Page 7 of Her Vengeance

Chapter 9

404 Error: User Not Found

“Flames and fire sear my every nerve as I act simply on instinct.”

The sound of a gun going off plays over the speakers of my computer, startling me from my sleep. I scan all of the cameras quickly, stopping on the screen that should show me her room. It gives me nothing, and I cannot see them anywhere else in the apartment. I skip to the last images of the footage that I have of her falling asleep next to Eva. Clenching my teeth, I breathe through the irritation at sharing her and watch the video in fast forward until they wake up.

I see it then, the way she feels rejected is written all over her face as Eva tries to compose herself in a professional manner. The hurt is followed by tears, each one cuts me deeper than the last. I knew how much all of this was going to hurt her, but I didn’t know of any other options. In anger, I slam my fist downon the desk and watch in fast forward, trying to figure out why the camera is out. A split moment is all it takes to steal my breath from me.

Claire grabbed Eva’s gun.

SHE FUCKING GRABBED IT TO POINT IT AT HERSELF.

What. The. Fuck.

I can barely breathe as I watch Eva negotiate with her. Then the girls wrestle for the gun, and I swear I can feel the pressure in my head go up as the gun goes off and takes the camera out. I can’t tell if it hit her.

My heart is beating out of my chest as I am on the move. Running for my girl. She can hate me all that she wants, but I need to know that she is alive. Eva better have kept her alive.

I am coming, beautiful.

10

Chapter 10

Eva

“Sometimes a woman’s secret is all she has.”

“Fuck,” she utters as I have her secured on top of the bed, unsure what to do next. The person who hired me gave me an emergency point of contact in case anything went wrong. Do I text the number? Does this classify as things going wrong? Maybe… Yes… No. I can handle this, but fuck me. She whimpers again , causing me to table the idea of contacting whoever paid me and focus back on her.

“I know it may be uncomfortable, but it doesn’t hurt. If I wanted you to feel pain, I would have let you try to take your life,” I spat back at her, frustration leaking into my voice. Did we just blow the cover here? With this being a larger city, gunshots are not unheard of by its occupants. Is anyone going to come looking for where that sound came from? With a deep breath,I try to find my calm as I listen for activity in the complex around us. Focusing all of my energy on my ears, I don’t register anything.

“Why do you care if I live or die?” she asks in a petulant tone as she pulls against the bindings of her sheets on her wrists and ankles. I sigh, sitting next to her on the bed. What started as a contract has become so much more. I don’t even know how to frame the way that I feel. It’s too new to understand. Life and death can speed things up, but her file tells me that she means so much more to me than she will ever understand.

“It is my job to make sure that you survive all of this with as little physical damage as possible as part of my contract,” I tell her, leaving out the way that she makes me feel. Not everything needs to be laid bare when she is so emotionally raw. If I tell her that I have been keeping an eye on her just outside of the eye of her family since her dad died, she may have more questions than I have answers. I got the contract a week before everything went down, and was in transit and setting up locally when her brother’s wedding happened.

“So you care about the money. That figures. Just like everyone else,” she utters, rolling her eyes, annoyed. I feel my blood boil at the insinuation that this is all about money.

“You have no idea what I care about, so maybe instead of making assumptions, you can ask the question, princess.” I snap, feeling the fire hit my veins. She laughs, and it sounds dejected and broken.

“You have no idea what I’ve gone through, but I refuse to do a heart-to-heart while I am tied up like some sort of prisoner in life,” she throws the words at me. I sigh, wanting us to have this conversation but needing her to be safe. Pulling the gun out of my waistband, I remove the magazine and clear the chamber. Putting the magazine in one of my shorts pockets and the gun in the other. There will be a momentary delay in defending us,but given her persistence in wanting to use the gun on herself, I figure this is a happy medium. Then I untie her and offer her a hand to help her up. She sits up on her own while staring at my hand. Good girl. Self-sufficiency is required for long-term survival in our world.

“So tell me,” I encourage her as I get comfortable and ready to hear the stories that she is willing to tell. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“Where do I start?” she asks me and then raises her eyebrow. I take a moment to consider how to respond. There is no way that someone of my level does this without having a proper background check done, but I don’t want her to feel like I invaded her privacy.

“Why am I deciding?” I ask her, not sure what her plan is here, and maybe with an understanding, I can make a decision that won’t set her off so much.

“Because you have seen the background report of me and all those that I am attached to. I don’t know where to start,” she admits, her voice almost meek. I grab her hand, holding it, and give her a soft smile.

“Let’s start at the beginning, the first of the big traumas that you remember,” I instruct her softly and give her space to tell her story without additional pressure. There isn’t much that she can tell me that would surprise me. I have read her entire file. From losing her mom at a young age to the violence that being part of the mafia brings, to her recently loosing her father from the same. From everything that I was able to dig up, she was in love with her brother’s best friend who died in the same battle that took her dad.

“I am the reason that my mom died when I was a kid,” she utters, closing her eyes as we sit there in the dimly lit bedroom.

“Why do you feel responsible for that?” I ask, instead of dismissing her perspective. It’s important that I gain an understanding of why she has all of this guilt.

“The people who broke into our apartment used my life as leverage to make her cooperate. Then they raped and murdered her while I had to stand there watching the whole time. I didn’t want her to think that I would close my eyes and let her deal with this alone. Instead of begging for her own life, she spent her last breaths begging for mine,” she utters bitterly, and even though I know the men who did this may be dead, I want to bring them back to make they pay for what they put her through time and time again.