Page 114 of Love is Angry

Noelle is already on the floor.

I’m numb and staring.

There’s so much blood.

A whistling sound makes my ears twitch. A second shot. Only now does the window behind Sibel shatter, as the bullet comes through. It destroys her heart and obliterates the glass of water on the table, then lodges into the wall, mere inches below the first one.

“Get down!” Noelle shrieks.

Sibel’s head hits the table. She’s gone. The crimson pool spreads across the fine wood and drips onto the carpet, soaking into the Turkish fabric. A third shot rings clear, and I drop out of my chair. Sweat trickles down my face, the adrenalin rush turning everything into a slow-motion sequence of which little can be made out. I’m frozen to the spot. My mind blocked.

Someone shot at us.

Someone killed Sibel Osman.

“Oh, god,” I hear myself whisper upon noticing her limp legs inches from my face. Noelle isn’t moving. Her eyes are wide. She’s hyper-alert, I think. Or worse, in shock.

I manage to move away from the table, crawling on all fours until I reach the hallway. The only window here is a narrow frosted one by the front door—not good enough for a sniper.

I get up and look through the visor first. There’s movement out in the street. Someone running. Suddenly, as if possessed by some kind of invisible force, I feel my hand on the doorknob, twisting. Next thing I know, I’m out in the street.

A black sedan screeches away. Black smoke rolls in its wake.

Black trails on the asphalt. No license plates.

“What the… fuck…”

I can’t see the driver. But no one’s coming out of their homes. None of the neighbors heard the shots, then. Hell, I didn’t even hear the shots. Whoever did this must’ve used one hell of a silencer.

The lady walking her terriers is coming back, and she’s got a concerned look on her face. “Someone break a window?” she asks.

What the fuck do I tell her?

Noelle comes out, shaken and pale. “It’s all right, ma’am, just a stray baseball.”

The woman doesn’t think twice as she continues her walk, terriers nervously yipping and sniffing along the sidewalk. They’re like tiny horses pulling a rather decrepit but nicely dressed human carriage. My stomach turns. I head straight for the rose bushes by the front steps and retch. I’ve got nothing to puke to begin with, yet I heave and groan and spit.

“Rhue—this is way out of our league now. You know that, right?” Noelle asks the most obvious question in the world.

I’d like nothing more than to shake her for making us come here again—but who am I kidding? I was gonna follow up with Sibel, too. This is on the both of us. Had we stayed away, maybe Sibel would still be alive. My heart hurts. It was her heart that was literally shattered, yet mine feels it all.

“He had her killed.”

“We don’t know that, Rhue. But if he did—and if he has Madison—oh god, poor Jerry. We have to involve the police, now. At least where Sibel is concerned. We can’t let just anyone find her in there.”

I hear what Noelle is saying, but my brain is glitching badly. In my mind, there’s an image of Madison sitting at that table. Of Madison getting shot in the throat. Of Madison’s blood gushing and splattering all over. Her limp legs next to my face.

The clock is ticking, and one of my key witnesses is dead.

He’s not making this easy, but I’ll be damned if I’ll stop.

Chapter 49

Madison

Fear lurks in the back of my head like an autumnal fever, a flu trying to breach through my body’s natural defenses. If I surrender, it will take me, and it will end me.

This sense of doom won’t stop bothering me. The clock is ticking, and I don’t know what reasons I could possibly give to stop him from killing me.