What Went Wrong After I Killed Him

Chapter Five: Wraith House

The Wraith House.

Roman's POV

She was still unconscious when they brought her in, laid across the back seat like something fragile that had stopped being dangerous the moment the sedative hit her system. I didn't think that was true. I'd heard about the elbow to Marquez's ribs over the radio. I intended to remember that, later, once she was awake enough to matter.

I had her moved to the room I used for this, white walls, no windows, nothing in it that could be turned into a weapon or a way out. Not comfortable, not cruel either. Just empty enough that a person had nowhere to put their attention except the conversation in front of them.

I sat with her longer than I needed to before she woke up.

Ava Bennett, I'm not quite sure yet, but she could help me with my mission, after all she has done the very thing I've always wanted to do for years.

Kill Ethan Cole.

I already made plans, everyone in wraith house was ready for the mission, only for us to see in the news that Ethan has already been murdered.

I thought karma caught up to him, maybe he offended one of his type, but I was shocked when we found out, it was his own PA, who murdered him, funny enough, Karma really caught up to him.

Since that moment, I've changed my plan and strategy, but one thing was certain, the Coles must be destroyed, and Ava would have a big part to play in it.

I returned my attention back to sleeping Ava, she slept like someone who hadn't slept properly in weeks, her brow pulled tight even unconscious, one hand curled against her chest like she was still holding something, probably guilt. She'd been carrying it visibly for a month now, but she has to be prepared, cause what's coming is a bit worse.

When she stirred, I didn't move. I wanted to watch the moment reality caught up to her, the exact moment she remembered she wasn't dreaming, and It took about four seconds. I could saw it land.

“Where am I?” She asked, looking around like that would give her some clue.

“My domain” I gave a short reply, and she widened her eyes, waiting for me to explain further, but I was really enjoying the moment.

“Your domain?” She paused “You kidnapped me” She said, I guess she just realised.

“Are you scared” I asked, she was definitely scared, I could see her hands shaking, but from the little I know about her, I'm sure she wouldn't admit it.

“Let me go” she didn't even answer my question, some guy she got there.

“I'll go straight to the point Miss Bennett” I paused waiting for that to sync in “I need you to complete a mission of mine” I finally said.

Her facial expression changed before she asked “What's the mission all about.”

“I need your help in Eliminating Victor Cole.” this was the only reason, I'd spent three weeks watching her life fall apart instead of simply letting the police finish the job for me.

I want you to kill him.

I watched her, most people, faced with that sentence, go one of two ways, they either collapse into begging, or they go very still and start calculating, the way you do when you're deciding whether the person across from you is bluffing.

She did neither. She refused. Flatly, immediately, with something almost like conviction in her voice.

“No!, Never” She said, like she already made up her mind.

“Do you think you have an option here?” I asked.

“I'm not a killer” That made me laugh, as if the two deaths behind her hadn't already made that argument for her.

“I've made mistakes, I know you're already aware of everything I've done in the past, but I can't kill a man, who's been nothing but good to me and girls like me, a man who's always treated me like his daughter even though I was just a mere employee, I can't do it” She said, her voice shaking.

“Victor Cole?, Your father figure?” I asked, and she raised a brow at me.

“Now I know how why you were able to kill two people so easily.” I said, she looked confused for a moment.

“Wha–What do you mean?” She asked

“You aren't as clever as I thought Ava, Victor Cole is one of the cruelest man I've seen in my entire life, and here you are calling him your father figure.” I paused.

“Do you think if Victor wanted he wouldn't have caught you by now?, the only reason why you're still here is because, he's busy with all the girls he recently kidnapped. On the night you killed Ethan, it was announced in the news that seventeen girls were kidnapped from, Fabrics Ltd., Sunset Park, Brooklyn, do you know that Ava?” I asked, and she nodded her head.

“And the total of about thirty eight girls are missing now. Those girls are the reason you haven't been caught, because Victor is busy with trafficking them, not on his son's murderer.”

“So what do you want me to do about it, huh. I'm not a killer, those two were just incidents, just let me go now” She said.

This is what I wanted Just enough to put a crack in the picture she'd built of the man she'd worked for. A question about why he'd never once called the police himself. Funny enough, she wasn't as scared as I expected her to be, or maybe she was just too good at hiding it. If that was the case, then it's good, cause she'll be doing a lot of that from now.

“I'll give you two options miss Bennett. It's either you help me with my mission. Or I let you go, but remember, the moment you walk through that door, the police would catch up to you.” I paused.

“Miss Bennett, I've been the one, pulling strings from behind, else you would have been caught about two weeks ago. And the driver, aren't you surprised he hasn't been contacting you for a long time now?” A mention of how conveniently every real lead in her case had evaporated. I watched the crack take, watched her go quiet in the particular way people go quiet when a belief they've been standing on for years starts shifting under their feet.

I had personal reasons, but also, Victor Cole had to be stopped. He had wronged me but, no one would believe the great Victor Cole, who stood up for people, who helped the poor, is capable of everything he did to my sister. I've decided, I would do exactly what I told her I would. I've built whatever reputation I have on being a man whose word means something, even when the word is a threat. Especially then.

I stood up before she could give her reply.

“You have two hours to think Miss Bennett” I said before walking out. Marquez posted himself outside the door. I went to another room, and I waited, and for those two hours I let myself consider, seriously, what I'd do if she said no.

When I came back, I didn't have to ask, I saw it in the set of her shoulders before she said anything at all, the particular stillness of someone who has already made the calculation, run out every alternative, and arrived, unwillingly, at the only door left open to her.

"Fine," she said. Just that. Her voice had gone flat, stripped of the fight I'd heard in it two hours earlier. "I'll do it. But I want to know why. All of it. I know there's more to the story, than those missing girls”

I considered her for a long moment. She held my gaze, which more people fail to do than you'd expect, sitting in that chair, in that room, having just agreed to become a killer on my terms instead of her own. I had to admit, she's smart.

"In time," I said. “For now, you train, cause it isn't gonna be as easy as you think. If you fail, neither of us gets a second chance at this.”

She didn't argue. I hadn't expected her to. Whatever was left of the fight in her had gone somewhere quieter now, not completely, I suspected, just filed away for later, the way I'd filed my own grief away for years before I let myself do anything useful with it.

I opened the door and gestured her out ahead of me.

"Welcome to phase one, Ava," I said. "Let's see what you're capable of when someone actually teaches you how to survive this, instead of leaving you to figure it out alone.”