AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One
- Dante -
THE COOL LEATHER OFthe new gloves slipped into place. I dropped the soiled ones into the plastic bag and grimaced as I saw the one speck of splatter that marred the pristine cuff of my white shirt. Another cheap one for the incinerator. The bastard was lucky it wasn’t one of my Armanis. Then again, I hadn’t made a mistake like that since my second hit.
Money was no object, but I wasn’t a spendthrift. I enjoyed my luxuries. The men I killed hadn’t earned the right to damage anything that cost more than what the discount store around the corner sold. The first man to have bled all over my Loro Piana cashmere got an extra brass knuckle in the face for his disrespect. He wasn’t breathing by then, but it still felt good.
Making the scum of the earth feel the same pain they inflicted on others always made me feel good.
That was the sociopath in me. I took a few jobs a year – the right ones, offered by the right people. My work gave me an outlet for my rage, a substantial income to support my lifestyle, and the ability to walk unmolested in the shadows where the other boogeymen played. I was untouchable to them. Most of them were so far beneath me they couldn’t breathe the same fucking air I did. Filth. The puke that got off on hurting innocent people.Innocent women.
I didn’t know who most of them were until someone worse than them hired me to make sure they never hurt another person. Someone who thought it was worth the risk, knowing that they may be next on my list.
You had to want someone dead very badly to solicit my skills. The deed would be done. Untraceable. Unnoticed – unless you paid extra for the body to be found, to send a message. A visible body cost more. The risks were greater. Discovery was a bargaining point during negotiations, but no matter what package the client chose, I ended every deal with the same words.
“If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”
It wasn’t like the people I dealt directly with were the ones who solicited the contract. They were the middlemen. Completely expendable. If they weren’t, they would never have been sent to meet with me. To date, two of them had made the mistake of crossing my path twice. One tried to hire me for a second job. Big mistake. The other didn’t have enough sense to hide when we met by coincidence in an illegal gambling room in Madrid.
I’m a man of my word if nothing else.
“I meant what I said,” I hissed in his ear just as my knife slid across his throat. His reaction was one of surprise before I left him bleeding to death in the alley behind the hotel.
Just like the jackass tonight. Couldn’t believe I’d been sent to kill him. Couldn’t believe that his life was about to end. Thought he could bargain his way out of it. At least, he didn’t cry.
I fucking hate it when they cry.
They don’t care when the women they hurt cry themselves silent from the pain they endure.
They don’t care that those women would consider death a mercy.
But they sure fucking want me to have sympathy for them when I tie them to a chair and explain why I agreed to take the contract that meant their sniveling, drooling, puking life would end at my hands.
After securing my tools, I took a taxi back to my generic room in the generic hotel. Bland but comfortable enough. I didn’t require much. To everyone who worked under the golden logo, I was a businessman. I checked in with my suit and briefcase, and I’d check out the same way. I used side entrances and exits. Left the television on in the evening. I even ate the free breakfast shit in the morning.
Now that the job was done, I needed a good night’s sleep before I dined on runny scrambled eggs, limp bacon and watered-down orange juice. I had a ten-thirty flight to catch the next day so I could be home in time.
I made a promise I couldn’t break, and she’d be expecting me. Keeping up my mask meant keeping my promises, especially the ones I made to her. I turned thirty-five years old this year. A few gray strands wove their way through my black hair. But I never break a promise to my mother.
I told her I’d be home in time for her sixtieth birthday celebration, and I’d kill anyone to make that happen.
***
“THERE HE IS! YOU’REhome!” My sister Lilly squealed as she jumped from her chair and ran across the room to throw her arms around me.
“I told you he’d be here.” Gabriel’s smooth voice teased.
My baby sister was ten years younger than me and a spoiled brat but in a good way. She had a heart of gold, but after she witnessed our father getting shot down in cold blood, we caved in to pretty much anything she wanted. She always made her requests with the prettiest smiles, but she wasn’t used to hearing the word ‘no.’ Fortunately, she was a good person beneath her princess couture, designer handbags, and overpriced shoes.
I couldn’t blame her for her taste. Hell, I encouraged it. My father started his life in America working for the city dump. He took a few odd jobs to help support his family, made a few deliveries on the side, and got started in a business that forged a small empire. He was authentic, hard-working, and relentless when it came to taking care of his family. When he made it, he promised me, and the rest of my family, that we were never going to dress like the trashman’s kids again.
We didn’t. He made sure of it. We out dressed all the kids on the block, had all the latest gadgets before anyone else did. My father gave us everything we could possibly want, but he made sure we knew it came from his hard work.
When my father died, my younger brother Gabriel took over the family business. I was already well established in my world, and quite frankly, the idea of being bound to a business, making decisions for others day in and day out... It wasn’t for me. I liked my freedom. Come and go as I pleased. Take a contract if I wanted it, but I got to choose the right one at the right time. Beholden to no one. I made more money from one or two jobs a year than my brother’s team did working twenty-four hours a day.
No one knew that about me, of course. Gabriel asked me at least once a year if I wanted my birthright back, and I always refused. I didn’t want any part of that shit. He was better suited to it. I was a loner and always had been. I didn’t begrudge him having to sit down and be diplomatic in business meetings. I couldn’t have wheeled and dealed the way he did. I didn’t have his people skills.
Don’t get me wrong. Gabriel Calegari wasn’t a man to be trifled with. A ruthless businessman who didn’t pull punches, Gabriel knew what motivated men and how to use that information to his advantage. His trust was hard to earn, but if you managed to get into his inner circle, he’d die for you.
