I hear you, Pa. Over the course of my lifetime, I’ll serve two.
Angles and shapes don’t matter no more.
Nothing does.
A beat later, his final shot is sending us both to hell.
2
Joseph
Present
Bone splinters beneath my fists, tearing another grunt of satisfaction from my lips.
Bykov’s head snaps back and an arc of red stipples the front of my white T-shirt. I watch, indifferent, as he gurgles and chokes on his own retribution, and before the skinny Russian has another chance to beg for his life, I’m smashing into his left cheek and evening up the damage.
This fresh blow of pain knocks him out cold.
“Pussy.”
Shaking the ache out of my hand, I lift my gaze to find Dante’s. The tall Colombian is leaning up against the far wall, arms crossed, staring at me like I just pissed all over his fun time. He cocks one dark eyebrow, and I know what he’s thinking. Before he can say the words out loud, I’m drawing my Glock and firing a bullet into the unconscious man’s skull.
I don't want to hear it.
There’s a pause, and then he’s pushing off from the wall to join me.
“You making up your own orders now, Grayson?” He kicks the corpse off the chair. The dead Russian hits the polished parquet with a muffled thump. “You killed him too quick.”
Torture is a specialty of Dante’s. He’s former cartel, and they live and breathe for that shit. But I’m in no mood for it tonight. My anger is spent; my bare knuckles just imprinted it all over the corpse’s skin.
“Well?”
“Initiative,” I tell him coolly, holstering my weapon, doling out the word with the same measure of deference I always show him. As far as I’m concerned, Santiago’s earned it. I serve this devil and I’ve served him well, for close to twenty years now. From the frontlines of the Middle East and all through his reign in South America, to our latest endeavor: becoming the type of mercenaries where killing comes as naturally to us as fucking.
My words are sparser these days, my silence more crimson than golden. The holes in my heart got patched up with vengeance somewhere along the way, but the ache in my chest is still present. It’s still a melting reactor seeping poison into my system.
He considers me for a moment in that scary-ass way of his, and then he’s turning back to the disfigured corpse. “Take out the trash. I’ll meet you downstairs. New York is done. It’s clean. This war is over… I’ll call Rick Sanders, and tell him the good news.”
I nod, watching him own the hallway. Dante’s recent incarceration in a maximum-security facility hasn’t smoothed his edges. If anything, it has made them sharper. He’s more focused now. He has a family. Eve. Their first child is barely a few months old. His need to protect them floods his veins with the same potency as his bloodlust.
I snap my fingers at the three men hanging back. “Dump the body. Scrub this shit down.” I glance around the palatial monochrome New York apartment that set the scene for our latest slaughter. Since Dante slipped through the authorities’ fingers, we’ve been sweeping up the debris of a Russian sex trafficking empire. The war may be over like Dante said, but there’ll be re-runs and bonus scenes.
Still, it’s watch-and-wait season for us now. We’ll fly straight to Dante’s private island in the Pacific tonight until I return to the US next week.
For her.
Spun gold.
Her latest stay at Greens Therapy Center is coming to end. It’s one of the best private rehabs in Miami, all paid for on my dime of course. She switches up her addictions the same way she switches up the invisible lines between us—abruptly, and without warning. Last month, her drug of choice was Oxy, and now it’s alcohol. It’s the fucking narc progression. I see what’s coming next and it makes me want to pound my fists into that dead Russian's face all over again.
“We’re done, boss,” says a voice behind me.
I nod and signal for everyone to leave. The body is wrapped in a tarp, and the sour reek of cleaning chemicals is stinking up the apartment.
It’s time to get the hell out of here.
The journey to the private aircraft passes in silence. Dante is tapping out a thesis to his wife, Eve, on his phone, while my own reflections are loud enough to fill the SUV.
I’m thinking about life, and how freely I take it.
I’m thinking about loss, and how freely I grant it.
Reversing time is another currency I’d spend with the same impunity if I could. To see all those I couldn't save… To speak words I couldn’t say.
I drag my mind back to the first time I saw her: warm night. Busy nightclub. Crowded sidewalk.
I watched her unseen from the darkness: wicked jade eyes and a red dress that weaved her killer curves into an enticing trap. A woman with so much life and energy about her, I’d wanted to tap that pussy and drink my fill.
One glimpse was enough to have my dick in flames.
One glimpse was enough to have me making her a promise. It’s one I’ll keep for the both of us until she learns to stop hating and dares enough to believe.
Nothing about us is simple. Nothing is straightforward. Its unrequited and unspoken, but it’s also chronic and pervasive, cementing our cracks with something other than hate.
My cellphone chimes. I check the message, erupt with a curse, and it’s enough to catch Dante’s attention.
“What is it?”
“I’m not going back to the island. I’ll drop you off and take the car.” I hand him my cell and watch him scan the message.
I know he won't stop me. Dante doesn't feel guilt, but he likes to swipe his bloody finger through mine every so often.
And there is so much guilt to feel over her.
3
Anna
“Come on, baby… You gonna take the hit, or what?”
I drop my face to the glass table like a good girl. Or am I a bad girl now? Whatever. The lines are so blurred these days, even I can't tell the difference.
The rolled up twenty grazes my nose as I slip and slide toward this new peccadillo like a foal on ice. The only alternative is a black hole where my life used to me. Rehab can’t reach me, I lost both my jobs after the no-shows, Mom’s dead, and my best friend, Eve, seems lost to her own devil these days.
When I discharged myself from Greens, there was only one destination: Another night in another club, of which the name escapes me.
I’m back in South Beach. I know that much. The rest isn’t worth remembering, not even a description of Mr. Faceless who just sold me a couple of grams of shut-the-hell-up-world. Tonight, I needed a new vice, and I didn’t have to look too deep inside myself to find one.
Cocaine.
For years, my shadow dealt it.
For years, he protected it.
And now here I am, on my knees and about to worship it.
“Come on, baby,” urges Faceless. “I wanna hit too.”
He’s such a sleaze—goading and slavering. Over me, or the coke? He’s the type of guy I would’ve sidestepped a year ago. And now? He’s just another plug to stop the deadness from pouring out of me.