He hit the wall and stopped, chest heaving. He tipped his head back to check the window above him. I watched him do the math on it as if he could escape.
“Your turn,” I said, checking the remaining bullets in my gun. I already used four bullets on the men who were stationed around the house. I shoved the gun on my back and reached for the knife instead. One bullet was enough to end him, but I loved to make them suffer first. “I’d hate for you to just sit there.”
He looked up at me, fingers pressing flat against the floor. “I only wanted the boy.”
“You said that already.” I crouched in front of him, resting my forearm across my knee. “What you haven’t said is who you are. Don’t be boring. We’re just getting acquainted.”
“You won’t kill me.”
“I absolutely will.” I unfolded the knife and drove it into his thigh in one clean movement.
He screamed as his hand flew to the handle, clutching at it while blood soaked through his trousers in a widening stain.
“Introduce yourself.”
“Fuck off,” he spat through his teeth, hands still clutching the knife, trying to pull it.
“You think I don’t know you.” I pulled the knife out, and he dragged a ragged grunt from somewhere deep in his chest. “Walter Klus, forty-eight years old. You have a wife and a daughter. Does your daughter know what you do?”
“I’m just working…”
I stabbed his other thigh before he finished the sentence. His head slammed back against the wall, and he cried.
“He will kill you,” Walter managed.
“Oh.” I straightened and pulled out my phone. “I’m ready to die. The question is whether you are.” I dialed Ivan, who was already at Walter’s home. “Kill his wife.” I declared and hung up.
The color left Walker’s face entirely. “What was that? You didn’t, you didn’t actually…”
“Your daughter is beautiful. College age, from what I can see. But her father won’t be around for it.”
“No. No, please.” He tried to push himself up, and the pain folded him back down. “I’ll talk. Don’t touch my family.”
“Good. What does he want with the boy?”
“I don’t know, I was just given the job.” His words came fast now, tripping over each other. “I don’t know who the boss is. The man who assigns us is called Gunter. He contacts us, gives us the target, that’s all I know, I swear that’s all.”
“Where do I find Gunter?”
“We meet in different places when there’s a job. It’s random. I never know until he calls. Please, man, my family…”
I gripped the knife and pulled it out clean. So Gunter ran the street work. He reported to Iker. Taking Gunter apart would send a message to Iker that didn’t need a signature.
“Describe him.”
“Tall. He’s tall and—” Walter pressed his eyes shut for asecond, pulling himself together through the pain. “He has a butterfly tattoo on his neck.”
“Butterfly,” I repeated, wiping the blade against his shirt. “Interesting.”
He looked up at me, something desperate moving through his face. “Spare my family and me. I only do this for money, that’s all this is, please.”
“The problem is that,” I raised the gun, “you touched what’s mine.”
He scrambled backward, the fear doing what it did on a man’s face when he finally understood the room he was in. “I only knocked her out. She should already be coming around or will be soon.”
I smiled. “So you’re the one who knocked my wife out.” I pulled the trigger. The bullet went between his eyes, and his body dropped.
I stepped back and pulled a cigar.
