Page 4 of Secondhand Soul

Those images gave me nightmares for weeks.

Knowing that, if I don’t do this right, I’ll be part of that sea of gore is the thing that helps me shut down my brain and just focus on the basics.

I stand up with fire in my veins and a yogurt roiling in my middle.

You would be surprised how many hitmen have stock in yogurt companies. Quick, easy to eat, high protein.

Think about protein. How easy they make it to swallow it on the go with those little plastic sticks you can just suck down while you’re kneeling in the dark.

But you’re not kneeling now. You’re standing. Go to work.

Time to go get this done. Gonna blow his fucking head off, wrap the body nice and tight, and drag it to my car. Get it miles away from the head—if it was still somehow “alive” after I throw it in a trash can and set it on fire—and then get it back to California.

What if the body goes banging and rolling around in my trunk the entire three days back to California? What if he tears through the trunk? He was super strong.

Maybe I should put his arms in the front seat.

Could they strangle me?

Disembodied parts strangling me, kicking out the panels of my little black sedan—

I shudder and can’t stop as I think about other parts attacking me. That had happened too many times, even as a high-priced beauty, an “escort” for wealthy mafia men who wanted a break from the pleasures of their normal mistresses. When I said no, and they didn’t listen, what was I going to do about it? No one said no to those men. No one leaves these jobs until their looks run out—or something forces you to show another side, the ugly under the pretty face.

For me, it was the daughter I was carrying. She was going to be the reason I got out.

I don’t know if she was a girl. It was too early, but they say you know in your heart.

And when Frank Bocella put his hands on me, and I told him no, because morning sickness was making hanky-panky out of the question?

He punched me. Right in the chin. Right at the top of the stairs that led to the back door of his penthouse.

It took me six days to learn I’d lost her.

Six weeks in a cast for my left ankle.

Sixteen weeks to hunt him, to get him alone when he showed up with apology presents, while pretending everything was business as usual, to make him say no, to punch him right in the face, to gut him like a fish and cherish every little squeak and scream, every twitch and plea.

Pazcuso didn’t kill Frank Bocella. He would have, but I got to him first. Pazcuso didn’t turn me in. He turned me into one of the best killers on his payroll. I always have an axe to grind against the men who used to use me.

Right. Thinking about why I do this always grounds me.

Eyes laser-locked on the gray stone box in the distance and hand on my gun, I move ahead, silent and deadly.

“Ahhhhhh!”

And then loud.

And down at the bottom of an open grave. Six feet down, wrapped in an icy, wet blue tarp—with my weak left ankle under me.

“Ow,” I hiss, struggling to sit up. A shower of earth rains down, and I feel my knee buckle when I try to stand. The wet earth is soft. I’m going to sink. Or be buried alive. I’m going to need to call for help, which is embarrassing, but I’m too busy knowing my job, knowing that I need to be practical and get out of here to finish it, to worry about my bruised body and ego.

Be calm. Been in so many bad situations. I can be calm. Resourceful. I have my phone. I have this tarp. I could roll up the tarp and stand on it—if I could stand.

I’m going to have to make up some excuse for the police if I call 911. They’ll see me with the gun.

No, I’ll bury the gun, and when they wonder why my hands are covered in dirt, I’ll say I was struggling to pull myself up.

But call first.