Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
I’d also point out Shasha’s hypocrisy next time I saw him.
If he wanted Dima to be able to live with himself, maybe he should stop sending him out on jobs he could be doing himself…
Cockwomble — noun — A male directed insult. A completely useless person that spouts constant bullshit.
—Dima to Shasha
DIMA
I was on my belly, eye to my scope, scope aimed at my target—or Shasha’s target—and there was a kitten on my back.
One that was wearing a jingling collar that was driving me insane.
The worst part was, if this was a fuckin’ pet, whomever owned the pet was allowing the cat to be really far off from anyone’s home.
I was in the middle of a field, on the edge of a city, about to take a shot that most snipers couldn’t take.
Oh, and the target was a woman.
A congresswoman.
Shasha hadn’t specifically asked me to take this shot, truth be told. He’d asked me to keep an eye on the woman, and I had.
I’d watched her ‘pretend’ for hours at a party in the middle of the city on the rooftop of her home as she celebrated her win back in November.
Only, when she wasn’t celebrating, she was going to her penthouse apartment, into a bedroom, and beating the absolute dog shit out of a little boy that was clearly not hers.
When she was done, she’d kiss him, and the kid would cringe, and definitely not because he’d just been beaten. Because he’d been hurt in other ways.
How did I know this?
Because he was chained naked to a bed.
My stomach was in knots as I watched the kid take one more beating before she headed back upstairs.
I would’ve taken the shot way before now had the kid not been in the way the entire time.
I was confident in my abilities to take a shot, but not confident enough to take the shot when a little boy, probably around the age of seven or eight, was taking up most of the scope.
The moment she got back upstairs after getting her fix, I turned my scope back to the window below, looking as the kid curled into a ball and cried, big, hulking sobs.
And I knew right then and there that the shot was going to be taken.
In the middle of her party, in the middle of Dallas, because I would not let her go down there and do anything else to that poor child.
When she was by herself, standing on a raised platform and waving and laughing, I stilled my trigger finger and listened to the speech she gave.
I’d tapped into the DJ’s setup after he’d gotten there, and heard everything that he had to say, the music he played, and anything that someone uttered that came close enough.
But now everyone and everything was quiet except for her, allowing me to hear everything that she had to say over her speech.
“I want to thank you for your patience,” she smiled. “It’s been a few months since I’ve been voted into office, and I just want to say how thankful I am. How happy that I am to be here and make a difference.” She smiled and raised a glass in the hand that she’d just used to beat the shit out of a little boy. “I want to make a change in this world. In our great state of Texas. I want to…”
I took the shot, not wanting to hear another lie come out of her mouth.
In the months that she’d been in office, she’d accomplished nothing. She’d signed on for numerous bills that hurt this country, the men and women that would defend this country, and anything and everything that she could put her name to that would be touted in the media for all to hear.
Oh, and she’d signed onto the bill that would affect Shasha and me and would give the government the ability to go digging into our lives, in any way they needed, giving them blanket permission across the board to do whatever they wanted, when they wanted, and how they wanted.
Our constitutional rights?
Forgotten if we were suspected of being a part of an organized crime family.
My almost college degree in criminology was screaming as I read that particular bill.
That’d been the reason that I’d gotten the degree in the first place, so I knew my rights.
But apparently, the men and women that wrote that bill, and agreed with it, wanted nothing more than to strip those rights.
The shot was true, and her head exploded like a pumpkin being dropped from a three-story building.
Blood, bone, and brain matter went everywhere as her head was pretty much annihilated.
After the shot took place, I didn’t waste time.
The kitten didn’t react when I took the shot—it was quiet, and truthfully, unless you knew what you were listening for, you wouldn’t know that I’d just shot a rifle—and I took that as a sign that the cat needed to come home with me.