Free Silent Daughter 3: Owned by Linnea May, Stella Noir

world that asks for genius. I lead them into one final deal that blew up most of their operation. When he says that his team got killed, he is not talking about lives being eradicated but about careers beings finished. As far as I am informed, most of them were arrested by the police and the few who didn’t—like him—were on the run.
    “Didn't even leave a fucking trace,”  he adds. “You know I should just deliver your sorry ass to the police! But would those bastards believe me?”
    Probably not, I think to myself, tightening the grip around my gun. I don't want to shoot this guy but the way he keeps gesturing around with his own gun while rambling worries me.
    “You,” he hisses, now pointing at me with his empty hand. “You're a fucking asshole. A clever asshole, I'll admit. A sneaky asshole.”
    He sighs and shakes his head.
    “Not leaving a single trace of yourself,” he repeats. “It's like Leonard Miller never existed. What do you call yourself now? Clark, isn't it? Interesting choice.” 
    Clark actually is my real name, but Charlie doesn't have to know that. I have used different names in the past, changing my identity every time I got involved with people like him. It's better to be on the safe side, especially when the plan is to leave everything behind once the deal was closed.
    Whatever Charlie did to find me, it cannot have been easy, and it would be good for me to know how he did it.
    “How did you find m-”
    I’m interrupted by him yelling and coming at me with his hand up in the air.
    I get ready to fend off his weak attempt at an attack, but I’m distracted by a flurry of movement behind him.
    “Liz, no!”
    She ignores my warning and jumps at the guy from behind, not realizing that he is holding a gun in his hands. He grunts in surprise when she starts choking him by closing her frail arms around his neck.
    What the hell is she thinking? 
    Even to a sick and weakened man like him, she is not much more than a  nuisance, and he shakes her off easily, pushing her away from himself with such power that she stumbles backward across the room.
    Then, he turns around and points his gun at her.
    “Okay, the little missy first,” he says, and lucky for me, he saw it necessary to make this little announcement because it grants me with the one second I need to get between him and her.
    Everything happens fast: a split second that decides on who is going down and who isn’t.
    I jump forward, grabbing the arm with which he is holding his gun and bend it. He gives in surprisingly easy, but only to point the gun at me instead.
    The shot echoes through the house and a sharp pain shoots through my left torso right after I manage to land a precise hit on his temple with the barrel of my gun, achieving what he couldn’t. The guy collapses down on the floor as if someone drew all the life out of him with one breath.
    “Leonard!” I hear Liz squeak behind me.
    She tries to support me when I sink to the floor.
    “The gun,” I urge. “Get his gun!”
    “Leonard, you are-”
    “Now!” I interrupt her. “His gun! Get it!”
    She reluctantly lets go of me and hurries over to fetch Charlie’s gun that has slid a few feet across the floor. She hesitates for a moment before she picks it up, but thank God, she does get it into her hands.
    I look over to the guy to make sure that he is unconscious. He is lying on the floor with all four limbs spread out around him like a starfish. I don’t know if it’s coming from my punch or if he hit his head when he fell, but there is a small river of blood traveling across the floor.
    Liz hurries back to me. Her light bathrobe is soaked in blood on one side of her waist. My blood, I hope.
    I am down on my knees, pressing on the wound to control the bleeding as much as I can.
    Liz gets down on her knees next to me, her eyes wide with horror.
    “Oh my God, Leonard,” she breathes. “Are you okay? Will you be okay? Is it bad?”
    She puts her hands on my