Page 58 of Ace of All Hearts

After a while, she settles down with one hand around my waist and the other one lost in my hair. Lik is already fast asleep, my arm dead from the way he’s crushing it under him.

It’s impossible for me to find sleep. Aleksei’s voice never quite leaves my mind. His Russian accent always resonating at the back of my head. The phantom touch of his and his soldiers’ hands on me never vanishes. The smell of the floor that my cheek and chest were rubbing on. The blood trickling down my wrists and my legs. The taste of it in my mouth. Their laughs.

And the pain.

It’s always here, never quite gone.

After long minutes of listening to both Rachel’s and Lik’s steady breathing, I give up and sneak out of bed. Neither of them wakes up, and I’m glad. They don’t need to know about the fresh demons in my soul that joined the old ones.

11

SAM

Please Notice- Christian Leave

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

I release the clip and put another round in the gun. I shoot. Again and again, and again, and again.

The loud noise temporarily impedes the flow of thoughts that crowd my mind. It helps keep me busy instead of letting the anxiety drown me.

I need to kill the Volkov brothers. I wanted to before. I now know for certain that my lungs will stop drawing in air if I don’t put a bullet in both their skulls.

But I don’t know where to find them.

It’s every time this thought comes back that I feel a cloak of helplessness wrap around me. I’ve never had this problem before as an assassin. I have the connections, the knowledge, and the experience. I always find my contracts.

So where the fuck are the Wolves hiding?

My body and my mind want to achieve something, and they’re incapable of it.

Killing the brothers has become a basic instinct, like using oxygen to live, getting one foot in front of another, and putting my hands in front of me if I fall. I'm afraid I might die if I don’t fulfill that necessity.

One can go without their wants, but one can only go so long without their needs.

I feel Rose behind me before she makes herself known. I haven’t survived this long as a hitman without being aware of my surroundings. I don’t wonder how she found the small gun range I built in the basement. Despite what I tell her, she never ceases to surprise me, and today is just like any other.

From behind, she puts a soft hand on my shoulder, so I stop shooting. She steps beside me and then slides herself between my extended arms, her back to me. Her perfume sends serotonin to flood my veins and awakens the happiness I can only achieve when she’s around.

But tonight, the chemical can’t help much. Because when she had her panic attack and we all ultimately understood the pain she’d hidden from everyone, my heart started beating into a rhythm that shattered it into shards I’ll never be able to put back together.

Broken pieces can be mended, but shards disappear into dust.

I let her wrap her small hands around mine. One comes to rest on mine under the gun, and the other wraps around my right hand. Her index finger settles on mine that is on the trigger.

“Your aim has gotten better,” she says in that raspy voice of hers. It’s always been like this, but sometimes I wonder if it got worse from all the times she screamed aimlessly for Bianco.

I sense her back tensing as she positions herself. She cracks her neck, forcing some strands of hair to slide to the side and against me.

Then she works her magic. Pressing her finger against mine and ultimately the trigger, she aims perfectly. Three holes in precisely the same spot.

When she’s finished, she wipes just above her eyebrow with her wrist like she always does.

It’s sad how well Bianco trained her. Another thing of his she will hold within her forever.

Sickness grips my stomach, anxiety riddling my chest. I always thought that if we tried hard enough, Rose would heal from the pain her foster dad had put her through.

I thought she hadn’t suffered irreparably with the Volkov brothers. It had been so easy for her to push me away when I found her. She looked like she was doing well, like she was truly happy.

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