Infiltrating Your Heart (40 page)

“Get out!” Gabriel barks, still
staring ahead.

“Gabriel—”

“Go away. Now!”

I close my eyes.

“Fine. But at least hear me out. Now
that you found out part of the truth, you must know the rest.”

Gabriel leans his head back and looks
up, as if he’d rather have a colonoscopy than keep listening to me.

“What good will it do me to know the
whole truth? I know enough.”

“No. You have to know every bit.
Please.”

Gabriel sighs, and then looks down at
his lap.

“Do start.”

I take a deep breath.

“I fell in love with you. That part
is absolutely and irrevocably true. But I never anticipated it.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows furrow. He still
won’t turn and look at me.

“Someone hired me to make
you
fall
in love with me. Only, I never dreamed I’d fall back in love with you.”

At that, Gabriel’s head finally turns
to me.

“Wait, you said you were
hired
?
Goddamnit. I should have known. All this time, the only thing you cared about
was to make my heart yours, right?”

“Yes. And despite my original
intentions, my heart became yours, too.”

“Don’t be such a hypocrite. If you
were cold enough to go ahead with this sick game, you certainly don’t give a
damn about me.”

“I do, Gabriel. I lo—”

“Stop saying that!” Gabriel yells. I
flinch. We both stay silent for about a minute.

“Who hired you?”

That part, I was dreading very much.

“Who hired you, Mercedes.”

I shake my head.

“You thought I should know the whole
truth, and I want every facet of it
now
. Who was it?”

I look at Gabriel, wondering if he’d
be able to take the truth. It’d probably break him.

Making my decision, I sigh and stare
ahead.

“Sorry.
I can’t tell you that.”

~*~
Gabriel

I give Mercedes a stern look. I want
to know who hired her, and I’ll make her tell me.

“Who hired you, Mercedes? Is it
someone I know?”

Mercedes keeps her mouth shut. I just
stare at her, waiting to see if she’ll tell me.

“Tell me, Mercedes!”

“No! I won’t tell you, Gabriel.”

Mercedes looks at me with a pleading
expression. She clearly wants me to drop this.

“Suit yourself. I guess you’re doing
me a favor by not telling. I can’t feel worse than I already do.”

Mercedes looks down at her lap, where
she has her hands entwined. I don’t know why she looks so hurt. What she did to
me is inexcusable. Mercedes didn’t care about hurting my feelings.

“Leave now. I don’t want to see you
again.”

Mercedes closes her eyes. A tear falls
down her cheek. I am too angry for her emotions to move me.

“I didn’t tell you earlier,” she
begins, “because I was afraid of losing you.”

“You didn’t give a damn about me when
we met at the store. All you wanted was to steal my heart. Well, then, congratulations.
You did it.”

“But I fell in love with you!”

“Liar. Get out. I don’t want to
listen anymore.”

“Give me a—”

“Get out!”

Mercedes flinches. She sobs, and then
opens her door. I wait until she’s halfway to the entrance. I turn to look at
her. She’s stopped. Mercedes turns and look over her shoulder. She’s crying.
But I’m too furious. I move to start the engine again.

“Wait—don’t go!” Mercedes says. She
moves in my direction. I pay no attention.

“Goodbye,”
I say. I don’t think I can stand another second with her. In a daze, I hit the
gas and drive away from Mercedes. Away from her life.

~*~
Mercedes

I watch Gabriel drive away. And with
him, he’s taking all my hope.

It takes all my strength not to fall
to my knees now. I feel defeated, lost. This is sadness like I’ve never felt in
my life. It’s so strong that it threatens to choke me.

There’s no way I’m going inside the
building and let everyone see me like this. So I decide to walk away. I go in
the opposite direction Gabriel left.

Time is meaningless to me now. For
all I care, it has stopped now. Nothing has meaning now. I just lost the one
thing I didn’t realize it would be fatal to lose: Gabriel and his love.

I have no idea where I’m going, and I
don’t care. I’ll just walk until my muscles scream and I collapse. If I die,
then at least this agonizing pain will end.

I let the tears fall freely, not
caring if anyone sees me. They can think whatever they want. It’s so funny to
think that to everyone else, the world is still normal. How I wish I could be
any of those clueless people out there.

I lose count of how much time I spend
walking. I just keep going, turning at random. My legs are already starting to
protest. But I won’t stop. Not yet.

As I pass by a bakery, the smell of
sweet bread reaches my nose. I sniff, but it barely lifts my spirits in my
current state. Just an hour ago, I would have found the smell delicious.

Just when I’m passing by the back of
the bakery, a pair of arms grabs me. I forget to scream, too numb to feel shock
right away.

“Easy, sugar. If you dare scream,
I’ll make this much worse for you.”

Worse than this hell? Ha!

I feel the guy dragging my body out
of sight. He stops, and then I feel something cold against my back.

Shit
. It’s the muzzle of a gun. And it’s
pressing directly behind my heart.
Just like in my dream.

In that second, I’m not afraid to
die. I would welcome it, actually. If this guy wants to kill me, so be it.

Too bad my body has other things in
mind. The damn self-preservation instinct kicks in during the next split
second. As if in a trance, I whip around. My elbow knocks the gun from the
guy’s grasp. I am only able to do this by sheer luck. He was holding me with a
hand on my shoulder. In my dream, his arm had been around my abdomen. Had that
been reality, I’d be dead now.

The guy staggers back in shock. I
don’t wait for him to recover. My fist collides with his nose. There’s a
crunching noise as the guy falls backward. I smile faintly when I see blood
pouring from his nose. The pain from punching him barely registers.

I lift my foot to stomp on his leg.
One look at his face is what stops me. My foot drops. I stare at him in shock.
He’s Stephen.

The goddamn bastard followed me.

I lift my foot again to strike.
Stephen gives me a look of hatred. He spins on the floor. His legs knock me off
my feet. I crash on the cement, hitting my arm hard.

“Bitch!” Stephen yells. He crouches
down and grabs me by my throat. “You won’t escape from me this time.”

My eyes widen.

“It’s been you! All along?”

Stephen gives me a wicked smile.

“Yes. I had a guy slash your car
tires, hoping you’d have nowhere to go. He’d kidnap you and then bring you to
me. Only, you slipped away and called your protector. After that, I had the guy
pretend to hire you. He nearly had you that night, but you once again escaped
us.”

“You’re a sick animal.”

Stephen glares at me. He pushes up,
lifting me off the ground. My hands wrap around his wrists. Stephen is
suffocating me.

“Finally, you’ll pay for making us
the laughing stock. I really wanted you to work for me, but now I’ll have to
kill you. You’ve become a liability.”

Stephen brings his knee upward. It
strikes me between my abdomen and breasts. I double over in pain. Stephen lets
me fall to the floor, gasping for air.

I feel hands yanking me up by my
hair. Pain flashes through my scalp. Stephen turns me to face him. He hits me
in the face. Sharp pain tells me he busted my lip.

“You messed with the wrong people,
lady.”

I look up at Stephen. This guy is so
not going to beat me up. I muster up my strength and stand up. Stephen tries a
roundhouse kick. I avoid it and follow with a kick of my own. It strikes his
abs area. Stephen barely flinches. It felt like kicking a wall.

Stephen smiles. He knows he has the
upper hand. I try to punch him with my good hand. Stephen grabs me by the
wrist. Next, I feel sharp pain in my abdomen. I look down to see him holding a
small, bloody switchblade. I’m puzzled. Where did that thing come from?

“Good riddance,” Stephen says. He
grabs my shoulder and pushes me backward. My back hits a wall. Before I can do
anything, Stephen’s blade is across my neck.

There’s a crushing sound. Stephen’s
hands leave my neck. I fall to my knees and gasp, breathing some much-needed
air. It takes me a few seconds to notice what’s going on.

A man stands in front of me. He’s
holding a wooden baseball bat in one hand. His eyes look at me in a way that
lets me know he won’t harm me. Judging by his apron, I guess he works at the
bakery.

“You’re safe, young lady,” the man
tells me. I look to the floor. Stephen is knocked out. A trickle of blood is
pouring from the side of his head.

The man in front of me holds out a
hand. I take it, and he helps me up. I feel something like a stitch.

“You’re hurt!” he says. I follow his
glance to the left side of my abdomen. Blood pours from a small wound. I barely
even noticed Stephen stabbing me.

“I’m okay,” I say. “It doesn’t hurt
much.”

“Can you walk?”

The man’s eyes show concern. But the
stab doesn’t look or feel too bad. Stephen meant to kill me by slicing my neck,
not stabbing me.

“Yes.”

The man leads me to the bakery. I
keep my hand pressed against my wound. We go inside, and he has me sit on a
chair.

“I’m calling the cops,” he tells me.
I just nod. I don’t really care.

It’s only after the man tells me the
cops are on their way that I notice how much I hurt. Especially my left arm. It
hurts more than my stab wound. I let the man know. He prepares a makeshift ice
bag for me. I thank him.

The cops arrive. They take Stephen
away. I hope he goes to jail for the rest of his life. After a couple of
paramedics check me, I’m questioned. I hardly say much, though. One of the cops
says I must be in shock.

It’s funny. The paramedics are only
able to fix any of my physical wounds. The only thing that’s beyond repair is
my broken heart.

Kassandra “Kassy” Markham writes
steamy romance with just a touch of suspense. She enjoys writing about couples
who share sizzling chemistry. Most days, Kassy can be found typing away on her
laptop, often while listening to Cher Lloyd. At night, she
’
s most likely
reading a great book or watching TV dramas
.
That’s if Kassy’s not busy acting
out scenes she could add to her books (such as playing the seductress).

Infiltrating
Your Heart
is
Kassy’s first novel. A new installment is expected for the summer of 2015.
Kassy lives in the great state of Kansas, home of Clark Kent.

Connect with Kassy online at:

@KassyM_Author

http://kassymarkham.jimdo.com

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