Banter Series 1: Bantering With Murder
Автор
SJ Wilke
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Banter lives in the shadows—sharp, skilled, and always one step ahead. Her latest hit should’ve been just another job, until Detective Corey enters the picture. He’s smart, charming, and completely off-limits. But when his picture-perfect marriage crumbles, Banter becomes his unexpected confidant, their late-night calls and stolen glances blurring the line between right and wrong. Now, with a deadly case forcing them together, secrets ignite, danger closes in, and their forbidden connection becomes impossible to ignore. In a world of bullets and lies, love might be the most dangerous thing of all.
Chapter 1
Banter could feel her gun strapped firmly to her back. It didn’t even shift when she executed one last cartwheel. She had calculated the distance precisely and landed right beside the picnic table.
After two deep breaths to recover, she sat on top of the table with her feet resting on the seat. Three breaths later, the black stretch limo pulled up to the curb. She had been waiting for it.
“I don’t like you,” Banter said.
Since she knew she had to wait, she stretched her right shoulder while looking over the park. This was her favorite place to go to execute her parkour moves. She liked that there were several benches.
A few half walls defined a garden space, and there were three picnic tables. All of them were nicely spaced for her to use as obstacles to maneuver around.
The park still had the old-style metal swings with the A-frame base. She found it fun to run up and walk across the top as if she were on a balance beam. This was her way of training to stay in shape and keep agile.
Banter rubbed her hands together to generate some heat and expend some of her exasperation. She liked that her thin black gloves kept her hands warm.
They also had the added benefit of giving her enough feel should she need to pick a lock or someone’s pocket. More importantly, they prevented her from leaving fingerprints.
“Give me an opening. I’ve been after you for weeks. I’m getting tired of this. I need to use this gun and get rid of it.”
She adjusted her black hoodie, hoping that it would absorb a little of the sun’s warmth, but the late afternoon sun was already too low in the sky to do much good.
“I’m waiting, and you can’t see me. Take a chance.”
Banter didn’t know why, but a figure dressed all in black garnered no attention, as if invisible. She had even blacked out the logo on her shoes with a permanent marker to keep herself as nondescript as possible.
“We have company,” she murmured under her breath, as if she were alerting her gun.
A young girl, who Banter guessed was about five years old, ran to the swing set that Banter had climbed earlier. The child stood out, dressed in a bright red and yellow jacket.
A woman whom Banter knew was a hooker, and probably the girl’s mother, strutted along the sidewalk where the limo pulled up. She looked a little cold, wearing only a tight red skirt and a white blouse, revealing hefty cleavage.
“Right on time today,” Banter said while she adjusted her hoodie lower on her face. “Limo’s sitting lower than normal, don’t you think? Bet he brought company. So what do you think?”
Her one idiosyncrasy, because of working alone, was to talk to her gun.
“I bet he brought two or three buddies. Can’t be more than three. It’d be too crowded, and they wouldn’t have room for the hooker.”
The window rolled down when the hooker approached.
Banter could hear the murmur of voices but couldn’t pick out any words. Then the window closed, and the door opened. A hand reached out and literally pulled the hooker into the limo. The door closed quickly behind her.
“I don’t think you know what trouble you’re getting into today, girl,” Banter murmured, knowing she needed to be patient and wait.
She rued the fact that the limo had bulletproof glass and reinforced doors. However, with multiple people in the back and one hooker, she was betting they would get sloppy.
The limo shifted a bit from side to side.
“Someone’s having a little too much fun. Told you that limo was trouble, girl. Bet they are slapping you around and tenderizing you a bit. Those are not nice people.”
Banter counted out ten minutes.
“Just about show time.” She stepped from the picnic table.
“Mommy? Mommy?”
Banter could see the child looking a little frantic, since her mother was out of sight. The child spun around to focus on her because she was the only person in view.
“Have you seen my mommy?” The child trotted over to her.
It didn’t surprise Banter that the child saw her. Children seemed to see everything. However, she thought the child a little too trusting, especially considering her mother’s career choice. She decided to take advantage of it.
“Yeah, she’s in that limo having sex.” Banter thought the child would be a good cover. “Let’s go over and check on her.”
Banter adopted a slow pace while she crossed the park. She heard the child following close behind her. It amused her to use the child as a blind for a killer on the move.
Banter slid the gun from her holster. While keeping it hidden under her hoodie, she pulled out her silencer from another pocket and twisted it onto the gun.
It was a small annoyance that the gun didn’t fit the holster with the silencer on. She had to keep them separate.
When she came within fifteen feet of the limo, the door opened. The hooker almost flew out of the door as if the men had thrown her out. She landed face-first on the cement.
Her bare ass was showing because her skirt was hiked up. A perfect red bite mark adorned an ass cheek. One shoe was off.
Her splayed legs prevented the door from closing.
Voices and loud, raucous laughter radiated from within the limo. That let Banter know the men weren’t paying attention to what was happening outside the windows.
She made her move, prepared for the worst-case scenario: four men in the back, a driver, and a man riding shotgun.
Narrowing the distance, she deftly switched the gun to her left hand, getting the right angle and shifting her body to be out of the path of the ejected shells.
She shot twice through the open door: one headshot at her target, and one shot at chest level. Then, she quickly shifted the gun to her right hand and changed the angle.
She shot twice more, hoping she hit whoever was sitting behind the front seat.
The driver’s door opened, but Banter, still moving, anticipated this, and she fired one shot into the driver. He slumped over the steering wheel while she continued toward the front of the limo.
The man riding shotgun looked like he couldn’t get out fast enough. He already had his door opened enough and his gun hanging out in hopes he could get her to hesitate.
Banter knew the windshield protected her, plus she knew he didn’t have enough of himself out of the door to get the right aim. She kept moving, firing a shot at his hand, taking off a finger.
His missing finger caused him to lose his grip on the gun. He stumbled when he tried to recover his stance. The gun, now slick with blood, foiled his attempt to renew his grip.
It wasn’t helping that he was also trying to keep track of her position.
With a second shot, she caught the man in the head, between the eyes. It was a clean shot, and he dropped like a rock, out of sight.
She heard the sickening thud of his head hitting the pavement.
Banter turned around and returned to her original position. No more doors opened. No more windows rolled down.
Banter knew the driver and the man riding shotgun were dead. She knew her primary target was dead since he had been the first one she shot. With that headshot, he was definitely a goner.
“Ah…gat de fuck out of here, ya bitch,” Banter said, using a low voice with a bit of an accent. She talked tough to the hooker on purpose.
The hooker had yet to recover from her landing on the sidewalk. She seemed to be afraid to move for fear that she was next. Her child was crying beside her, tugging on her mother’s arm.
Banter’s tough talk caused the woman to gain control of herself and to rise. She pulled down her skirt and grabbed her child’s hand.
Her nose was skinned and bleeding.
The woman avoided looking at Banter as if she knew it wasn’t a wise thing to do. She limped off with her child in tow.
Banter did a quick look around the area before she returned to her picnic table. She took off the silencer and replaced the gun in her back holster, then put the silencer into her pocket.
There wasn’t a single person around, and she knew it was safe to wait. She wanted to know how many people were in the limo without the risk of sticking her head in to find out.
“Damn. I should have asked the hooker. Why didn’t you remind me to ask the hooker?”
She looked in the direction the hooker had gone, but she was no longer in sight.
“Oh, well. At least it’s pretty quiet around here. Far enough from buildings. Lots of trees to hide us. I would say they parked that limo in the perfect place. Far enough from those pesky traffic cameras that spy on everyone.”
She gazed around the park again.
“Yes, you’re right. A perfect place. No witnesses. Well, yeah, there’s the hooker, but she won’t tell anyone. She’ll be afraid of retribution aimed at her kid. Yeah, kid, today was your mother’s lucky day.”
The child was the only reason that Banter hadn’t included the hooker in the hit.
“Amazing what a guy will do for sex. I bet he spent a fortune, too. Don’t you think?”
She shifted her shoulders as if nudging the gun for a response.
“This isn’t the usual spot to pick up a hooker. Too nice of a neighborhood. Yeah, I would agree with you. Sex was his addiction. A different hooker here every day. Prearranged, definitely.”
A bird landed on the swing set, then flew away.
“Do you think he got a quantity discount?”
She chuckled at the thought.
“The joys of fast sex. In and out in minutes. Never gave us an opening. Until today. Bringing pals along gave me the time for my approach. Yeah, I would say he got sloppy. Bet they gang-banged her and never even paid.”
She heard a siren, but it faded into the distance. However, another vehicle caught her attention.
