Prologue
Why was moving a body so goddamn hard?
The night was chilly during this time of year. The bright moon glowed brightly above Adria as she walked through the thick woods, the body of her latest victim dragging in from behind her as she pulled it with both hands.
He was fairly obese and started to smell badly by the time she reached the edge of the lake.
Thankfully, there was no one in sight when she had pulled up outside of the woods in her truck.
Killing him hadn’t been as hard as her previous victims were, given that he didn’t even put up much of a fight. As soon as he had seen her walk into his office, gun at hand, he’d simply started yelling and begging for mercy.
Adria had not hesitated to shoot him in the head in order to stop him from crying out their location before sneaking the old fool out of his office with a laundry cart.
Once the job was done, she’d be able to go back home, curl up on the couch and watch some reality TV shows like any other person would do at such an hour.
Adria took in a deep breath, placing her hands on her hips and allowing herself to take a quick look at the beautiful lake before her. The moon and stars reflected themselves onto its waters, the images rippled with each blow of the wind that caused the waters to stir.
If she weren’t about to dump a body in it, Adria would not have hesitated to take a quick dip to cool her nerves down.
The last couple of days hadn’t been easy on her. Her boss, Aldrich Helson, had been calling and texting her nonstop, sending her the locations of her next victims almost every day.
At some point, she had wanted to ask him what was up with all the sudden killings, but decided that it would be best to keep her mouth shut if she didn’t want to fall into deep shit with the old man.
Adria looked down towards the dead man’s face, watching as his glossed eyes stared right back at her as if haunting her for what she had done. The two bullets that still rested themselves inside his skull kept him from bleeding even more but still caused a terrible mess at the back of her truck.
A mess that she was supposed to clean up as soon as possible before anyone was to find it.
Adria took a few steps into the chilled waters till they reached a little above her ankles, wetting her new boots. She grabbed the dead man’s shoulders and pulled him into the waters by his shirt, grunting with every pull.
Once he was halfway submerged into the river, Adria walked back up to dry land and pushed him in by the legs. Before he floated off, she quickly picked up the biggest rocks she could find and stuffed his pockets and shirt with as many as she could.
At last, he was under and gone forever. By the time anyone would find him, it’d all be too late.
Wiping the sweat from her brow and curling a strand of loosened hair behind her ear, Adria looked outwards onto the sight and back up onto the stars. The very beautiful, shining stars.
Turning back around, she was startled by the sudden sound of shuttering leaves. Adria pulled out the gun from her back and kept it ready to shoot whoever dared take another step closer to her. Surely, it could also be a harmless animal on a late-night walk, but she wasn’t willing to take too many chances. There was a time not too long ago where she had almost been caught and Aldrich Helson hadn’t found out about it till this day.
Adria planned on keeping it that way.
It took her a few seconds to realize that the rustling sound was in fact not coming from beside her, but across from her. On the other side of the river, to be exact.
It was very narrow, which made it easy to see exactly who stood on the other side of it.
She lowered herself behind bushes to prevent herself from being seen while trying to identify what was happening on the other end of the river. Adria was forced to squint in order to see what it was, cursing herself for having forgotten her glasses.
She received prescriptions for glasses as a teen and found contacts to be incredibly uncomfortable. Whenever anyone told her to get laser surgery, she would wave them off. The thought of having to go through that procedure made her wince.
As the image before her became clearer, she inhaled a breath as she realized that it was another person. From the looks of it, it was a tall blond-haired guy who had not noticed her yet. Except, he wasn’t alone. He was dragging something that looked pretty heavy towards the water, a figure of a sort.
Adria squinted even more to the point that her eyes strained, not planning on leaving until she confirmed what she saw. That was a body that this man was carrying.
He did the same as her, filling the body up with rocks before pulling it into the river to never be found again. As he wiped his hands on his pants, Adria couldn’t help but gasp as she realized who it was.
That caused her to stumble on herself and immediately brought the man’s attention towards her direction. That familiar face looked straight at her own, his hand already pulling out a similar gun he had placed behind him.
When realizing who she was, Matthew Lennox’s eyes widened for only a moment before he looked down to the blood trail that led towards the body of water. He turned his gaze back up to her, realizing what she had done.
In this situation, her first instinct would have been to shoot the person immediately. Her job as a hitwoman was to be kept a secret from anyone at all costs.
However, this case was different.
Lennox didn’t react much. He only turned and left, leaving her to stare at the empty spot where he had stood moments ago.
“González,” Zoe Cristin spoke from Adria’s earpiece, her tone impatient. Adria could already imagine the girl sitting at her desk, both legs on her table and a cigarette between her fingers as she looked at her computer screen. “González, do you hear me?”
Adria pressed her earpiece and muttered. “Yes, I hear you. What’s up?”
“Do you recognize who that was?” Zoe’s job was to track down anyone who may be within range of Adria using small drones that sensed movement through heat. She wondered why Cristin didn’t warn her of the prick’s approach, but decided to leave that talk for later.
Adria merely frowned, moving away from the place. “I’ll be figuring that out soon enough.”
