Amidst the tranquil embrace of a lakeside's serene beauty, two women found themselves engaged in an arduous endeavour. With strained muscles, they grappled with the weight of a dead hitman that seemed to defy their efforts. Their movements spoke volumes of their shared determination as they laboured to drag the dead weight to the end of an old abandoned pier.  It was pitch black except for an almost full moon casting beams of light onto the treetops and the surface of the lake.

There was no one to be seen except for Julie Koop and her best friend, Sarah, struggling to move the weight of Philly Schmidt’s dead body.  Just two hours earlier, the man had been alive and breathing, but a single bullet from Julie’s Glock 18 had ended him.

“Do you think the water will be deep enough here?” Sarah asked between heavy breaths.

“I sure hope so,” Julie replied.

They managed to drag Philly Schmidt’s body to the very end of the dock, and with a final push, they rolled the body off the edge as it succumbed to gravity's pull, sinking into the lake's cold dark embrace never to be seen again.  The resounding splash echoed through the solitude as ripples danced across the water's surface, marking the culmination of their joint struggle. As they stood there watching the body disappear into the depths, a sense of relief washed over them.

Julie had once again foiled an attempt on her life. She was beating Bronson Riddick at his own game and making it look easy.  She had now single-handedly killed three of his best hitmen.  Nobody would’ve thought that a woman who wore fake eyelashes and short skirts would be a hard kill, but here she was, still standing, still alive.

They looked at each other with a sense of accomplishment. It seemed unbelievable that Sarah had just helped Julie dispose of a dead body, but here she was, standing next to her best friend, looking down at the dark water and making sure that the body wouldn’t surface.  It didn’t.

They turned around and slowly made their way back to the deserted gravel parking lot where Julie had parked her Mustang. The early summer air was still pleasantly warm, and the distant sound of crickets could be heard all around in the forest of lush Evergreen trees that surrounded them.

As they sat together in Julie’s car, they looked at each other with a silent nod. No words needed to be spoken between these two close friends. Julie slid the keys into the ignition and fired up the engine feeling the familiar vibration race through the seat, sending orgasmic sensations into her clit, and up in her stomach.

“Julie, I’m worried about you; who knows how many soldiers Bronson Riddick has in his army?  Where is this going to end?” Sarah asked with concern in her voice.

"I don’t know. But I’m not going to give up. I don’t wanna die, and if I have to wipe out Riddick’s entire crew, then I will, if that’s what it takes. These men think they can break me easily because I’m a woman, but I’m going to be the survivor, they may think they hold power, but they’re wrong.   I won't let fear dictate my fate. I'll emerge from this stronger, and they will be the ones who falter, trust me.”

“You know society loves to put labels on women, and sure, I might fit into some idealized notion of beauty, but my worth extends far beyond appearances.  I’m smarter than people like to give me credit for, Sarah, and as Bronson Riddick and his thugs are learning, I have a strength that can't be measured by the standards of beauty.”

Sarah said nothing, but the small smile she had on her face said everything.  The sense of safety and protection she felt around Julie was unreal, even more than she had ever felt from any man.

“Are you gonna tell Brad and Jay about everything? All this crazy shit with Bronson Riddick trying to kill you?”

“No. Sarah, you’re the only one that knows about all this.  That’s the way it has to stay.”

“You don’t think the police are gonna know it was you?”

Julie paused before answering; she looked down at the hemline of her black leather skirt and could feel the coldness of the material pulling against her thighs, it felt slick and smooth. It was the combination of masculine strength and feminine beauty.

“I doubt they’d suspect a woman that looks like me would be capable of wiping out a drug cartel.”

Julie slowly pulled out of the gravel parking lot onto the road and into the night, leaving Philly Schmidt‘s dead body at the bottom of that dark lake, never to be seen again.

************************

The following evening, In the dimly lit corners of an old run-down bar, the air thick with the scent of cheap whiskey, two men sat at a corner table.  One, Nikolai Verosky, a cold seasoned gangster with a face weathered by years of hard crime and the other, Bronson Riddick.  Their hushed conversation danced around the plot they were weaving against Julie Koop.  Nikolai's sharp, calculating eyes showed not a hint of apprehension.  Killing Julie Koop would not be the first murder he’d ever committed.

As glasses clinked and murmurs blended with the distant hum of the city outside, their exchange painted a chilling picture. Riddick, with his persuasive words outlined the intricate steps of their plan, each word laced with the gravity of the deed. Nikolai, the embodiment of eerie composure, nodded in measured agreement, his steely gaze fixed on Riddick's every word. The evil nature of their discussion echoed the fate they plotted.

“Julie Koop has won again.  Philly Schmidt hasn’t been seen or heard from in two days; he’s dead, and she killed him.  This woman is proving to be hard to kill.”

“Who is she? I will kill her for you.” Nikolai said, in a cold Russian accent.   

“A woman that owes me money.  We’ll leave it at that.”

“What’s the point of spending more money trying to kill her than she even owes you? That doesn’t make good business sense, Bronson.”

Riddick tensed up as that cold reality sunk in. He had now spent more money trying to kill Julie Koop than she even owed him.

“You don't get it, Nikolai. This isn't just some unresolved matter at this point. This woman is a lot stronger and a lot tougher than I originally thought. I underestimated her. She’s killed three of my best men.”

Bronson produced a picture of Julie Koop and slid it across the table; it was the same picture he had given Clayton Radcliffe, Jimmy Chen, and Philly Schmidt.  Nikolai scanned the picture for some time.  Of all the people he had murdered in his long criminal history, he had never accepted a hit job on a woman.

Riddick looked around suspiciously, making sure nobody was looking, and then slid a bulging envelope full of cash across the table to Nikolai.  He picked it up and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

“Get it done,” Riddick ordered.

Stepping out from the musty confines of the pub, Riddick and Nikolai went their separate ways without speaking a word, melding into the shadows of the rain-soaked street.  The patter of the raindrops on the pavement provided a haunting soundtrack to the city's nocturnal symphony.

Riddick had come too far to have his entire cocaine empire brought to an end by a woman.  What should’ve been a simple routine hit job was now unravelling and becoming a much more difficult task than he originally thought.  On one hand, he admired Julie's strength and cunning and her ability to kill and survive. On the other hand, he hated her guts.  Seeing Julie Koop dead was starting to become an obsession for Bronson Riddick.   

“I’ll kill her myself if I have to,” he muttered to himself as he disappeared into the darkness of the night.