The target emerges from the restaurant right on schedule, flanked by his security. Pathetic. They’re scanning for obviousthreats—men with guns, suspicious vehicles. They never look for the predator hidden in plain sight.
I signal Cyrus with a subtle tap on my watch. Time to move.
I cut across the street, timing my steps perfectly as Marconi and his guards move toward the black SUV. Security is laughably minimal—just two men scanning the streets with the casual arrogance of those who’ve never faced real predators.
“Driver’s side clear,” Cyrus’s voice comes through my earpiece, barely a whisper.
I make brief eye contact with a woman walking her dog, then adjust my pace to fall into her blind spot. Civilians complicate things. Witnesses mean cleanup.
Three. Two. One.
Cyrus emerges from behind a parked van, seemingly materializing from nothing. His movement is fluid as he drives a knife through the first guard’s throat before the man can reach for his weapon. Arterial spray arcs across the sidewalk, masking sure it’s messy just as Xavier ordered.
I approach from the opposite direction, sliding my silenced pistol from its holster. The second guard turns, finally alert to the danger, but he’s already too late. I fire twice—one round to the knee to drop him, ensuring maximum visibility to Marconi, and a second to the shoulder. Not fatal. Not yet.
“Jesus Christ!” Marconi stumbles backward, fumbling for something inside his jacket.
I catch his wrist before he can draw, twisting until bones crack. “The Blackwoods send their regards.”
Cyrus grabs Marconi by the hair, looking him directly in the eyes. “You were warned about the east district.”
“I’ll pull out. I swear—” Marconi’s pleading cuts off as Cyrus slams his head against the car door.
“This isn’t a negotiation,” I explain, voice level despite the violence unfolding. “This is a message.”
I drive my knife into Marconi’s side—not a killing blow, but painful.
“Your replacement needs to understand,” I continue, twisting the blade. “The Blackwoods don’t give second chances.”
Cyrus finishes him with theatrical brutality—multiple stab wounds to the chest, leaving the body displayed against his own vehicle like a grotesque warning sign.
I wipe the blade on Marconi’s jacket, feeling the familiar calm that always follows a kill. The hot rush of adrenaline settles into something cooler, more refined—a clarity that’s almost transcendent. It’s been this way since the first time.
“Remember Hoffman?” Cyrus asks, as if reading my thoughts while he cleans his own knife.
“Hard to forget your first,” I reply, my lips curling into a smile.
Hoffman had been one of our trainers—the man who’d taught us to kill with bare hands before we’d even hit puberty. The Architect Program had acquired us as children, placing us with handlers who shaped us into weapons through methods that would make seasoned torturers flinch.
“He never saw it coming,” Cyrus says, his eyes taking on that distant look they get when he’s remembering. “Kept saying we wereshowing promiseright up until I drove the knife in.”
The memory is pristine, perfectly preserved: Hoffman’s shocked expression when his prized pupils turned on him, the sound of his gurgling as I held him down while Cyrus opened his throat. He was the first of seven handlers we eliminated that night—each death more satisfying than the last.
“And Larson?” I prompt, watching for the flare of savage joy in my brother’s eyes.
“That bitch screamed so loud the neighbors called the cops,” Cyrus laughs. “Good thing we’d already been taught how to disappear.”
Our handlers had created the perfect killing machines, never imagining we’d use those skills against them. We’d been fifteen years old, covered in blood that wasn’t ours, standing over the bodies of the people who’d broken us down and rebuilt us as weapons.
Xavier and Knox Blackwood found us a year later, after we’d lived on the streets, hiding in one of their warehouses. They offered us purpose—exclusive contracts, high-value targets, and the freedom to indulge the darkness that had been cultivated in us.
“We should move,” I say, scanning the street. “They’ll have this place flooded with cops in minutes.”
Cyrus and I move in perfect synchronicity away from the scene, our steps measured and unhurried. We don’t run—running draws attention. Instead, we walk calmly toward the parking garage two blocks away, blending into the crowd of office workers and shoppers.
“Five minutes until first responders,” I note, checking my watch as we turn the corner.
Cyrus nods. “Plenty of time.”
