Echo

by E. K. Blair

  “Who says I failed? You’re stuck down here with me too. You’re not free.”

  “I will be.”

  I can’t contain my chuckle, and when it grows, Richard fumes, “What’s so funny?”

  “You.”

  “Do tell.”

  “You’re so focused on yourself, that you’re shadowing the fact that, in a very twisted way, I won.”

  He cocks back the hammer of his gun, the snick of the metal sounding when he does, and then points it straight at me, but he doesn’t intimidate me.

  “Don’t you see?” I say in total control. “I want you to pull that trigger. So no matter what you do, I win.” I take a hard swallow before going on, telling him, “It was you. You’re right, I did get myself tangled up in something that was much bigger than me, but the root of everything, which I thought was Bennett, is actually you. And because of my stupid scheme, your family is now tainted in Bennett’s blood through your son, your whole cartel is falling apart, and your freedom depends on the money of a man who’d rather see me dead than alive.”

  His eyes narrow in a murderous glare, but I don’t stop, adding, “And if you think you have him fooled by threatening to know about his involvement with Bennett’s murder, you’re wrong. If anyone is to be pegged for that crime, it’s you, the leader of one of the largest international gun trafficking rings, using Bennett as your cover.”

  Richard pulls the gun away from my face, but doesn’t disengage the hammer.

  “You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?” he taunts. “You think you have me played, telling me you want to die to take the pleasure away from me? You say I can’t hurt you, but I think you’re lying.”

  “Kill me or don’t kill me, I don’t care.”

  “I think you do.”

  I then wrap my hands around the barrel and place it back on my forehead, stating firmly, “I don’t.”

  Agitation streaks in the lines of his face now that I’ve taken his bargaining chip away from him. He gains nothing from killing me, not even joy because he knows I won’t beg for my life.

  Richard drags the gun down my face, along the bridge of my nose, over my lips, and then slips it into my mouth.

  I knew my sanctuary would be in death, and I was ready to be released into the oasis I’d been longing for. But even though I was ready, it didn’t mask the fear of having a loaded gun with the hammer cocked inside my mouth. One slip and that chambered bullet would fire. I can still taste the steel of his pistol on my tongue if I think about it hard enough. Can still feel the way my heart ricocheted off my ribs. I had been close to death before, but it was always in my control. Not this time. This time I was on Richard’s watch. He would say when. He would be my executioner.

  I remembered hearing the voices—my ballasts. Daddy, Pike, and even Carnegie, they were there with me while I rested on death’s lips, waiting for its kiss. Their words of courage to guide me from evil sang in my head like a melody of deliverance, but it wouldn’t be enough, and I was about to find out why.

  Richard uses the gun to guide me down on my back while he pushes it into my mouth. With his free hand, he rips the buttons to my pants open, demanding, “Take them off. You’re not going to rob me from feeling gratified.”

  Idiot.

  He’s stupid to think that he can degrade me for his pleasure by fucking me. I do as he instructs, kicking off my pants while he fumbles with his own. I don’t offer any fight when he shoves his pants down just far enough to pull out his dick. Nudging my legs open, he sits on his knees while holding himself in his hand and slapping it against my pussy a few times.

  “Hands under your ass,” he tells me, and I lift my hips to place them beneath me. “Time to even the score.”

  This man’s pride is fucked up, to be concerned about getting even with his wife in this moment. My body slacks when he slams inside of me. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of tensing up. I keep my eyes focused on the pistol in my mouth as the metal rattles against my teeth while he violently pounds into me. He braces all his weight on his one bent elbow, grunting with each thrust. My tits hang out of my ripped clothes, jiggling while he fucks me with barbaric force.

  This is my life.

  This is all it’s ever been.

  Light turns dark as my eyes close, silently begging for him to release me to my paradise.

  From across the room, I hear my cell ring, and my heart jolts alive.

  He’s calling.

  My eyes pop open when the thought flashes quickly that maybe Richard was lying about Declan. My body jerks the moment the phone goes off, startling Richard in that exact moment, and everything happens in a lightning fast haze when he falters, losing his balance.

  The instant the gun slips from my mouth, Pike shouts urgently, “Elizabeth, FIGHT!” and without thinking how or why, I automatically react.

  Willing my strength, I drive my elbow into his arm, knocking the gun out of his grip. Adrenaline pumps through my system when the gun goes off, firing a bullet into the concrete wall as it skitters across the ground. The blast is deafening, but somehow I’m able to flip onto my stomach, scrambling as fast as I can. I sling my arm out to grab the gun when he locks his hand around my ankle and yanks me back.

  My fingertips skim the pistol as I’m being pulled away, and the commotion is a total blur. Ripping out an excruciatingly demented scream, I fight with everything I have in me when I twist around and lurch my shoulders off the ground. With his pants still down, I dig my hands into his thighs, and with all the force in me, bite the ever-living-shit out of his dick, snarling like a wild beast as I do, and his voice erupts in pure acid.

  “FUUUUUCK!”

  Flesh pops in my mouth as my teeth cut straight through the elasticity of skin and sink into tissue, spurting blood everywhere. I feel the thick heat of it splattering on my face and coating my lips and chin. His screams are deadly as his body falls to the ground, and I jump to my feet, charging for the gun. The moment my hand wraps around the pistol, I turn, aiming it at his head, and scream like a maniac as my body detonates every emotion imaginable, but none of them make sense as they shake me to the bone.

  LACHLAN AND I located the rental car a while ago with no traces of where they could be. We’re wasting delicate time wandering around the usually busy streets of downtown, but it’s the middle of the night, and Lachlan and I are the only ones lurking around.

  “This is fucking useless,” I gripe in frustration. “Every business is closed and locked up. They could be anywhere.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Huffing out an angry breath, I let my head fall back as I look up into the dark of night. We’ve been scouring these streets for hours, and nothing. For all I know, this car could’ve been ditched for another and they could already be in another country.

  Lifting my head, I turn to look down the narrow close that’s to my right. There are so many of these alleyways in the city, and we’ve been walking through them all night it seems.

  I’m plagued with an unsettling sense of doom that I’ll never find her. The thought grabs ahold of me, twisting my gut as I think about not being able to see her face again or hear her say my name in her sweet American accent. I can’t stand the thought of her never knowing the truth of my heart. She deserves to have the peace of knowing that I still care about her. After everything she’s been through, and even after all the corruption within her, she still deserves to know.

  Pulling out my cell, I begin to walk again and decide to call her phone once more. I dial the number, and after the first ring, I startle when I hear a loud crack that splits the night.

  “You hear that?” I ask Lachlan, the words flying out of my mouth.

  His eyes are wide, alarmed, saying, “That was a gunshot.”

  Grabbing my gun from its holster, I fly down the steps of the alley, because that sounded like it came from beneath me. My body surges in a rush of power as I go into overdrive.

  “McKinnon!”

  Da
rting down the stairs, I don’t stop as I shout over my shoulder, “Keep a lookout!”

  A man’s torturous screaming fuels me, and I follow the echoes into the underground vaults. My heart has never raced so fast when a woman’s screams filter in through the man’s. With my gun in my hand, I run as fast as my legs will move through the narrow passageways. In an instant, I kick through a door to find a scene so disturbing, my gun immediately finds it target.

  Their screams bounce off the cement of the small vault, piercing my ears. I’m horrified as my eyes flick back and forth between the two of them while my mind tries to grasp what’s in front of me.

  A man I don’t recognize is crumpled on the floor, his face utterly pale as he begins choking on his breath. His pants are down, and his lap is covered in blood, and when I look over to see Elizabeth, I turn sick. She stands there naked with only a cut up shirt and bra hanging off her arms. Her mouth is covered in blood, and when I jerk my head back to the guy, I realize that the blood on her is from that bastard’s dick.

  Cries slice through her screams as her whole body shakes while she steps towards the man with her arm outstretched, holding a pistol.

  “Elizabeth, no!” I shout when she rams the muzzle of the gun into his forehead and keeps it there.

  She doesn’t respond to me in any way as she stares down at the man.

  “Don’t pull the trigger!” I order, my words coming out fast while I have my own gun aimed at the man.

  Her screams are replaced by staggering breaths hissing through her teeth, and I know that any second, she’s going to murder him.

  “Elizabeth, look at me,” I urge. “Don’t kill him.”

  “Why?” she seethes.

  “Because you already know it’s not going to make you feel better.”

  “You MOTHERFUCKER!” she screams hysterically at him like a crazed animal.

  I take a couple steps closer to her, but she snaps, “Stay away from me!”

  “Please,” I beg. “No more killing.”

  “If not for me, then I’ll do it for you,” she says cryptically. “Consider this a gift.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She cocks the hammer back before finally looking over at me, and says, “He’s the one that killed your mother.”

  Looking over to him, I pull back the slide on my gun to chamber a round; the metallic click is all I hear in this moment. I can feel the beast inside, digging his claws into the most wounded parts of me. It takes control of me, and without hesitation or question, I squeeze the trigger and put a bullet in his head.

  I can’t look away from him as blood sprays and chunks of his head fling across the room. His body tips over, still as death takes him instantly, dark blood draining from his mouth.

  Elizabeth continues to aim her gun at him, trembling in shock with wide eyes, and I move cautiously over to her. Not taking a moment to process what I just did, my concern goes straight to the distraught girl in front of me.

  When I reach out, she snaps, “Don’t touch me!” and I immediately recant.

  “Let me have the gun.”

  “No.”

  “He’s dead,” I tell her, but she doesn’t respond as she keeps her gun pointed at him. “Look at me.”

  “No.”

  Her body is battered beyond belief as I scan over her. Added to her self-inflicted bruises is a nasty wound on her cheek covered in crusted blood, swollen contusions on her face, and a black eye. She’s not only covered in her own blood, but also the blood from the man who lies dead at her feet.

  Her breathing is rigid as I watch her, and eventually, she drops her arms and allows me to take the gun from her hand before falling to her knees. I release the hammer and set the gun down along with my own. As I start unbuttoning my shirt, I kneel down next to her and drape it over her back to cover her up. She keeps her chin tucked down, and I noticed her slashed wrists covered in blood when I take her hand in mine.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  She remains silent as I sit with her. I want to do so much, but all I can manage is to simply observe. Her once-beautiful red hair is dirty, matted in blood. She’s a fraction of herself, and I find it painful to look at, but I look anyway. And as sick as it sounds, I’ve never felt more bonded to her than I do now. Both of us exposed for the evil we are. Killers with mangled souls. No longer can I blame her for my sins because I just murdered of my own free will without her persuasion or seduction. She may have birthed this malignity inside of me, but I’m the one who now embraces it.

  “He killed your mom,” she says again, and I can barely hear her faint voice when she adds, “He’s the reason my dad is dead too.”

  “Who is he?” I ask in utter confusion to this situation.

  “Richard Brooks. He was Bennett’s business partner,” she answers and then goes on to explain how our fathers worked for him and the hit he put out on her dad. I sit and listen to everything she tells me, the whole time keeping her eyes downcast, almost cowering as if she’s afraid of me. But it’s when she says, “Cal is in jail,” that her eyes finally lift to mine.

  “Did Bennett know?”

  “No. He thought he was running an honest business. Richard and Cal used him.”

  Every muscle in my body in tensed up because I know at any minute, I’m liable to break completely. As I ask questions to piece the puzzle together, my heart and mind remain with my mum. The fucker’s blood that killed her at point blank pools under my loafers, and I have to swallow down the bile that threatens. I have to get out of here.

  “Come on,” I say, urging her to stand. “Let’s go.”

  She coils away from me, pulling against my hold on her. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  She looks up at me, tears filling her eyes, blood smeared across her face, and says, “I can’t keep pretending that . . . that we . . . ”

  “Just come home.”

  “I don’t have a home.”

  Looking past the ugliness, deep into her eyes, into the depths of what’s hidden beneath, my heart beats a beat I’ve never felt before. It comforts all the fears and doubts I have about her and assures me that she’s where I belong.

  “I know life hasn’t been good to you, and I know you’ve lost a lot, but you haven’t lost everything,” I tell her. “I still want what I told you back in Chicago; I want to give you a home you can feel safe in. I want us to have a chance to make that happen.”

  “But . . . you hate me.”

  “You’re right,” I confirm. “I do hate you, but I love you and that’s not going away.”

  “Do you forgive me?”

  “No,” I answer, shaking my head.

  “Are you done punishing me?”

  “No.”

  She drops her head, and I immediately cup her cheeks, angling her back to me when I explain, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to get over this—if I’m ever going to get to the point where I don’t want to punish you for what you’ve done. But I need you to understand something; I need you to know that even though you may feel pain, I will never hurt you. I will do everything to give you what was taken from you. I’m going to make you feel safe, I promise you that. No one will ever lay a hand on you again.”

  She never allows the tears to fall as I watch her struggle against her emotions, and I know it’s a defense mechanism she uses to protect herself from pain, but she needs to feel it.

  “Stop fighting yourself,” I tell her as I hold her in my hands. “I want to see you cry. Don’t hide from me anymore.”

  “I’m not a person you should love.”

  “Neither am I, but you do, don’t you?”

  Nodding her head, she let’s go and weeps, “So much.”

  “And I love you,” I say and then gather her in my arms. I hold on to her, listening to her broken breaths before making my selfish request. “Cry, Elizabeth. I want to hear you cry and know that it’s for me.”

  She tucks her head into the crook of my neck
, and when I feel the wetness of her warm tears dripping onto my skin, I’m satisfied. She’s quiet in her sadness, and her release comforts me. I like knowing that she can hand it over to me and I’m the one getting to soothe her. I know she’s right in that fact that she shouldn’t be loved. Neither of us deserves it, but I can’t help myself when it comes to her. I’ve never been able to curb my addiction to her, even when I thought she was a married woman. I wanted her regardless, and I want her still.

  “McKinnon,” Lachlan’s voice hollers out.

  “In here,” I shout as I keep a tight hold on Elizabeth.

  When he eventually finds his way to us, his voice is disjointed as he takes in the scene before him, uttering, “Holy fuck.”

  “Tell me I can trust you,” I say to him, and without a second of hesitation, he responds loyally, “You can trust me.”

  “Call the police.”

  My arms remains locked around Elizabeth’s trembling body while she continues to silently weep, hiding her head against my chest. Without having to even ask, Lachlan hands me her pants before turning around to make the call.

  It doesn’t take long for the authorities to arrive. Elizabeth plays her part as Nina, explaining her husband’s murder and the crimes that Richard was conducting through Bennett’s company. We twist the story, informing them that Richard murdered Bennett after he’d discovered the money laundering. It takes a while to give our statements that clear me of any involvement in the murder I committed.

  The medics offer to take Elizabeth to the hospital, but she refuses, fervent that nobody touches her. Before we go, the detective advises us that we may be called in for additional questioning. He hands us his card with his contact information and we leave.

  Arriving at the SUV, we climb into the backseat and I pull her onto my lap, cradling her back in my arms.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” I try assuring her, confident that we both just got away with our crimes.

  She draws back from me, and I can tell she wants to speak, but she doesn’t. She simply stares at me, and I’m able to look beyond the blood, dirt, bruises, cuts, and tears to see what I fell in love with when I first saw her in my hotel back in the States. I’ll never forget how beautiful she looked at the grand opening of Lotus, standing across the room in a long, midnight-blue gown. She was confident, snarky, and so sure of herself, and in this very moment, I vow to give all those qualities back to her.