Sniping Her Mafia King

Prologue: We Can Help

12 years previous

Arwen reached the vacant apartment and listened for the footsteps or voices of any other people. She quickly checked the space, found it completely empty and made her way to the window. From where she was positioned, she would have perfect view of one of the men from the motorcycle gang as he approached the bar below. She kept her eyes peeled to the street for any sign of the man she was looking for.

There were eight of them, but she had found out one of them liked to come to this particular bar and harass the server. Tonight, he was going to die. She was going to put a bullet in his head.

She took a steadying breath. Her father had been a marine sniper. He’d trained her to fire a gun before her fourth birthday. By the age of six he had started entering her in shooting competitions. By twelve she was competing against grown men and winning. This wasn’t going to be shooting at targets or hunting in the woods in West Virginia. No, this was taking a man’s life and she exhaled slowly and tried to steady her nerves.

She stared out the window, deeply focused on her goal and tuning out the rest of the world. She jumped in terror when two women flopped down on either side of her to look out the window. “What the f**k?” She jumped in terror when two women flopped down on either side of her to look out the window. “What the f**k?”

“Hi Arwen, you sure you want to do this?”

She blinked at the two women on either side of her, flipping her gaze back and forth in disbelief she’d been caught already, “Who are you?”

“Nobody,” one woman with dark hair and eyes cast her sideways glance as she dropped her arm over her shoulder and nudged her over to peer through her rifle scope. “Nice gun. I mean I like mine better,” she patted the bag on her shoulder, “but using your dad’s rifle will work. Though you’ll probably get caught using it. It is registered and all.”

Arwen felt her lungs squeeze with panic. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but” she stopped talking when the other woman grinned widely at her. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because you don’t seem to care you’ll get caught.”

“I don’t care. They’ll have to find me first and they won’t until all eight of these bastards are dead.”

“We know.” The second and smaller of the two women nodded at her knowingly.

“You know what?”

“We know your aunt was raped and murdered in front of your uncle and then they murdered your uncle when they were done torturing him. Then they blew up the house with your seven-year-old cousin inside and she’s in the hospital in ICU and may not make it.” The woman with dark eyes spoke as she looked through the scope again. “We know you managed to grab a copy of the police report and figure out who the ringleader is of this little gang, and you are going to shoot them all in the head for what they did.”

“Who are you?” Arwen repeated again.

“You’re young Arwen. You’re only nineteen. You’re a great shot but there is more to taking a man’s life than just firing a gun,” the other woman spoke as if knowing exactly what she was talking about

“They’re not men, they are animals. I hunt all the time. No difference. I’d have more sympathy for the deer I shoot than these assholes,” Arwen grunted furiously.

The two women exchanged grins over her head infuriating her more. “Who are you? Why are you here? You’re not going to stop me.”

“We don’t want to stop you,” the woman who kept looking through the gun scope said seriously. “We want to help you. We have zero tolerance for this kind of bullshit. We don’t want to see you go to prison because you weren’t prepared properly.” She tapped the gun, “this is a marine registered weapon with kills under its belt. It means stippling and markings of the barrel are likely registered in some government department of justice data base and linked to your dad’s missions. Which means, the minute you fire this weapon, they will trace it back to your dad. Now considering your dad died in the chopper crash three years ago and his gun was left to you, a national and international competitive shooting champion, guess who the police will automatically know is involved.” The woman turned and lifted a finger and bopped her on the nose, “you.”

Arwen bit her bottom lip, “I don’t give a f**k if they know I did it. I’ll do the time. I want them dead.”

“Or you could let us help you. We’ll keep you protected and safe and out of jail. You can’t take care of your cousin when she’s released from the hospital eventually if you’re in jail for murdering rapists.” The smaller woman draped an arm over her shoulder and hugged her.

“Is this a joke?”

“No,” the woman said with a smirk, “in our organization, on my team, my name is Alpha. This is my Delta. She’s, our sharpshooter. She brought you a gun to use to make sure you can’t be traced. We moved your bike from the alley because you wouldn’t have gotten away on it. We’ll get you out of here once you take your shot.”

“Do you want to see my gun?” the other woman wiggled her eyebrows as if she were peddling s*x.

Arwen watched with curiosity as the woman took out a semi-automatic rifle M110 but there were clearly adjustments made to it. She reached a finger out, “what the hell?”

“I’ll let you touch it,” the woman grinned broadly, “I’ll even let you fire it. Just promise me you won’t miss your target.”

“I won’t miss.” Arwen’s voice was firm.

“We know.” The woman who identified herself as Alpha spoke confidently. “We’re your cheering squad. Two more members of our team are street level. We have your bike tucked into our truck. We’ll also have a crew in here to remove any trace of you in this unit, just in case, you leave DNA.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“We don’t joke about our work,” Alpha said and then giggled, “Well, we joke around while we work but not about the work itself.”

“What exactly is your work?”

“Assassins,” Delta said with a confident smirk. “Assassins for a highly covert organization which no government in the world has ever been able to pin. We kill perverts and rescue women and children from the situations said perverts put them in. We offer medical and psychological aid and we do it all, right under the government’s noses. We’ve been watching you for awhile. You’re a damn fine shot and we’re always looking for snipers. You’ve been on our radar since your dad died. We wanted to make sure you weren’t going to give it up,” she patted the gun, “after he passed.”

“It’s the thing which keeps me connected to him.” Arwen admitted as she held her gun. “You’ve been watching me?”

“Yeah, you’ve won marksman competitions, you practice karate and boxing, and you ride a motorcycle. We dig it.”

“I’m not gay,” she said bluntly as the Alpha looked her up and down.

Alpha started laughing, “she’s, my wife. She’d kick my ass if I even think of another woman.” She pointed to the Delta.

“Seriously? What, assassins who kill together f**k together?”

“I like it!” Delta clapped her on the shoulder. “I told you she was feisty. I was in the crowd when you did your last boxing match. You have a mouth.” She sat down and started putting the rest of her gun together for use, the mechanical clicks echoing around them.

“Thanks?” she wrinkled her nose. “I still don’t get why you’re here.”

“To recruit you. If you don’t want to work with us, it’s fine. I mean, we’ll be sad, but we’ll still help you out today. We will ensure you don’t get caught on your very first day as an assassin and then we’ll walk away. If you do want to work with us though, helping us get rid of men who use their d***s for evil as a side-gig which by the way, pays pretty f*****g well, then you will have a team helping you take out the other seven bastards who killed your family.”

“You want to recruit me?”

“Yes,” Alpha spoke suddenly profoundly serious as she looked at the young woman. “Normally we do this big elaborate thing where we drag you to a warehouse and make you choose doors, but time is of the essence. We want you to kill these motherfuckers but if you can’t, we’re going to. They don’t deserve to live, and they hurt another family in the next town over. They need to go tonight. All eight of them. We will help you get all eight. If you want to shoot them all yourself, you can. We’ll be your backup.”

“Then what?”

“Then you enter our training program. It’s a six-month program. You’re brilliant and I know you’re enrolled in sciences at the local university. We’ll transfer you and your cousin to New York. She’ll get the best of the best in medical care. We’ll arrange for you to take care of her,” Alpha touched her cheek, “we heard you arguing with the social worker at the hospital you wanted custody and she said you were too young. We will make it happen. There is nothing we can’t do.”

“You heard me with the social worker?”

“We’re everywhere.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“If you’re religious, then sure, just like Jesus or God. We’re always watching. Maybe more like Santa.” Delta chuckled at her own joke.

“So, I’d just become one of your assassins by night and go to school by day and help my cousin.” Arwen made a face of disbelief, “I can’t. There are going to be tons of medical bills. I can’t continue college. I need a job to pay Deidre’s medical bills.”

“We pay well and don’t worry about her medical bills. We have very influential benefactors.” Alpha rubbed her shoulder, “neither of you will ever want for anything. If you take this shot tonight using Delta’s gun, the p*****t is fifty-grand.”

Arwen’s eyes rounded widely, the pupil almost covering the ice blue in shock. “Holy shit.”

“Meh, he’s chump change. I did an individual assignment about six weeks ago in Paris and took home two hundred grand for two shots.” Delta quipped. She looked out the window. “You need to make a choice Ms. Beddoe.”

“Right now?”

“Well, yes, cause your guy is walking down the street. We don’t want him to go into the bar and bug the poor server again. She went home crying last night. We’ve been scoping out the place waiting for you to show up otherwise we would have just slit his throat last night.”

She felt her blood run cold as she looked out the window and saw the tall bald man covered in tattoos slam the door of his corvette and strut in the direction of the bar. She held out her hand, “give me your gun.”

“You sure?”

“Your gun or mine, I don’t care but this bastard dies now.”

Delta put the gun in her hands and watched as the younger woman positioned herself in the window, using the ledge for support.

Arwen braced herself for the kickback of the gun, years of practicing with various types of weaponry not truly preparing her for the use of this altered piece. She fired a single shot and watched with a smirk as the man dropped instantly to the ground.

“f**k that was beautiful,” Delta cooed with delight. “Orgasmic.” She kissed her fingertips and threw them to the air. “Let’s get out of here.” She tugged Arwen backwards. “Come on gorgeous. We’ll get you somewhere safe. One down, seven to go?” the question was clear.

“Definitely,” Arwen didn’t hesitate. “Let’s do this.”

They raced up the stairs, contrary to what Arwen expected and when they reached the roof, she was surprised. “What the hell?”

“Don’t worry,” voices in the street screaming and shouting to find where the shot came from passed them by, while Alpha squeezed her shoulder. “We’re going to zipline to the building over there. Just hold onto Delta and she’s going to get you there. Trust us.”

“Okay.” Intuitively, she knew she could. These women were angels in black camo.

She let the woman hook her up to the carabineers and followed her instructions. In seconds they were on the other buildings roof and then quickly making their way down a fire escape. At the bottom of the fire escape a van waited and she was rushed into the sliding door. The raspy tones of giggling made her look up in surprise at the two women in the vehicle.

“Holy s**t, aren’t you?” was stunned to recognize the woman in the seat.

“Beta,” the petite woman sitting in the passenger seat held out her hand. Her eyes were serious as if warning her to not name her.

“I’m the Gamma on the team,” a fourth woman who was driving said. “Is she in?” the woman asked the other two who climbed in.

“She’s in,” Alpha shouted. “Let’s go find the rest of the dickwads. She shot him right in the forehead with no hesitation. It beautiful.”

“If I had a d**k, it’d be hard,” Delta grinned and fist-pumped Alpha.

“Sorry to hear about your aunt and uncle,” Beta said with sad smile. “Let’s go get your vengeance.”

“This is real,” Arwen stroked her forehead as the vehicle pulled away, speeding down the alleyway

“Yes, it is Arwen. Welcome to Bellona.”