A careful twist of the knob and a cautious shove and the door opened soundlessly. I stepped across the threshold and entered the house, closing the door behind me. Before I stepped off the welcome mat, I reached into my pocket and fingered a pair of crime-scene footies over my shoes to keep the noise level low and to prevent leaving footprints.
The first place I stopped after successfully navigating the stairs was the couple’s bedroom. The door had been left open a crack, a request I had asked of Margo. When I placed the tip of my finger to the door and shoved to widen the crack, I spotted Margo’s wide, frightened eyes. Her face was visible from the moonlight shining in through the thin white drapes hanging down the wall of windows on the opposite end of the bedroom. The depth of the fear resting in her wide gaze had broken apart the moon-kissed darkness and found mine while I crept closer.
Her husband had his hand tucked tight around her waist, and his face was buried in the back of her neck. Tresses of her dark, wavy hair covered a part of his pale cheek. To an outsider, it may have appeared that they were a loving couple, but I knew better.
He raped her every night and beat the shit out of her if she broke any one of his outrageous rules. House cleaning, cooking, wearing the desired outfit, or even something as uncontrollable as their son crying would set him off. He would parade her and their son around his friends at dinner parties like he was the best father and husband in the world.
The asshole stirred, his evil senses locking on to something amiss while I eased up to his side of the bed. As soon as I took out the needle filled with sodium thiopental, he flipped on me, reached, and snapped on the lamp. His face squinted in anger.
“Who the fuck are you?!”
I didn’t wait around for his woman-hitting ass to lay hands on me. I dashed forward and jammed the needle in his neck. His heavy hand came down on my head, catching the side of my temple and knocking me sideways and into his bedside table. The collision caused the lamp to topple and a loud crash sounded. My side screamed in pain from the impact with the table, but I ignored it.
“What’s happening in there?” Lady D sounded off in my ear.
“You need backup?” Lady E questioned.
“No. Stand down,” I managed to say in a calmer tone than I felt.
My words caused the hard-breathing bastard in front of me to snarl. He was at least six-four, two-twenty, and Margo was no bigger than a size four and barely over a hundred pounds. He should have been ashamed of himself for beating up on a woman who wasn’t physically able to defend herself from him. However, demons like him were never sorry or ashamed. They actually thrived on dominance.
Margo was so afraid she sat frozen on the bed with one trembling hand cupping her mouth and the other patting her chest.
“I’m going to fucking kill you!” he shouted his promise, but it didn’t have any steam because the drug was doing its job.
I’m sure in his mind he was about to beat my ass, but he stumbled as soon as he was on his feet. I backed away with each heavy step he took forward, riveted to his every move. When I stopped, his mouth was fixed with a curse word, but he teetered left to right like there was a group of lumberjacks chopping at his legs.
A small smile had my lips twitching when he flung his arm loosely in an effort to strike me but missed and kept falling forward. I took a quick side step and watched him face plant to their hardwood floor, grateful his face had missed the large area rug. I prayed that the son of a bitch had broken his nose and his front teeth, all of them. It took every bit of willpower I possessed to control the raging urge I had to stomp on him until I satisfied the vengeful ache.
He grunted harshly, and even as blood gushed from his nose and mouth, his ego fueled him to get up. Based on the M-sounds bubbling from his bloody lips, I believed he was attempting to call Margo who was staring unblinking at the spot her tormentor had fallen.
His top half was all that was visible from her position on the bed, but even in the dim lighting, I noticed him sputtering angerly while blood dribbled from his face. The poor woman was in such shock I had to give her a soothing caress to lure her from the trance.
“Is he going to die?” she questioned and though her tone was shaky, it didn’t stop me from picking up the hint of hope she had for his demise.
His death would make her a wanted fugitive, and I wouldn’t put that on her shoulders. But, I was a petty bitch and wasn’t above finding ways to make his life a living hell.
“Unfortunately, he’s going to live,” I replied. “Let’s get your son so we can get out of here. Were you able to pack at least a backpack?”
“Yes, it’s under Caleb’s crib.” She pointed, still staring wide-eyed at her tormentor.
We walked across the hall and into the child’s room where he was standing in his crib watching the door. His eyes were as wide and frightened as his mother’s. His little cheeks lifted into an adorable smile when he saw his mother reaching for him. It broke my heart to see a child that young know what fear was. He had likely heard the commotion next door, but he was so used to the abuse and being punished for it that he knew to keep quiet.
“Careful. No eyes on the guard,” Lady D warned in my ear.
“None here either,” Lady E added.
“He never returned from the back of the house,” Lady A updated.
The damn guard was in the wind, and I prayed he hadn’t entered the house through the back door. Since Lady A had turned the alarm off, we wouldn’t have been alerted if he had.
I picked up the backpack Margo pointed out under her son’s crib. She jumped into the clothes she had stashed in his small dresser before she dressed him and handed him his binky that he popped into his mouth. Less than three minutes and we were on our way.
The unnerving silence that filled the space while we crept along the dim hall and made our way to the stairway had me rolling my shoulders to ease the thick tension pressing down on me. As soon as we cleared the stairs, the guard walked into the living room and stopped in his tracks at the sight of our group. In a dark uniform, he stood frozen and staring, his white skin glowing against the dim moonlight shining into the room.
He reached for the weapon at his side, but mine was already in my hand and aimed at his head. I would have preferred not to kill anyone, but understood that choosing this type of work had the possibility of always leading to death, including my own.
The guard glanced at the frightened mother gripping her child to her chest behind me. His hand eased away from his weapon before he raised them in surrender. He lifted his chin in the direction of the front door in a gesture that suggested we go.
It wasn’t until he turned and walked back into the kitchen that I understood that he recognized what was going on. He’d obviously been a witness to why I was there in the first place and despite his good deed tonight, he wasn’t a hero in my book. Knowing what was going on, he should have done more to help the victim. We got the hell out of there with the ladies keeping watchful eyes on our path back to the van.
After we’d climbed in and driven to safety, I began to process the danger I had just exposed myself to. I jerked off the mask and breathed myself back to a calm state of mind.
What would have happened if that guard had drawn his pistol?