Redemption: AmBw Romantic Suspense

Chapter 3

Unexpected Guests

Yoshiro

In the nightmare, my wife bled to death in my arms. My newborn son lay dead on the ground in front of us—full of bullets. I screamed until my voice went raw.

Seymore walked over to me. “You’ve should’ve killed the family. Now yours is gone. Next time, you’ll listen, when I—”

“There won’t be a next time.” I set my wife down and rose.

“Yo-yo, if there won’t be a next time, then there’s no need to keep you alive.”

Seymore’s hand came up. He held a gun. A dull black automatic.

But he was too close, and I had nothing to lose anymore.

I slammed into him, took the gun, and shot him in the head. The bullet crashed into his skull. The sound roared with a deafening zip.

And I shot at all of his men. Blood and bone and brain sprayed everywhere. The few that froze in terror, died immediately. The ones that raced away, got bullets in their backs and heads. For others, I dropped the gun to shallow angles and fired. Bullets went through the back of their knees.

Dogs barking mingled with the sound of the men’s cries of pain.

And then the barking rose and rose until it was all I could hear.

I opened my eyes.

Sweat streamed down my face.

I wiped it away.

Fuck.

I wished it was only a dream, but it had been my reality five years ago.

Seymore had been the crime boss in Chicago for many years. He had his hand in everything—gambling, drugs, and human trafficking.

He was also my sole employee.

For that man, I had done the most unspeakable things. Once I’d shot his own brothers in a graveyard, forcing them to kneel in front of their father’s headstone before putting bullets in their brains.

Five years ago Seymore had arranged the murder of his longtime heroin supplier, Bolo. The only problem was that he’d ordered me to kill Bolo, his wife, and four kids—all under ten years old. My son had just been born. I could not take a child’s life no matter who wanted it. While I killed Bolo, I let his family live.

Seymore hadn’t been pleased. They took my family, since I didn’t destroy Bolo’s.

After killing Seymore and his men five years ago, I fled with Kevin to Washington and never looked back.

For the first two years, I hid out on the property, constantly in fear that the mob was searching for me. The only thing that helped was that I had a lot of money from all my work with the mob. Kevin found some companies for me to privately invest in—including some new cryptocurrency firm. By the third year, my investments tripled, and I learned that Seymore’s crime family had been taken by the feds. They’d been monitoring his operation. In one night, the Feds made 130 arrests, confiscated 200 pounds of heroin, and seized $25 million in assets, including $15 million in cash, as well as homes, boats, apartment buildings, jewelry stores, and even the restaurants Seymore used to launder their money in.

I was able to rest after that, but still I remained to myself—a recluse out in a small town, never talking to anybody or seeking companionship.

Why can’t I stop dreaming about that night?

My dogs Salt and Pepa barked on my side. So far away from civilization, they never had cause to make noise.

What’s up, ladies? What’s going on?

Salt and Pepa barked louder and jumped by the window.

Pain shot through my head.

“Alright. I hear you.” I sank back down on the mattress. “I’m coming. Give me a minute, girls.”

The image of my wife appeared in my head. I pushed it away. They’d killed her five years ago. I wasn’t sure, if I still had the right facial features in my head, even though pictures of her sat on the shrine downstairs. When she was alive, I would paint her all the time. Now I couldn’t lift a paintbrush to create her face.

She was gone along with my son. It would hurt too much to see that beautiful face on canvas and know that I would never see her alive again.

Pepa remained by the window and barked.

Salt hurried to me and nudged her wet nose against my palm.

“I got the message.” Kicking the blanket off me, I rose from the bed, grabbed my shotgun from the side, and went to the window. “What’s the matters, girls? What do you hear?”

Looking through the window, I squinted. Ice had thickened on the glass. A cold wind rattled against the window. I could barely see, but there was something definitely out there. A black SUV had crashed into the side of the private road leading up to my house. The only reason I could figure that out was all the white snow around it and the blinking light.

“Looks like some drunk basterd stumbled onto our property.” I yawned, put the shotgun down, slung on my clothes, and boots. With my jacket on, I picked up the shotgun and headed downstairs.