Excerpt: Sacred Promise

“I don’t want to do it, Hell. Please don’t make me.” I was blubbering like – well, like a nine-year-old. A nine year old holding a gun in her hands.

“If you want to stay with Rihanna, then you’re going to do it.”

“Hell, she doesn’t–”

“Rihanna, if you open your mouth one time, I will put a hole through your forehead.” Hell looked at me, his eyes as black as night. He was thirteen years old, surely not old enough to be the apprentice of an extortioner. But he was. And now he was teaching me. “Just point the gun, Angel. It’s not scary. It’s easy. Who would you like to kill?”

“Don’t say that to her!” Rihanna snapped at him. She was eleven. Too young to know how to shoot a gun. Too young to have recruited me to this.

Hell touched my cheek. I saw Rihanna bristle. His touch made me want to scream but I didn’t. I was too scared to.

“Look at me.” His eyes were so dark, it felt like they were sucking me in, like I would never get out again. “Who do you hate more than anybody else in the world?”

Rihanna opened her mouth to protest again but my attention had shifted. I met Hell’s gaze. Who did I hate most in the world? The answer was easy. My father. For leaving me. For leaving my mom. For letting my mom die.

“You hate him, don’t you?”

Startled, I looked at Hell again. Had he read my mind?

“Well, that’s him, Angel. Right there.” Hell helped me hold the gun, pointing it at the little red dot on my target’s forehead. “He’s laughing at you, Angel. What are you going to do about that?”

I stared at the target. My finger, the one on the trigger, was twitching.

“Pull it, Angel.” Hell said softly.

“Hell, don’t say that to her. She is nine years old!”

Hell let go of me, probably to slap Rihanna into oblivion, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the target. It was laughing at me. I could hear my father’s voice as sharply as knives against my skin. He was laughing at me, his little angel. He’d never loved me. He’d never cared. All he ever wanted was Angelique; she had been my mom, my whole life. I wasn’t good enough for him, only she had been. And now he was laughing at me.

The gunshot stilled Hell and Rihanna’s argument.

They both turned to look at me, shock written clearly on both of their faces. The target’s entire head was gone.