Chapter Nineteen: Holly

I’m ready. I’m fucking ready. It’s what I tell myself as the days pass, as we get everything ready. And by we, I pretty much mean Kane—though I do have a pretty big part myself. Getting us in the building and up to the CEO’s office is my job. Luckily I know that skyscraper like the back of my hand.

I swear, time passes by slowly and quickly. It drags on, and then I blink and Kane and I are slipping inside the building in the back, avoiding the major camera areas. We push a cart full of cleaning sprays, buckets, and towels. His tall, muscular figure is covered with a janitor uniform. I wear similar clothes: ugly, baggy, and gray, but they’re perfect for concealing weapons.

I have my knife and Kane has a silencer, just in case.

All in all, it goes without a hitch. Through the building, up the elevator. My hair is hidden beneath a hat that matches the uniform I wear. Neither Kane nor I say a word on our way up, but the tension is so thick you can reach out and grasp it.

Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe it’s just the culmination of thirteen years’ worth of lies that are finally about to break open the dam.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I kind of want to throw up.

The elevator dings with each floor we pass, and the higher it climbs, the more that sick feeling rises in my gut. I feel like I could crawl out of my skin. I swallow hard, and the next thing I know, I feel a strong hand gripping mine, and I angle my head up to Kane and meet his blue stare. I can’t feel his calloused hand due to the leather gloves we both wear, but it’s enough.

He doesn’t say a word, but he doesn’t need to. He’s telling me everything is going to be fine. Maybe I have some trust issues after all this shit, but I just don’t know if I believe him. It’s impossible for me to think about the future, about what will come after.

I’ve never thought about it. I… I never thought there would be an after.

The elevator dings as its doors open, and Kane’s hand slips from mine as I walk out first, adjusting my cap. We pass an empty receptionist desk on our way to the door. It’s funny; my name’s already been scrubbed. It was Howard’s first business decision, I bet.

Kane brought some lockpicking tools, but I know Howard enough to know there’s no way in hell he locks the door when he’s in there. He’s too important, and he thinks he’s untouchable.

My gloved hand reaches for the doorknob, and my breath catches as I try it.

It opens.

I let Kane push inside first, and he takes the cart with him. I hear Howard’s stern voice say, “Just empty the trash and go.” So off-handed, so dismissive; I bet he didn’t even look at Kane as he walked in, just saw the janitor’s clothes with his peripherals and instantly wrote him off as unimportant.

Obviously, Kane doesn’t leave. Kane walks further into the large, open office, which prompts Howard to say, “Did you hear me? I said—” Whatever else he’s about to say, the words die in his throat when I walk in.

I know there aren’t any cameras in the office here, so as I lean on the door with my back to close it, I take off my hat and let my brown hair free with a single shake of my head. “Hello, Howard,” I say, sounding cold.

Howard looks like he always does. Wearing a navy blue suit, he sits behind a ridiculously large desk, papers scattered before him, along with a tablet. His brown eyes are narrowed in my direction, his face lined with wrinkles. His gray hair is combed back, not a single strand out of place. Put together, refined, but beneath all that, I can now detect a hint of cruelty and menace.

Once he realizes it’s me, he doesn’t move. “Miss Cooper. Somehow, I’m not surprised. I did hope you were one of the bodies in the cabin, but when my messages went unanswered, I had a feeling you’d resurface.”

“You wanted me dead,” I say, slow to step towards the desk. The adrenaline pumping through my system makes it easy to ignore the dull pain in my feet. Kane leaves the cart in the middle of the room and works his way around the room. “Just like you wanted my parents dead.”

Howard places both hands on the desk, folding his hands together. “I wanted you out of the way. If you would’ve stepped aside and let me run Cooper Enterprises how it should’ve always been, the hitmen wouldn’t have been necessary.”

My jaw clenches. “And my parents?”

“They would never have stepped aside. They needed to go. You, unfortunately for us both, inherited their drive. When you want something, you stop at nothing to get it.” Howard’s mouth thins into a line as he glances at Kane. “It seems things did not progress in that cabin as I thought they would.”

Brows furrowing, I ask, “You knew?”

“Of course I did. I knew exactly what you hoped to achieve in that cabin, who you were going there for. Did you really think I wouldn’t be watching everything you do while in my care, Miss Cooper? I had hoped you’d be taken care of by the man you went there to kill, or that you’d be too distracted by torturing him to stop the new hired help from killing you. It is a pity. I guess if you want a good hitman, you really should hire through the Guild and not try to find them yourself.”

I honestly can’t believe it. Hearing it straight from his mouth feels like a knife in my heart. “If you wanted me dead, why not kill me years ago?”

At this, Howard stands and moves around his desk. Two feet away, I feel furious standing so close to him, and yet I’m frozen in place. “Please. Have the young, healthy Miss Cooper, the lone child of the slain David and Marie Cooper, suddenly find herself in the middle of a fatal accident so soon after her parents? The less attention attracted the better, and yet… you still bungled it up.”

“You knew I would come,” I say, baring my teeth like a rabid dog.

“Of course I did. If you were still alive, I knew you would come, sooner or later.”

“Then you know why I’m here.”

Howard frowns. “Yes, to kill me—but you couldn’t kill him, so tell me, Miss Cooper, how on earth do you think you’ll kill me?” He leans back on the desk, tilting his head at me, like he thinks he has me all figured out.

I reach into my pocket and pull out the knife, and before I think better of it, I lunge at him. I don’t stab him, though I’m fairly certain the knife would go much deeper in Howard’s chest than it did in Kane’s. Instead, I bring the sharp edge of the knife to Howard’s throat as I growl out, “For someone who knew his death was coming, you didn’t do much to protect yourself.”

“You didn’t come all the way up here without showing your face to a few cameras,” he tells me, unflinching. “Even if you do kill me, there will be evidence. You’ll lose the company and everything your parents worked for.”

“I don’t care about the company. I only care about giving you what you deserve,” I hiss.

The corner of his mouth quirks into a slight smile, and Howard glances at Kane once again. “And what about him? You found the man who pulled the trigger on your parents and you couldn’t go through with it. If you couldn’t get your revenge on him, I don’t think you’ll be able to kill me. All these years, and I must say, I simply don’t believe you have it in you.”

Howard goes on, “I’ll tell you what. If you lower the knife and walk out of here with your new friend, I’ll let you go. I won’t send anyone after you. You can go where you want, do what you want, be free of all this. As long as Holly Cooper died in that cabin, that’s all that matters.”

My jaw sets, and I glare at this motherfucker hard. I hold onto the knife so fiercely my arm begins to tremble. He’s so confident in his beliefs, and he thinks he has a way out of this. The asshole really believes I’ll walk away, that I give a shit about any of this.

No, all I care about is making sure the man responsible for my parents’ deaths gets what he deserves… and it isn’t Kane who needs comeuppance. It’s Howard. My guardian. The man who wore a mask for the last thirteen years.

He deserves to die. He needs to die. If there’s anyone I should kill, it’s him. The last thing I want to do is prove him right.

Seconds pass, and when I don’t move a muscle, Howard smiles. “That’s what I thought. Now, why don’t you and your… assassin, leave before I call the police?” He grabs my wrist and pushes the knife away from his throat.

With a few strides, Kane stands behind me, and I feel his hand on my lower back. Everything in me instantly relaxes when I remember I’m not here alone. I’m not facing Howard by myself.

“Maybe you’re right,” Kane says, his voice low, the same deadly tone he took with me when he woke up tied to the bed. “Maybe she can’t kill you. Maybe she’s better than that.” In the blink of an eye, he pulls out his hidden gun and aims it right at Howard’s face, point-blank after taking off the safety. “But I’m not. If she doesn’t want your blood on her hands, I’ll gladly take that burden from her.”

Hearing him say it makes everything in me buzz with a strange mix of emotions, and I find myself taking a step back from Howard as a result.

Maybe I’m not a killer after all.

Howard’s gaze flicks between us, and he scoffs as it dawns on him. “You… oh, my. Well, I can honestly say I didn’t expect this. The two of you not only in cahoots, but together? Miss Cooper, what would your parents think?”

Or maybe I am.

His smugness, the glimmer of dark amusement in his brown gaze, fills me with incandescent rage. I slip the knife into my pocket before I reach a hand out toward Kane. “Give me the gun.”

Kane hands it over, and something on Howard’s face changes. Perhaps he knows he said the wrong thing, mocked me one too many times. Bringing up my parents… how dare this man? He has absolutely no right to ever speak of them, let alone think of them.

The gun feels heavy in my hand, and I take another step away from Howard as I drop my gaze to study the weapon. All of the doubt inside me, all of the hesitation; it fades, disappears only to be replaced by something else.

Certainty. Finality. Decision.

I meet Howard’s gaze for the final time as I lift the gun and point it at his head. We’re close; two, maybe three feet. Close enough there’s no possible way I’ll miss. My finger curls on the trigger, and Howard decides venom will be his final tactic.

“You kill me, you won’t get away with it. You’ll be a wanted woman. With the way you’ve lived, there’s no way you’ll ever survive on your own.”

With a quick glimpse at Kane, I note his expression. Dark and murderous, but not toward me. When the man looks at me, everything about him softens. I know he’ll gladly kill Howard if I ask him to. He offered me his vengeance, his skills as an assassin, and he offered me his stash—enough money to start a life somewhere new, somewhere far away from this place and the memories I’d leave behind.

“Wrong again,” I say, slow to look back at Howard. “I won’t be alone.” A muscle on his face twitches as I add, “Goodbye, Howard.” And then, without waiting a second longer, I pull the trigger.

Being on the other side of a gun, it’s way different than hearing it from another room. Even though the gun is silenced, it still makes a sound as it fires. A sound softer than it typically would, but still a sound. The bullet finds its mark instantly, and just like that, Howard’s face is no more.

The bullet lands square in the center of his face, right on his nose, and it tears through him like his head is nothing more than a melon that gives way to the force of the bullet. Howard’s head rocks back and his body collapses backward onto the desk thanks to the force of the bullet, and he slumps and slides off the desk seconds later as blood oozes from the mess that is his skull.

I watch it happen without blinking, and only after his body falls to the floor do I let out the breath I was holding. I take a few steps back from the body, unable to look away. No panic attack this time. Only relief .

Howard Giles, the man responsible for the murder of my parents, has now gotten what he deserves.

His death should’ve lasted longer, honestly. With the lies he fed me these last thirteen years, I should’ve tortured the fuck out of him. But, maybe, it’s good to simply get it done so I can walk away from it.

Done with the vengeance. Done with cold, hard justice. Done with it all.

I turn away from Howard’s corpse and hand Kane’s gun back to him. “We should go,” I whisper. Howard wasn’t lying when he said our faces were caught by a few cameras. We need to get a head start before the authorities start looking for us, grab Kane’s stash, wherever it is, and get the hell out of dodge.

Kane takes the gun and stashes it away beneath his shirt, and while he does that, I put my hat back on. “Yes, we should,” he agrees, and he takes my hand and tugs me along. I don’t know if he thinks I’m in a daze or what, but I let him lead me out of Howard’s office, through the hall, and to the elevator. We abandon the cleaning cart, leaving it in the office, along with the corpse.

Since it’s so late and the building is next to empty, the elevator is waiting for us the moment Kane hits the down button. We step onto it, still hand in hand, and Kane presses the ground floor button. The doors close, and we start the journey downward.

I stare at the elevator doors for a few seconds, but I feel Kane’s heavy gaze on me. It’s not something I can ignore, so I find myself angling my body towards his and leaning my head back to stare up into his blue eyes.

“What?” I ask, the word sounding heavier than it has any right to be.

Kane’s hand squeezes mine. “You did good, little killer. I’m proud of you.”

Him being proud of me should mean absolutely nothing. I shouldn’t care. Hearing him say that shouldn’t make me feel a single thing, and yet, it’s quite the opposite. Something swells inside me as a result of his praise, and I find myself saying something I never in a million years thought I would.

“Will you stay with me?”

He smirks down at me, his hand letting go of mine only so he can use his wide frame to push me against the elevator’s wall. He grabs me by the hips and hoists me up so my face is level with his, and he leans his forehead against mine, breathing me in once before he murmurs, “You don’t even have to ask.”

And then his lips meet mine, and it’s over.

It’s over, yes, but really, our story is just beginning.