No Love For The Villain - Chapter 50
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Eli, now wearing his jacket, took out a cigarette case from his inner pocket. He was just bringing a cigarette to his lips when his eyes caught a warning sign on the wall.
<No Smoking>
He put the unlit cigarette back into his pocket. His gaze turned toward the curtained area where Sierra had disappeared.
She could be an actress. She’s a beauty. Only the staff member’s chattering voice, offering such idle compliments, could be heard.
He recalled Sierra shyly mentioning that the restaurant employee had called her pretty.
He could picture what kind of expression she was making now—the awkward look, her widened eyes, even the earnest “thank you” she would offer. A faint laugh escaped him.
Eli’s smile vanished the moment his gaze reached the window. A man hidden in the shadows of an alley was watching the dress shop.
How many men did Enrico put on killing the prosecutor’s daughter?
Watching the man—unsure if he was a surveillance agent or another assassin—Eli shifted his gaze back inside the shop.
His slow, scanning eyes stopped on the tailoring scissors resting on a table. The raised tips of the scissors were nothing but blades.
sharp as can be.
Eli took the tailoring scissors. As he stepped out of the dress shop, he spotted a man lingering in the alley between the buildings.
He followed behind the man. In the fading evening light, Eli’s elongated shadow stretched toward him.
The man’s hurried footsteps came to a halt at the dead end of the alley. When he turned around, he was already fully engulfed in shadow.
Eli drove the scissors into the man’s neck. A gurgling sound echoed low in the quiet alley as the scissors pierced his throat. Holding the struggling man’s shoulder close, Eli pushed the scissors deeper.
He confirmed the man’s face. One of Enrico’s men. The same face that had lit his cigarette the day the prosecutor’s coffin was moved to the Red House.
“Are there more after the prosecutor’s daughter?”
As the man shook his head in denial, the scissors twisted, and blood seeped out.
“Shh, stay still. You’re bleeding.”
Whispering close to his ear, Eli felt the shoulder pinned beneath his arm stiffen.
“What should I do? Shall I give you a ride in my trunk, or would you rather crawl back on your own?”
Blood beginning to flow down the scissors soaked Eli’s glove.
“The trunk?”
The gasping man twisted his head.
“On foot?”
The man shook his head frantically before finally managing a nod. Eli took the man’s hand and placed it over the bleeding neck.
“Hold it tight. You need to get home.”
The moment he pulled the scissors out, blood spurted. The man gurgled as if choking, collapsing onto Eli’s shadow.
Eli reached inside the man’s coat and found a gun. He slipped both the unused gun and the bloodied scissors into his own inner pocket. He wiped the blood from his glove onto the man’s coat.
Eli walked carefully, avoiding the bloodstains left behind. Emerging from the alley, the street at dusk was quiet. Across the dark road, the lit-up dress shop shone alone.
He opened the door and stepped into the light. Sierra was just coming out from behind the curtain. She hadn’t put on the coat over her dress.
The sleek silhouette of the dress flowed along the lines of her body. Her delicate, fragile face looked well-suited to the black dress.
When the staff member swept Sierra’s hair to one side, her blonde locks spilled over her shoulder like a brilliant radiance.
Eli, unable to shake off the shadow darker than bloodstains clinging to his heels, gazed at the woman who possessed a light he lacked.
When Sierra’s blue eyes looked at him with clear innocence, he finally spoke the words that had been on his mind all along.
“You’re pretty.”
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