The Housewife Assassin's Ghost Protocol by Josie Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

can’t stifle a yelp. Damn it, I’ve given myself away because I hear him scrambling toward me.
    Although in pain, I wrench the cleaver from the wall, swinging it as hard as I can in Salem’s direction.  
    I hit something because he roars, “My fingers! …Why you…you cunt !”  
    With whatever fingers he has left, he pulls me toward him. Now they are around my throat. I claw at his wrists as he chokes me, but I can’t make him stop. Soon my mind wanders to all the things that I should be doing:
    Lying in the sun. Listening to the waves lap at the shore.  
    Laughing with my children.
    Making love to my husband.
    Instead, I let my hands drop to my side. At the same time, my hand falls onto the pointed pliers.
    I scoop them up—
    And stab him in the neck.
    I must have hit his jugular vein because my arm is sprayed with his blood.  
    I feel his hands falling away from me. He gasps, but he cannot speak.  
    He blacks out.
    The yacht convulses again—even harder this time. Once again, I’m slammed against the door.  
    Frantically, I tap in the security pad with the code Salem used to open it, and turn the handle swiftly.
    Thank God it opens. For a second time, I’m spared death beside a man I’ve now killed twice.
    The hallway’s emergency lights are dim, but working. The Divide and Conquer is at such a precarious angle that I tumble into the hallway, along with some of Salem’s deadly toys.
    A finger rolls past me. It wears the ring with the Quorum crest.
    I pick it up and run with it. Mission accomplished—sort of.

    I open every door that is unlocked, hoping to find Jack. Most of the rooms are empty, so at least some of the women were aware enough to make their way to a higher bridge, even in their drugged states of consciousness. I wonder how many were helped by their rapists. My guess is very few.
    By now, several feet of water fill the hallway, as we tilt to the left—the port side of the yacht.
    I come across a door that is locked. I recognize it as the one holding all the captives in cages.  
    I try Salem’s code and it opens.  
    I sidestep the cages as they tumble forward. The prisoners can’t reach the latches that open their cage doors, but I can, and I do. Some of the women have already disconnected the IVs that have been drugging them, and are ready to run or swim for safety. Many assist those who are still too dazed to help themselves.  
    As I watch the last woman stumble out the door, I realize that Gigi isn’t among them. Did Pinky Ring get his way with her after all?  
    Hopefully, Jack accomplished his goal of stopping that cruel little toad.
    The water is now waist high. I’m about to join them in swimming to safety when I notice another closed room behind a set of double doors. At this point, the hallway is tilted so precariously that the doors are now above my head. To reach the lock pad, I have to jump up and grab the handle.
    As I hang onto it with one hand, I once again punch the code on the lock pad with the other.
    When the doors slide open, I am smacked down into the water by hundreds of foot-long by foot-wide clear plastic packets filled with the tiny beige pills.
    The packets may float, but I don’t. I pop up for air, pushing the packets out of the way, but there are so many of them and there is only four feet of air in the hall. Soon, I’m completely submerged again.  
    I’m drowning.
    No. I won’t die this way.
    A glimpse of hope is the metal railing along the wall that now serves as the roof above me. If I reach it, I can follow it up the stairs.
    With all my might, I push down until I hit the wall that now serves as the floor, only to kick myself to the top. I extend my hands over my head in order to grasp for the railing—
    I miss.
    I gasp for air again. Considering that the hall now has only six inches of air to spare, there won’t be a next time.
    Before my hand disappears underwater, I feel something grabbing it—
    Another hand.
    A second later, an arm goes