AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It seems you two already know I am, so why bother starting your questions there? Cut to the chase and save us some time.”
The man before me chuckled, a dark sound. “I can do that. We’re looking for someone, someone you might’ve seen.” Behind him, his buddy lifted up his shirt, and I saw a quick flash of something silver.
Oh, bringing a gun into my house? I did not appreciate that at all, but I hid my displeasure, waiting for these two to cut to the chase so we could move on with our lives—mainly them, because I could feel my generosity diminishing by the second.
“Three of our guys were killed not too long ago,” he went on. “Nasty business, that. Right in a church, too. They might’ve been getting their hands a little dirty, but don’t we all?” His dark eyes twinkled as he spoke. “Now, I know you probably don’t know this here, since you got your own gangs running the city, but we run with Atlas, and those men that were killed? They were brothers to us. We don’t take brothers being slain lightly.”
“You still haven’t quite gotten to the point,” I muttered, frowning.
He smirked, flashing his teeth. White, but a little crooked. “After some digging, we got a witness. Says they saw a girl leaving the church with blood on her hands. A pretty girl. Young. Blond. With hair to about here.” He lifted his hand and touched where the girl’s hair supposedly ended. “They said she was a regular at the church, and I want to know if you’ve seen anyone like that here.”
These two radiated danger, and the more the one man talked, the more I knew. They were dangerous, and not the controlled type of dangerous that could be ignored. “What makes you think she would be here? Where exactly did this… crime happen?”
“That’s none of your fucking business, is it?”
“If you’re here, that means you’ve found her—or you think you have. You just want to be sure.” I shifted my gaze to the other man, the one keeping back… the one who looked quite itchy to reach for the gun tucked away in the waistband of his jeans.
“Maybe,” the one in front of me said. “But the boss doesn’t take kindly to failure. We can’t bring him every pretty blond girl’s head on a plate, can we?” A sick, twisted chuckle left him. “Well, I guess we could—”
“Normally,” I cut in, taking a step nearer to the man, my face now inches from his, “this is when I would tell you to get out of my church, but I think we both know what must happen here, now.” I stared into his dark eyes.
Never before had there been a deadlier stare-down.
“So she is here, then,” he muttered, making a mistake by glancing over his shoulder at his buddy. “Contact Atlas, tell him we’ll have her by nightfall. She might be some kind of weird criminal royalty, but that don’t mean any—” He didn’t get the chance to say the rest of that sentence, because I’d grabbed him by the neck and spun him around, using his body as a shield.
The other man reacted instantly, drawing out his gun and pointing it at me, the safety already off. The one I had pinned to my body couldn’t move much; I’d grabbed hold of his other hand, bending it backward. Not hard enough to break it, but hard enough to be vastly uncomfortable. I let go of his neck, fumbling around his pants until I felt the imprint of a gun, which I then snatched out for myself.
“You come into my church with these disgusting things,” I hissed, taking the silver pistol—a pretty enough weapon, heavy, so I knew the gun was locked and loaded, as full as it could be—and leaning it against the guy’s head. “And demand answers from me? Shoot me, then. Kill me.”
The guy holding the gun didn’t move an inch, didn’t pull the trigger. He only stared at me, his mouth pursed into an ugly frown. “Let him go, you asshole.”
“No,” I growled out, and unlike the other man, I was not afraid to pull the trigger. My finger tightened on it, and then a loud bang erupted just before my face. The guy I held onto was shorter than me, his head level with my upper chest and neck. The bullet was loud, the sound of the metal blasting through his skull and brain matter gooey and sharp.A ringing noise pierced my ears after that, but I didn’t let it stop me.
I didn’t hesitate to move the smoking gun away from the blasted head of the man I still held onto, aiming it at the other guy’s hand. Before he could shoot me for killing his friend, I pulled the trigger again, hitting his fingers and causing him to cry out in pain and simultaneously drop the gun. It clattered to the floor.
Letting go of the dead one, his corpse slumped to the floor, his head absolutely destroyed. Nothing but a blasted skull and brain matter, some of which had exploded onto me. My clothes, my face. My ears still rang a bit, but I was beginning to hear again. I could still hear the other man’s shouting, asking me why I’d shot his fingers off.
I was aiming for the gun. My aim’s not perfect.
Moving to him, I kicked the gun away, too far out of his reach. He tried to get up, but I set a foot on his chest, keeping him on the floor. It would seem he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to stare up at me with hate in his gaze or look at the crumpled body of his friend in shocked horror.
“That’s the thing about guns, I’ve found,” I said, waving the silver piece above him. “Most of the time, they’re used for intimidation. To instill fear. To force people in line, even if you have no plans on using them. I don’t like guns. I never have. I hate using them.” I knelt over him, putting more pressure onto his chest, causing him to wheeze. “And look at what you made me do.” With my free hand, I touched my cheek, smearing the blood on it.
My fingers came back with bright red smeared all over them, a stark contrast to my skin.
I looked back at the man, gave him a frown. His hand was bleeding massively, although it was nothing like the blood that had come from the other man’s blasted skull. “I told you this was my house,” I whispered. “Now you’re mine, too.” I lifted the gun, ignoring his whimpering, his pleading, and his swearing.
Oh, he’d get me, according to him. Even if I killed him, he’d get me. Or his boss would, that Atlas fellow. Over and over he kept assuring me of that fact.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered, you see, because in the next moment, I spun the pistol around and smacked the butt end of it across the man’s temple so hard it knocked him out cold. Once he was passed out, once I was sure I would have no other surprises, I got off him.
Straightening my back, I examined the mess these two had made, and then I heaved a sigh. I had some cleaning up to do before I could reopen the church. Although… perhaps after cleaning up, there was one stop I had to make.
It wasn’t hard to find their address. I called Atticus Jameson and asked where Miguel Santos and his daughter were staying, and to my surprise, Miguel had bought a newly-built home right here in Cypress, like he thought he already had the soon-to-be-vacated Black Hand position. Men like him were so overconfident it was ridiculous.
Atticus didn’t ask why I needed to see them, but I did mention that Giselle had left something at the church the last time she’d stopped by to tell me her sins. Yes, I might’ve lied, but add that to my sins for the day. They added up quite easily and quickly as the hours wore on.
After I made sure the church was presentable to the public—and after I’d showered and changed, got rid of the vestments that had gotten splattered with blood and brains, I headed over. I did not know whether to expect just Giselle, or if I’d have to go through Miguel to get to her.
