beautiful than the picture proved.
Such a pity that she had such a vile soul.
Aiming the gun in my hand, I trained it on her. Though it was night and the woods were dark, a year of training as an as-sas-sin had made me a shoot-and-kill.
I’d never missed a target in the five years I’d been doing this job.
I was just about to pu-ll the trigger when a sweet, melodious voice filled the silence of the woods. It took me a second to realize it was coming from her, and I froze, something which had never happened before.
She was singing. I remembered hearing that song in a cartoon I’d watched as a child, but I very vividly remembered all the times my mother had sang it to me when I was a kid.
🎵For one so small, you seem so strong
My arms will hold you keep you safe and warm
This bond between us can’t be broken
I will be here don’t you cry.🎵
Growing up, my mother had practically sang that song to me every night before I sle-pt, even when I turned ten. It only ceased when she and my dad were brutally murdered by goons of the town’s mafia boss.
Hell, did she have a child? Why didn’t Mateo and Rita tell me that? I hadn’t anticipated on killing someone with a child.
I knew how it felt for your parents to be r!ppÂŁdout of your life and I’d sworn to never inflict that on a child unless the parent I was out to kill was also abusive or made their children unhappy.
But there was no one else around the woman. Maybe she was singing that song because she just felt like it. I was just about to take aim again when I stepped on a small tree br@nch.
It cracked with a loudly. The singing ceased. The woman spun around on the log she was sitting on, eyes filled with fear.
“Who is it? Is someb©dy there?” She asked.
I was hiding behind some thick bushes lined up beside a tree. It took her five seconds to sp©t me. This was just my perfect opportunity to raise my gun and shoot her.
She would die with the shock of not knowing why a stranger would want her dead.
Instead, I found myself tucking the gun behind the w@!stband of my p@n-ts, stepping out of the shadows.
. “Are you lost?” Her voice was rather calm.
“Uh… Yes, I think so. I’ve never been to these p@rts. I decided to take a stroll throu-gh the wood but I’ve been wandering for a while. Guess I am lost. I c@mÂŁ here because I heard you singing.”
Okay, why the heck was I lying?
“Oh.” She said simply, looking away with a sheepish expression that surprised me.
When she looked back at me, she was definitely blu-shing. “Hope you didn’t come here because you thought my voice was horrible.”
This was so uncharacteristic of a coldblooded murderer
“Quite the opposite.” I said. She had an enchanting voice and I couldn’t deny it. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew her from somewhere.
That was when I noticed the small bird on her l@ps. I stepped closer to the bonfire. “You’re going to have it for dinner?”
She wi-de-ned her eyes at me. “What? No. Not this poor thing. The rain beat him this evening and he’s going to die without warmth.”
“Why do you care about it so much?” I asked much sharply than I’d intended to.
I was getting irritated and I didn’t even know why. How could she care more about a bird than human being?
“I don’t know. I just do.” She answered quietly. Then suddenly, her face brightened at me. “You said you liked my voice. Should I sing for you again.”
Without waiting for a reply, she lasped into the rhythm of ‘my mother’s’ song. Something tugged at my heart and I stood transfixed.
What the hell was I doing? Why wasn’t I pu-lling out my gun and b!owing her head off? Normally, once I accepted a contract, I did the job without delay. I never even gave my victims the chance to beg for their lives.
So why was I hesitating on killing this woman?
After she was done singing, she looked at me as if expecting me to cl@p for her. When I didn’t, she cl@pped for herself excitedly.
“Have I told you you look familiar?” She asked after some awkward silence. Suddenly she placed the bird on a log of wood some distance away and got up.
Crossing over to where I stood, she stretched out her hand. “By the way, I’m Montserrat. Everyb©dy calls me Montse so you can too. What’s your name?”
Why did she seem so familiar? Furthermore, why the heck was she being so open with me?
As far as I knew, coldblooded killers were always closed of, more calculating of danger.
As much as I wanted to do the job quic-kly, I didn’t want to kill am innocent person.
Montserrat withdrew her hand, pouting. “You could’ve at least shaken my hand if you didn’t want to tell me your name. That reminded me so much of someone.”
Then her eyes narrowed at me. Like she was forcing herself to remember where she knew me from. All of a sudden, her eyes wi-de-ned with recognition.
“You’re the guy who never said thank you! Mikhail!”
“What?” I asked, confused by her reference. “What are you talking about?”
“You don’t remember me? Montse, St. Patricio, History clas-s?” She c0cked her head forward, brows wriggling excitedly
It hit me then why she’d seemed so familiar. The two of us had attended the same high school.
We’d even once been made p@rtners for a full semester in the history clas-s we’d shared.
Even back then, she’d been extremely boisterous and so irritatingly pushy that I’d made sure to avoid her as much as I could.
In times it’d been strictly necessary for us to meet to do a project work together, I’d made sure sure to keep the meetings as brief as possible.
“You?” A heaviness that I couldn’t explain settled in my che-st.
“You remember me finally? Thank God.” She made a dramatic show of placing her hand on her heart, then she was jumping up and down suddenly. “I can’t believe it’s you. You never really did grow any tall.”
I grimaced at the teasing note in her voice. I’d always hated it when people tea-sed me for my size. Thank God the two of us were of the same height.
Her smile faltered. “I mean, of course you did grow taller than you were in High school. Just not that… Never mind. Me and my big mouth. Anyways, I’m so happy to see you history p@rtner!”
The next thing I knew, she’d thrown herself at me in a hvg I hadn’t foreseen. Despite how brief the hvg was, I swear that it sÂŁnt jo-lts of electrifying s-en-sations from my che-st down to my very toes.
I stood frozen even after she’d pu-ll-ed back, her megawatt smile was still on her face. “I did get your name correct, right? You know why I called you the boy who never said thank you?”
How could I forget? A girl back in high school had been ma-king a lot of advances towards me but I’d rejected her several times.
Then she decided to take revenge after I’d pushed her to the floor one day by accusing me of trying to f0rç£ myself on her in the ladies urinal to the school authorities.
Montserrat had stood up for me and defended me even though the girl had been one of her closest friends. Thanks to her, I’d been saved from getting dismissed, or worse still, arrested.
Never having been high on sÂŁntiments, whenever I’d wanted to say thank you, it’d felt like I was wringing it out of myself, so I decided not to say it altogether.
Suddenly, it hit me ha-rd . This woman was innocent. There was no way she was guilty of the things she was being accused of.
I felt so angry. Mateo and his mother had attem-pted to make me kill an innocent woman despite all the warnings I’d given them.
“Hey, are you okay?” Montserrat’s voice drew me out of my mental rage. She raised her hand to t©uçh me, but I turned away immediately.
“I nee-d to leave.”
“At least say goodbye.” She called after me when I began walking away. “Didn’t you say you were lost? At least let me esc-rt you so that you can find the way easier! Ugh, block of granite!”
That was the last thing I heard her say as I hurried away impatiently.
Locating the site where I’d parked my motorcycle, I quic-kly mounted it. I was furious and I was probably gonna beat the hell out of Mateo when I saw him.
I’d done some digging to find out where Mateo and his mother lived, and I rode straight to their mansion. I c@mÂŁ to a st©p in front of a security guard standing before the gate.
“Who are you?” His eyes scanned me curiously but his stance told me he was re-ady in case this was an attack.
“I nee-d to see the Valdezes.” I replied cooly.
“That wasn’t my question. Who are you? I nee-d to know before I can…”
The bu-tt of my gun c@mÂŁ down on his head. He let out a confused sound before his eyes closed and he fell to the ground, unconscious.
No time for time wasters.
Putting my gun back inside my jacket, I stepped across the guard’s b©dy and entered the house. The building had a stunning exterior.
That was my first thought, but at this moment, I had zero time to take in everything. I broke down the door of the main building and surged inside.
Mateo and his mother were sitting at the dining table with a woman who looked to be a maid clearing their plates and leaving after that.
They both looked up as I approached before Mateo gave his mother an I told you so smile. He then stood up to meet me halfway.
“Dude, I knew you were as efficient as they said.” He raised his hand to clasp mine.
Acting like I wanted to shake his hand too, I twisted his arm behind his back, ma-king sure I twisted it enough that his hand t©uçhed the left scapula of his back. He screamed in instant shock and pain.
“What are you doing?” His mother demanded sounding startled. “Let go of my son this instant!”
That only made me twist the arm more callously, causing Mateo to scream louder. I brou-ght myl-ips to his ear and ground out, “You fv¢king lied to me. You fv¢king tried to make me kill an innocent woman.”
“What the heck are you talking about, man? I. . . ahh…” He screamed as I added some more twist. “fv¢king $h!t that hurts. Ahh…”
“This deal is off.” I muttered throu-gh gritted teeth still at his ear. “And don’t you even dare think of asking for your money back.”
When I spoke again, I made sure I was looking his mother in the eyes. “I don’t know what your problem is with her or why you want her dead, but she’s innocent. If I find out that you’ve hurt even a single hair on her head, I’m going to chop your d!¢k and shove it up your as-s.”
I finally let go of his arm, pushing him away and watching him fall to the floor. He l@ythere pathetically gro-an ing, unable to move his arm due to his dislocated shoulder.
His mother looked at me as if to hurl every insult in the world at me but a dark look made her shut her mouth.
I left without a single word more
Those fv¢kers better not dare defy me
Tbc