The Killer’s Vow by Aria R. Blue
Simon
Iwatch her sleep as I drive.
Her long lashes rest on her smooth cheeks. Her lips and jaw are soft. There’s no tension on her face whatsoever.
She looks so at peace with life.
Her dog is back in her arms, and we’re back on the road again.
I have one last task to carry out in Mexico.
Vera thinks that finding Milo will give us more answers, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’re looking in all the wrong places.
We’re missing some other piece of information.
Not where Inessa went.
But why she left.
I park in front of the small red house in the middle of the desert. The place where Oscar, the man who took us to the Rivera family, lives.
My sources informed me that this is where he’s staying tonight since it’s not comfortable to travel through the desert at nighttime.
Looking back at Vera one last time, I step out of the car and head toward the trunk.
And I go through my routine.
Gloves on my hands.
My hair and face covered.
The black bulletproof vest.
And…the weapons.
My hand reaches out to pick the perfect gun for this job, but it feels like I’m watching someone else do it.
There was a time when I used to enjoy the moments that led up to the kill.
But now that I learned what contentment is really like, everything else from my past life holds no allure.
I check the slide and make sure the magazine is full.
And then I move toward the house.
The only part of the plan I’m unsure about is leaving Vera inside the car. But even though it’s a shit car, it’s armored. She’ll be protected as long as it’s locked.
I parked a few feet away from the house to avoid suspicion.
The faster I get this over with, the better.
I hug the walls of the house as I move, becoming one with the night. To camouflage myself, all I need to do is have the intention.
I surrender to the environment and let it accept me.
Jumping over the walls and getting into the house is the easy part. My hackers have already disabled his complex security system. I cut through the glass window without making a sound.
But once I’m actually inside the house, my heart starts to beat a little too hard.
The murals on the walls. The mangos on the table.
All of it feels wrong.
Compassion.
Love.
Humanity.
These are things I learned from Vera.
She does it so effortlessly. She’s ruthless when it comes to those who wronged her, but somehow, she still has so much love left in her heart.
Oscar is sleeping on the couch.
I could press the trigger right now. He’d die before he felt any pain.
I’d get the job done.
For whatever reason, this is the man Vlad wants killed. This is the price I pay for him tipping me off about Rebekah being on our trail. I promised him that I’d accept one more assignment in return, and he called in on his favor now.
Oscar is no innocent.
He’s part of the Rivera cartel. They wreck families and economies, all in the name of their family business.
I raise the gun and press the muzzle against his forehead.
He must be a light sleeper because his eyes fly open.
Almost like he’d been expecting me.
“Hijo de su puta madre,” he curses in Spanish. ‘Son of a bitch.’
“I should kill you just for insulting my mother,” I say, pressing the muzzle deeper into his forehead.
He knows better than to fight me.
“You,” he says, finally recognizing my voice. “You had lunch at my house.”
“I know,” I say. “It was delicious. Thanks for that.”
“Tell me what you want,” he says. “Money? Guns? Women?”
“I have everything I need,” I exhale. But I still don’t press the trigger.
Another voice sounds from the doorway. “Simon?”
I don’t take my eyes off my target.
My troubled heart pounds, but I know better than to get distracted.
She unlocks the door through the hole in the glass window. “Simon, what the hell are you doing here?”
Oscar seizes his opportunity. “I thought you two were inseparable. But she doesn’t know that you were about to kill me.”
“Simon, what the fuck?”
“Vera,” I say, grinding my teeth. “Get out of this house.”
“But—”
I point my gun at Oscar’s thigh and shoot, making him howl in agony.
“Now,” I say.
I can feel Vera’s eyes burning the back of my head.
And I realize my mistake too late.
I should have told her about my plans with Oscar. It wasn’t right to keep her in the dark.
But it’s too late now.
I shoot his other thigh and refuse to look at Vera.
“I don’t even know who you are anymore,” she whispers, walking away.
I point my gun at the man’s forehead.
The turmoil I feel in my heart should be enough to make me pull the trigger.
Instead, I find myself sharing the truth. “I’m a hitman for the Russian government. I’ve been given orders to kill you.”
“Güey, what are you saying?”
The sound of a car door being slammed shut pierces the quiet of the night.
“I’m saying that there are people who want you dead.”
“Crazy man, are you going to kill me or no?”
I lower my gun but make him hold my gaze. “Disappear for a few years. Tell nobody where you’re going. Leave all of your possessions as they are.”
“Qué?”
“Can you do that?”
He stares at my gun. He knows it means business. “So…you’re not going to kill me?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You’re making it very difficult to spare your life.”
“Okay, okay,” he says, holding his hands up and shifting on the couch.
He winces when he moves his legs. They’re not severe injuries, but I bet they hurt like a motherfucker.
I can tell by his face that he’s used to being shot at.
“Can you disappear?” I ask him.
“You’re so bad at your job,” he remarks. “I have two bullet holes in my legs now. All because of you. I don’t know if I will ever walk again.”
I sigh at his dramatic speech. “You’ll be fine in a week. But if they find out you’re alive, they’ll just send more people after you.”
“Why are you doing this? Is it to impress the girl? Because she likes me, and she won’t like you anymore if you kill me?”
Saving people sucks balls.
This is what I get for trying to be nice for once.
“You look like you want to kill me again,” Oscar frowns. “Okay, yeah. Fine. I’ll disappear.”
I search his face.
If he fucks this up, he’ll be ending both his life and my own.
Because it’s one thing for me to refuse to kill. And it’s a whole another thing to lie to the Bureau.
Ever since I got out of the Institute, being a hitman was my only identity.
It’s just who I was.
Who I became.
I was never anything else.
But as I turn away and head to the car, I know that I’m looking at my future.
It’s with Vera.
I want to take her back to the motherland, to that dacha from her childhood she loves so much. I want to shower her in diamonds and pearls, and make sure that she only wears the finest clothes.
But what she wants from me is not material things.
She demands things like love and trust.
She’s a complex person, but she has a simple heart. All it wants is to be able to lean on somebody.
Instead of going to the driver’s seat, I walk to her window.
“Hey.”
“Get inside the car, Simon,” she says, her eyes straight ahead.
“You look glorious when you’re angry,” I say, studying how every feature of her face stands out proudly when it’s angry.
Like it’s her natural state.
This is the same face I saw when I looked at her through my gun scope for the first time.
“He could try to shoot you,” she says.
“How do you know I spared his life?” I ask her.
“I didn’t hear another gunshot.”
“I could’ve used a silencer.”
“You didn’t for the first two shots. Why would you use one for the fatal shot when we’re in the middle of nowhere?”
Emotions other than anger swim in her eyes.
“He won’t shoot me, tigritsa moya. We made a deal.”
“I don’t care about your fucking deal.” She purses her lips and glances at the red house. Anything could be lurking in the shadows, but I know Oscar isn’t a stupid man. “Just get inside the car, Simon.”
“Tell me that you forgive me,” I say.
Her blue-gray eyes level with mine. “Don’t be a fucking child. I can say the words, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll mean it.”
I look at her and at the dog in her lap.
I didn’t even know about her existence last year. But somehow, she means everything to me now.
She goes toe-to-toe with me every step of the way.
She tests my patience and challenges every aspect of who I thought I was.
I walk back to the driver’s side and get inside the car. The silence between us is heavy.
She waits for me to speak first.
“I’m sorry,” I say, swallowing.
“What are you sorry about?”
“I’m sorry I tried to kill Oscar without telling you about it first.”
“Vlad gave you the orders?”
I nod. “I had his portfolio before we even came to Mexico.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when you got the portfolio?”
I shrug. “It wasn’t exactly something I was looking forward to.”
More than anything, I wanted to preserve the way she was so buoyant and carefree back in Florida.
I wanted to give her more of that.
She searches my face for something before looking away.
“You didn’t think I would be able to handle it,” she says. “That it would be too gruesome for a lady.”
That’s not what I thought at all, but I don’t correct her.
I haven’t told her that I quit taking orders from Vlad after I met her. She doesn’t know the only reason I had to kill Oscar was because I got crucial lifesaving information in exchange for a kill.
If I tell her the reason I kept the contract on Oscar a secret until now, I’ll have to tell her everything.
She turns toward the window. “Next time you want to do something crazy, run it by me first.”
“Vera.”
“What?”
My stomach is in knots. The way I spoke to her in Oscar’s house wasn’t right.
All of the little things I did wrong have added up.
And it feels like there’s no way for me to claw my way out. I don’t know what to do to make things right again.
“I shouldn’t have done what I did,” I say.
“No,” she says. “You shouldn’t have. Is he going to be okay?”
“It was barely a graze,” I say. “He’ll be fine.”
“Are they going to send more people after him like they did with me?”
“I told him to run. As long as he separates himself from his identity, he’ll be fine,” I say.
Of course, like most things, this is easier said than done. But you don’t get into the cartel business by picking only the easy options. Something tells me he’ll do what’s best for him.
“I’m hungry,” she announces after a beat. “Maya recommended this restaurant. She said it was in the area.”
I hand her my phone. “Type in the address?”
She takes it from me. Her soft hand grazes the inside of my palm.
It takes everything in me not to pull her in for a kiss.
Vera points at the road behind us. “Five point six miles north.”
She can’t even look me in my eyes anymore.