Falling for a Trained Killer

Chapter Three

WARNING: CHAPTER CONTAINS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE AND s****l ASSAULT (18+)

I don’t know what the sound was at first. There was a man holding a gun at the door. It was the same blond from before I saw speaking with the mysterious Marcus. But I do not think of that now. Panic. Panic is all that I feel. The blond shot into the air locking chains around the door to stop anyone from escaping. He shot once more into the crowd. My head falls instinctively lower. Run, just run, I order myself. Is this a terrorist attack? I run towards the balcony in the throngs of the people forming a barrage of instant chaos. Somewhere to hide, is all that I think about as I feel unnerving alarm take hold of my bones.

Three men with guns are distinctly clear. Marcus and the Blond among them were joined by a third. He had dusty brown hair and brown eyes that appeared almost hallow. I do not stop to examine the three of them further. I do not want to see any more of their faces in sheer fear that they would then look back at me and as a target for the weapons they are now using with their full purpose. 

They began to fire randomly into the crowd picking people apart. What is happening? There are so, so many shots. As bodies fall around me, I hear screaming. The third man with a gun had taken hold of a woman. She was a middle-aged brunette wearing a red Prada dress that was gorgeous, even if she appears austere in it. I think she was one of the few female partners in the firm. I remember Louis pointed her out once. He had described her as a ruthless business woman who only took cases that she knew she could win and refused any others that were put on her desk. 

The third man took hold of her neck and threw her against a table in the center of the commotion. She crashed against it unable to recover from the fall. He was going to hurt her. He seemed to be toying with her before killing her with his own hands, instead of his gun. Unlike the other two, this one seemed on the brink of psychosis. Marcus and the blond were shooting meticulously, ending the lives of their victims quickly. This third man, however, was in a rage and enjoying every second of this. I don’t know her at all but I am not just going to stand here if I could help her. 

I stop running and watch their clash. She can’t get him off of her as he punches her to stop her fighting. He is wearing a black tuxedo that is no unclasped in the middle to allow him the physical freedom to rip this room apart. I take hold of a bar stool not giving it a second thought and hit him on the back with the piece of wood, metal and all of my strength. 

He faltered completely forward and then turned to look at me. I dared not look back at him. The woman ran in the other direction. Was there a plan in this? A gun shot off to my left as a man falls to my side, which makes me jump back. The ringing of the shot as it struck him makes my stomach queeze. I want to throw up but all I hear is my heart beat as I run towards the balcony thinking I can hide there until whatever this was is over. 

I felt a hand take hold of my waist pulling me back into the room. I can hear myself scream but don’t even seem aware of it. I’m thrown back into the crowd from the protection of the balcony. I see the same man I just hit with the chair, as he takes hold of my own neck. He lifts me up to the wall as he leers over my breasts.

“Bella.” he comments. 

Bella is Italian for beautiful. He is Italian. I focus on his large pointed nose and conclude that yes, he looks Roman. My glance plunges to the gun held in his right hand at his side. His eyes were as brown as his hair with a clef in his chin. I can feel my hands claw, to little avail, against his fingers on my throat and the vital need I have for air. Unable to manage any release with his hand I then grip his arm down to his shoulder. He lifts me only by my pulsing neck on the side of the wall. As I feel my back scrape against the patterned plastered behind me, my toes are the only thing touching the floor. 

I am staring at a floral white orchid tattoo on his wrist. An orchid, this guy? I struggle to breath. I can hear my head pumping loudly as the oxygen is stripped from my lungs. I’m going to pass out. He is going to strangle me to death just like he was the woman that I tried to save before. I tried to help her and because of it, I was the replacement target for his wrath. 

I see the shape of a figure behind him. My vision blurs to a hand taking hold of the Italian’s shoulder and suddenly he is pulled off of me. The rustic black wooden slabs of the floor are cold as I find myself on the ground clutching my throat to try to take a breath again. A welcome gulp of air fills my lungs once more and I look from the ground back up at Marcus. Is this it… am I about to die… is he about to shoot me…? The questions trail through my mind blocking out the screams that are the danger that the surround us. 

“You should focus on the assignment Lucca.” I hear the dark mellow tone from Marcus giving this cutthroat executioner an explicit order. 

Marcus gave that order in such a way that that anyone would dare not challenge it. There was a cold disposition of authority in his voice. The rage that the other Italian man was exhibiting was clearing not pleasing to Marcus, and with that simple one line, he insisted that it would end. 

The other man, Lucca, cut a glance between the stranger and myself in acknowledgement. Did this man Marcus just save me or lay claim to me? Lucca shot a man who screeched running past the balcony door and went back to the battle without giving a second look back in my direction. I was left alone, the feeling of a hard wall at my back. Their leader, Marcus, who had just spoken against me being murdered by one of his men, went into the middle of it shooting several of the men. 

For some reason, my eyes are following him in this situation, and no one else. I can only think that I am in shock as I am unable to move. 

Marcus found Louis curled up on the ground by the bar trying to dodge the bullets. Marcus locked his eyes with mine as he found him. The room seems to have gone still. I hear nothing in the anarchy as our eyes met. Until, he fires shooting Louis directly in the head as he watched me, wanting me to bare witness to the fact that he killed him. I blink at the shot and knew that my entire body gave a twinge of radiating fear. There was no question that Louis was now dead as his body fell lifeless against the side of the bar. Why, why did this stranger want me to see him murder Louis in cold blood? He then walked back over to me, casually, as if the death around was not happening. My heart is frozen. Whatever air I was trying to breath, it was not entering past my lips. 

“If you will.” He spoke in a cool inviting voice as he raised his hand towards an office door. 

I have no other choice but to follow him. I lift both my arms to each other as if to stop a chill, but it is to hold me steady. He opens a door leaving it open as he follows in after me. I can hear him at my back. He struck a cigarette with a match listening to the gun fire and shrieks of the other room in a calm manner as the door slightly closed.

I look around this new area that looks like a study. A Rembrandt is hanging above a stone fireplace. Three hazelnut brown chairs with a redwood side table are in front of it. The walls are lined with book shelves displaying not only reading material such as legal dictions and encyclopedias, but pictures of political parties and fund raisers. A knee-high black safe is situated next to a small metal table with a decanter of some auburn spirit and four cognac glasses. 

Marcus walked forward and leaned against a bulky grey timber desk folding his arms over his chest and watching me as he puffed the cigarette. The outline of his biceps are visible from the line of the silk shirt. I always found chiseled muscles attractive. I was unsure of what to do. Was he about to rape me or leave that to one of his other men? That is not happening without a fight, I find myself thinking. I am going to fight them, I have decided, and almost question how ridiculous that sounds. There are three of them and one of me, what chance do I have? Let alone I cannot stop bolting, as if there was a shot of lightening next to me, each time I hear a bullet fire in the main room of the penthouse. People are dying and there is nothing I can do. I swallowed still feeling a jolt at every bang from the other room.  

“I thought you might want to leave the room. You do not need to watch it.” Marcus spoke in a collective way, which makes him appear like nothing was happening at all. 

The words pass by me numbly. Of, course I did not want to watch it. Why would I ever want to watch a mass murder like this? There was another gun shot. Each one made me blink. I could not stop the instant reaction. And, I find it strange that this Marcus does not seem deterred by the sound at all. He is that used to it is my only conclusion. He is military. He has trained for this very well indeed, and that frightens me even more. This is not the first time he has been party to or the initiator to such an event of death.

“Why are you doing this?” I find myself involuntarily asking in the growing silence between gunfire.