Page 5 of Till Death Do Us Part

I walked away. Back around the corner and up the hill to my apartment block, my body sagging from tiredness as I got to the front doors of the complex, at least until I heard a small, pitiful sound from the side of the complex.

A cat. A kitten. It sounded hurt.

I didn’t have the time or the energy for this… not one more thing on top of everything else. But I couldn’t help myself, hearing that sound. Just to make sure nothing was wrong, I turned away from the door, and I walked around the corner, peering through the fence. The dumpster. Pitch-black this time of night, shielded from view.

And there, in the corner, a small, white kitten, its fur all matted and dirty, tangled in a piece of plastic packaging and string from a trash bag somebody had thrown on the ground instead of into the dumpster. It mewled pitifully, struggling to break free, and my heart broke.

“Hey. Easy.” I whispered as I walked closer, kneeling in front of the kitten, and I put my arm out for it to show I was nonthreatening. It sniffed me, mewling more loudly, clearly scared and panicked, and I whispered more soft things as I worked carefully to free it.

And just when I got the packaging away and freed the kitten’s back half, I heard footsteps behind me. I glanced back over my shoulder, and panic dropped in my gut when I saw them.

Three masked men, fanned out to block every exit.

“Relax,” the one in the middle said. “We’re just here to… take a look at something in the area. Just close your eyes and pretend you never saw us.”

He moved his hand slowly to his hip as he spoke, and in the low light of a streetlamp on the other side of the fence, I saw the gunmetal gleam of cold steel.

Chapter 2

vera

Whitecliff assassins. Dammit. How did they already know about Elaine?

They tried to cover their faces, dress in plainclothes, but I could sense Whitecliff stench anywhere. It was the way they walked, how they held themselves. They thought they ran Merona, the whole city.

They were about to learn who did.

I saw them from across the lot as I drove in, three of them, cornering the target I recognized as Elaine, one of them reaching for his gun.

Plenty of people lately who thought a gun could solve all their problems. Plenty of people about to learn one last, very memorable lesson.

Call me an educator.

There wasn’t a second to lose. I slammed down on the gas, whipping the car around with a screech behind them, and they whirled back on me, reaching for their sidearms. The man in the middle pulled his when he saw me throw open the car door, and normally I’d take cover, but I couldn’t afford the risk of a gunshot drawing attention right now, so I gambled. Threw open the door and dropped out to the ground, and I threw a knife that lanced straight through his hand, sending the gun to the ground as he roared in pain.

The other two pulled their guns as well, lunging forward, but I preferred not to kill people if I didn’t have to. Bad form. I lunged to the side, throwing a decoy grenade into the midst of them, and when they leaped back for cover, I vaulted over the fence to drop down on one of them, wrenching the gun from his hand and slamming him headfirst into the asphalt. He groaned, going mostly still, and I slipped behind the dumpster and around to grab Elaine from behind, a hand over her mouth. She struggled, but I pulled her behind the dumpster with me as the other two went searching for me once they realized the grenade was a fake.

“Wait,” Elaine said, muffled into my hand. “The cat!”

“The—” There was a fluffy little white kitten in the trash pile. Fuck’s sake. The Whitecliffs had probably planted it there to distract her. “Cat’s fine.”

“No!”

“Do you want to get shot?”

“But…”

This girl was already a handful. “Fine,” I said. “Climb the fence and stay there.”

I hoisted her over the fence behind the dumpster, and I turned back just in time to see another masked man turn the corner, his gun out. I lunged in and grabbed it from his hands, wrenching it away while he tried to pull the trigger, hard enough I heard the crack of his finger bone breaking, and I slammed his head back into the side of the dumpster, throwing him to the floor with a dazed look in his eyes.

I grabbed the cat, and fuck it, they had nine lives. I threw it over the fence in the direction I’d sent Elaine, but it took me a split-second too long. The guy whose hand I’d stabbed leaped out from around the dumpster, lunging in with the very same knife I’d thrown at him, and it nicked my arm before I managed to grab his arm and twist it back, breaking his elbow and throwing him back into the dumpster hard enough he pitched over the edge and fell in, the lid closing behind him. Fitting.

I winced as I hoisted myself over the fence, the cut on my arm stinging. Mission was fucked up even before I’d arrived. I’d need a very long night with a very attractive woman once this thing was settled. For better or worse, that was my coping mechanism—had never been one for wild drugs and alcohol. Just women. The most dangerous of the three.

And a very dangerous woman was here waiting for me on the other side of the fence, her face flushed as she finished pulling the kitten out of the tangled wrappings.

She was a very pretty one. Shame. Hated killing beautiful women.