Page 34 of Targeted By Vengeance

She tried to fight the smile tugging at her lips, looking away as she ultimately lost the battle.

I followed behind Simone as we padded down the steps, our bags in my hands. While Simone went into the kitchen, I continued into the living room.

Maria was sitting on the couch with her laptop resting on her legs. She glanced up from the screen at the sound of my footsteps. Y’all done already? She signed.

Rolling my eyes, I walked around the couch and peeked over her shoulder. “Anything interesting about this new assignment?” I asked.

She shook her head. Corrupt white collar boss. Easy pickings.

“Hm,” I hummed, my eyes drifting to the doorway leading into the kitchen.

Maria plucked my bicep. Don’t get any bright ideas. It’s a rush job for a reason. The man’s become a mole for the cops, and his acquaintances need him dead before he leads them into a trap.

“If he squealed, then he’s harmless. She’s dealt with worse.”

Have you counted how many times she’s kicked your ass? I’m not worried about her handling herself. Maria’s lips fell into a stern frown. The instructions say to disguise it as a suicide. Are you sure she can pull that off?

Simone could do anything she put her mind to, I believed that. But, killing a man in cold blood? That was a whole different ball game. One I was still unsure she really wanted to play in.

But she’s been chomping at the bit for her chance to step in the field. It was finally time to give it to her.

THE AGENT

The last time I had knots in my stomach was my first field assignment. Like this one, it was a simple task: identify and apprehend a criminal hiding out in a bar. I remember wondering if I was really built to be an FBI agent - to carry the torch my father once held so fondly.

Now, as I stood in the shadows of a two star motel, I was practically back to square one. Only this time I wasn’t wondering if I could uphold the law, rather, I was wondering if I could break it.

We’d gone over the plan a million and one times on the plane ride back to the states and the road trip to Florida. Maria was going to distract the plainclothes cops watching the target’s room while I snuck inside and took care of him.

The most versatile option for the kill was strangulation with a rope. They chose leather to prevent any defense wounds appearing on the target’s hands. Once he was dead, I needed to string him up with the same rope to make it look like he hung himself.

With the stress of being in witness protection and possibly facing time if his deals fell through, the authorities likely wouldn’t question it.

Watching Mateo and Maria initially discuss the plan was almost like being back in my field office, going over tactics with Gabriel and our colleagues. Each thought was technical and strategic.

The only difference was there was no determination or conviction in either of their voices. They spoke almost as if they were going over the directions in a cookbook. Not as if they were about to take someone’s life.

I kept trying to understand their apathy. Tried to mimic it myself when I inserted myself in the conversation. Yet, with every mention of death, my stomach clenched.

The sight of Maria’s signal, a discrete lift of her heel, revealing the red bottom brought me back into reality.

Shaking off the discomfort in my stomach, I jogged across the small sidewalk and pressed myself against our target’s room door. I pressed the key Maria had programmed against the knob and pushed down on the handle once the light above it turned green.

Quietly, I slipped into the room. Inside was larger than the others on the property, specially designed as a suite for witnesses the county’s police often held here. The tiny hall was dark, leading further into a living area with a small couch and an adjacent kitchenette. A voice bounced around the empty walls.

I followed it, keeping my body close to the wall. The sound led me to the cracked bedroom door. Molding myself against the wood, I peered through the crack.

A man in a pair of striped pajama pants and a white tee shirt stood in front of the window with a phone to his ear. Stripes of gray decorated his dark hair, and freckles sprinkled over his tanned skin. “I know, honey,” he murmured, his voice soft. “I miss you so much too. No, I’m not sure when I’ll be home. There’s some important business Daddy needs to take care of first.”

My chest tightened. He didn’t seem like a criminal. Not with such gentleness in his voice and the frown I could see from his reflection in the mirror. He was just a man who’d made some bad decisions. It was almost unfair he had to die like this because of them.

“Don’t worry,” he spoke again. “Everything is going to be okay. Yes…yes, I promise. Alright, honey, you’ve gotta get some rest. You have school in the morning. I love you.” He chuckled at the tiny voice coming through the other end. “Goodnight, honey.”

Sighing, he lowered the phone and ended the call. He stared out the window for a few moments, consumed in his own thoughts.

His stagnancy gave me the opportunity to sneak up behind him, wrapping the ends of the rope around my knuckles. He didn’t even get a chance to notice another reflection accompanying his in the window before the rope was flying over his head and curling around his throat.

Gasping, he stumbled backwards from the pressure. His hands raced to the leather around his throat, clawing desperately at the material.