No Remorse No Regret (Counterstrike Book 1) Read online

  Get Melissa In Training for free

  I am certain you will enjoy No Remorse No Regret, so I thought I’d share with you the story of what happens in the days after Danil rescues Melissa from the watery grave. The first part will come when you sign up, the second part will arrive five days later. It’s available here:

  http://www.melissaintraining.com

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2017, Ian Worrall

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author and/or publisher.

  Edited by Monica Y Dennis and Julia Telfer

  www.oncalleditingservices.com

  Cover by Fiverr Artist Germancreative

  www.fiverr.com/germancreative/

  Formatted by Debbie Lum

  [email protected]

  www.ianworrallauthor.com

  Disclaimer

  This book is sold for entertainment purposes only and is a work of fiction from the author’s imagination, any similarities in the characters or events to any person(s) living or dead is coincidental.

  Prologue

  H and in hand with her boyfriend, Ron Smithson, while walking into the high school gymnasium, seventeen-year-old Jackie Cruze looks up to Ron and asks, “Do you know what this is about?”

  With the other kids talking so loudly, Ron must bend over as Jackie stands on her toes to repeat the question right into his ear. When she does, Ron stands straight, shrugs his shoulders, and shakes his head.

  In front of the stage, they see four uniformed police officers and two men in suits. Jackie and her boyfriend see their clique sitting on the floor and join them. She sits in between his legs and he puts his arms around her, kissing her on the neck.

  “Anyone know what’s going on here?” Jackie asks one of her friends.

  “Something about The Drowner psycho.”

  One of the men in suits approaches the microphone. “Thanks for joining us today. I’m Detective Mitchell Burnlee.” The detective starts going on about how the students, particularly the girls, should not go anywhere on their own; use the buddy system when they go out.

  “He’s cute,” one of her friends says.

  “He’s probably old, like old enough to be your father,” Jackie replies.

  “He doesn’t look that old, and besides an older man can get you to orgasm faster.”

  “Maybe so,” Jackie agrees, “But the longer it takes to get there can make it better. Anticipation and all that.”

  “And make sure not to leave your drinks unattended,” the police detective ends. “Any questions?”

  Jackie puts her hand up. “So, are you promoting underage drinking?” The other students burst out laughing.

  “No, young lady. It’s just the fact that it happens.”

  * * *

  The young police detective, Jared Torres, enters the back entrance of a dark warehouse, slowly guiding the door closed behind him. He takes one hand off his gun then wipes it dry on his pants. He does the same with his other hand. The gun won’t slip now, he thinks. Butterflies are swarming in his stomach as he shines his flashlight side to side. His gun follows the beam, beyond which is darkness where an ambush could be waiting. Torres starts to control his breathing. Three seconds in, three seconds out, just like they taught you. He thinks of the months of planning that went into this bust, Alexei Burlomov, you are going down.

  With his flashlight shining back and forth, Torres inches forward, but there are no stacks of boxes or anything on pallets. Find the light switch. He turns around and, with the flashlight, he sees the breaker panel with a lever in the off position. The slam of the door closing from the front of the building reverberates through the warehouse. Torres drops to his knees while panning the flashlight back to the front of the warehouse. “Chris, that you? Chris? Chris?”

  Still facing forward, he backs up, reaches the panel, and feels for the power switch. He pushes the lever up turning all the lights on and revealing an empty warehouse, except for him and a body lying on the concrete floor.

  Torres rushes up and sees the bullet wound in the back of Chris’s head. He feels the carotid artery. No pulse. He yells into his radio, “Officer down. Get an ambulance here now.” Damn you, Chris. I told you we should have brought backup.

  A ping sound comes from Chris’s right hand. Torres takes one of those new smart phones out of his dead partner’s hand. Not the standard department cell phone.

  * * *

  Melissa Vacelli awakens in darkness feeling groggy from the alcohol. She vaguely senses she is moving, just not under her own power. It must be the effects of the alcohol. As a nineteen-year-old university freshman, she has had her share of drunken party nights. Yeah, that’s what it is. I drank a little too much.

  She tries to turn over and reach for the light. She strains on something. My hands are tied. And what is that holding the back of my legs? Her upper body bounces and her face hits something. She gets a slight poke in the stomach. Her heart skips a couple beats. Someone’s got me.

  She has found herself being carried over someone’s shoulder so many times that she stopped counting after the twentieth ride. Is it a BFF playing a joke on her? At five feet nothing and all of ninety pounds, even her female friends would have little problem carrying her in this manner. But Eddie loves to do this, so it’s probably him.

  She calls out, or tries to, but only a muffled sound comes out. What’s over my mouth? She can feel and hear her heart beating in her head like a thousand marching bass drums pounding away. The newspaper and television reports about those women found in sports bags flash before her eyes. He’s got me. The Drowner’s got me.

  Melissa swings her upper body back and forth. God, let me get away. Please, I’m begging you. When the one carrying her slams her to the ground, she somehow sees stars from her head hitting the ground. She tries gasping for air through her nose. Something grabs the back of her head. She tries to twist out of the grasp as something pierces her under the collarbone. I’ve been stabbed. In and out twice more goes the knife, that’s what she figures it is, tearing flesh and grating against bone as it enters her body.

  Then there’s a voice in her ear. “I am your worst nightmares come true. The reason you fear the dark. I am The Drowner. The bleeding should get the sharks to you fast.”

  She feels herself being swept off the ground again, one of the attacker’s arms around her back, the other under her knees. The fingers dig into her. Where am I being taken? With a bounce up, she feels the weightless sensation of falling for what seems like forever as her short life passes before her eyes. I love you Mommy, Daddy, Pete, and Eddie, I hope you’ll all be okay. And then…

  Chapter 1

  M elissa wakes up to the knocking on the hotel room door. A few shakes of the head to lose the morning cobwebs and she’s ready. It was a good slumber for once. How hard that has been to come by over these last ten years.

  “Yes?” Melissa says.

  “Your room service order, miss.”

  “Leave it on the floor.”

  She gets out of bed, turning on the light. Taking off the old shirt, she grabs her right shoulder as she bites her lip then puts the shirt on the bed. Standing at the foot of the bed, she clenches her jaw and breathes out slowly as she runs her finger along the scar under her collarbone. She starts to put on a clean shirt, biting her lip again and stifling a yelp. Don’t show anyone pain, not even yourself. On the dresser sits her bag from which she pulls a mirror used for searching under cars.

/>   Turning off the motion sensor, Melissa opens the door and checks the hall for anyone who might be there. With the coast clear, she smirks as she grabs her food—pancakes, orange juice, and coffee.

  Closing the door behind her, she puts the food tray on the counter just inside the bathroom, the door to which blocks the bathtub. Turning back, she grabs her bag and a chair from the desk and enters the bathroom. Sitting down in the chair, she puts the food on her lap and faces a naked man in the empty bathtub secured with duct tape to another chair. His mouth is taped shut and surgical tubing is attached to his left leg.

  Melissa whistles and taps on his head to wake him up. “What wild times did you get into last night?”

  With muffled screams, the man strains against the tape securing him to the chair.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Melissa smirks at him as he starts crying.

  “Oh, that’s right. I did a role reversal. I put the roofie in your drink and put you in here. So not such a fun night after all, was it?”

  Melissa takes a sip of coffee as her captive continues crying while trying to speak through the tape.

  “Are you crying for your mommy?” Melissa mocks him. “That’s what those fourteen-year-old girls did as you raped them, wasn’t it?”

  The man gives her a look that says how did you know?

  She gives him her evil smirk again. “That’s right, Mike. I know who and what you are. And this is a just payback for what you did.”

  Placing her food tray back on the bathroom counter, she stands up from the chair and turns on the spigot and the blood starts draining down the tube directly into the drain. She blows him a kiss. “Sorry, Mike. I really do wish I could make this last longer. But I have a paid gig to do and a girl’s got to pay her bills. Surely you understand that, don’t you?”

  He tries more violently to shake free as Melissa stares into his eyes, mockingly searching for his agreement. She purses her lips. “Oh well. I guess it doesn’t really matter if you understand or not. But just so you know, I kill rapists for free.”

  The blood gushes out of the femoral artery and her victim dies within a minute. After she finishes her food, she cleans the dishes with bleach wipes.

  She next removes the surgical tubing and duct tape from the dead man and then pushes him down into the bath tub. Removing the chairs from the bathroom, she wipes them down and puts them back in their places at the desk and the corner table.

  After packing up her murder kit, she taps on an app for her smart phone and she puts the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door knob as she leaves.

  * * *

  In the hotel security office, the security guard sees the picture freeze and come back over different cameras, almost like someone is flicking a switch on and off. This goes on from the seventh floor to the elevator, then in the elevator then into the parking garage. He taps the monitor muttering, “Damn thing.”

  * * *

  Three minutes after leaving the hotel room, Melissa steps off the elevator into the parking garage. Taking three steps and then stopping, she looks in every direction. No one is visible. She quiets her breathing and hears no car engines running, no footsteps coming toward or away from her; only the sound of the ventilator fan. She continues walking while checking the windows of cars. The only reflection is her own. At a dark red Chevrolet Cobalt, she clicks the unlock button on her key set. The beep reverberates through the garage.

  In her car, she checks to make sure the app is still active on her phone. She then checks the address for her next target. Gary Taylor.

  The passenger seat of her car has a small tear and the vinyl of her dashboard is starting to crack. She sees a red Mercedes parked across from her and on the passenger side is a silver Ferrari. I could buy both of those cars and pay cash. Would be nice. But anonymity and being inconspicuous is the name of her game.

  The money she makes does allow her to keep her center open; even not-for-profits must pay the bills. She didn’t much care as to why her next target had to die, but she was told anyway. A couple of Gary’s crew had put a severe beating on one of her mentor’s crew. The gang Taylor leads, The Black Roses they call themselves, has been trying to muscle in on her mentor’s drug turf. They’ll find it’s a big mistake going against the Russian Mafia. The last ones who tried it got wiped out.

  The philosophy of the Russians is to cut the head off the snake. Decapitate and the body will die. In this case, the body being the underlings of Gary Taylor who will be scared back into their home neighborhood, assuming they know what’s good for them.

  As she puts her key in the ignition of her car, Melissa is startled by a knock at her window. A man whose hair might have once been blonde but is now matted down with dried mud, his clothes stained with dirt, is at her window pointing a knife at her.

  Where was he that she didn’t see him? Must have been hiding somewhere and heard the beep of the car unlocking. I should have had the sound of the beep disabled. Even the best and most careful make mistakes, as she now discovered. This won’t ever happen again. The Drowner was supposed to be the last one to ever catch her unaware. Another predator will now become prey.

  Lowering the window, she gives her would-be robber a fake smile, a smile that instantly changes into a gag as the stench from a man who hasn’t seen a shower in over a month crashes into her like a tsunami wave. Her eyes are watering as she grabs her mouth and stomach with her breakfast climbing back into her throat. She stifles the vomiting at the last second and sees the track marks on his arms, the white knuckles of his hand gripping the knife trying to avoid dropping it from the withdrawal shakes.

  “Give me your wallet, bitch,” he says in a shaky voice as he sticks the knife into the open window.

  Melissa winks at him. “Sure. No problem.” Your last fix is coming up.

  Reaching in her purse, she pulls out a small metal canister. Sticking it out of the car, she sprays the man in the face then closes the window to her car. The man clutches his chest, dropping his knife as he falls to his knees and then flat on his face.

  She kisses the canister—what great work you do—and as she drives off, Melissa puts the canister back in her purse. Cyanide spray. In the right dosage, it is indistinguishable from a heart attack, a death that is not all that uncommon once people reach the age of forty-five. A drug addict dying of a heart attack would not raise any suspicions.

  In less than half an hour, she has killed two men, one of whom simply picked on the wrong target; a small female he thought he could intimidate into providing his next fix. And in less than two more hours, her third kill for the day should be complete. How she got into this dirty business, she’s been going over in her head for ten years. But, now more importantly, how will she get out?

  Exiting the parking garage, it is still dark out, but she does see the beginning cracks of daylight on the horizon. It would be good to enjoy the sunrise for once, but not today. Good thing for room service. Hard to do your job on an empty stomach.

  She turns right at the exit of the parking garage. As she clears away from it, she taps the app on her cell phone, turning it off.

  * * *

  Back inside the security office of the hotel, the security guard has finished rebooting the security camera monitor computer. “Great. Now everything’s fine.”

  * * *

  Another one of her creations was the CCTV blocker app. After several attempts, she was able to make one that rolls with her as she moves throughout an area. Now for you, Gary Taylor, your time is about to end.

  * * *

  Five miles away, heavy metal music is blaring in the cargo van as two men in their twenties, Valeri Kucherov and Sergei Kamenski pull up to a red light. Except for hair and eye color—Valeri is dirty blonde with brown eyes and Sergei is red-haired with green—they are almost identical. Both are twenty-two years old, wearing black leather jackets and black jeans with black combat boots as they try to look tough.

  “Think any of the guns are duds?” Valeri asks.
/>   Sergei shrugs his shoulders. “What does Boss do if they are?”

  “Da,” Valeri laughs.

  Sergei grunts out a laugh too. They have both seen what happens to someone who makes the mistake of messing with this crew, especially if it impacts the boss personally. One of the Russian crew, Dimitri Varlamov, a runner, was beaten into a coma a month ago by a bunch of black guys trying to muscle in on their drug trade. Their boss has promised swift retaliation. It hasn’t happened yet. But like a good boss, Danil Burlomov protects his people. Any attack on his crew is an attack on him.

  With the light turning green, Valeri and Sergei start to move into the intersection when eight marked police cars rush onto the scene, blocking their escape in each direction. Two each to the front, rear, right, and left. The SWAT team van pulls up behind the other police cars. Eight heavily armed police officers in full body armor rush out of the back of the van. Their assault rifles are aimed at the two Russians.

  Over the loudspeaker, they are given their commands. “Driver, turn off the vehicle and slowly put your hands out the window.”

  Valeri looks over at Sergei and winks. “Someone from the sellers must have snitched on us. Guess this is where we’ll see if the money the boss is paying the cop was worth it.”

  He floors the gas pedal and swerves the van up onto the sidewalk in front of them. The driver’s side mirror smashes off on a lamp post as they drive around the two police cars that were blocking the front.

  The police open up, firing several rounds each. Three bullets smash through rear windows and miss Sergei’s head shattering the windshield. Returning to their cars, the police start to give pursuit when the engines of the vehicles inexplicably die one by one.

  Valeri sees the cop cars stopping in the rear-view mirror. “Poshyol ty,” fuck you, as he gives the police the finger.

  Back at the cop cars, Detective Jessica King steps out of the police van, slamming the door behind her and her fist on the hood of the van.