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This makes me think...
If Xander is still sending these death threats, he doesn’t know Tallulah doesn’t live with me anymore. That she escaped after betraying me in the worst possible way. Which means he doesn’t have her. He hasn’t gotten his twisted, fucked up fingers on her yet, which means she’s still innocent. Still mine. Hopefully still thinking about me and all the ways she can serve me.
“Deep in thought again, I see,” Saul interrupts. “I hope you haven’t forgotten. We have a hit to make today.”
“I’m well aware we need to make a hit,” I murmur. “Maybe if you didn’t keep bringing this shit to my desk, I could actually focus on working in peace.”
Saul smirks at me. “We both know that’s not the real problem here. Once your obsession over Tallulah is broken, we’ll finally be able to carry on with work as normal. Until then... I’ll watch you crumble from the man I used to know. But I believe you, Xavier. If you say you’re going to get better once we get her back here and once you get to hurt her the way she hurt you... I’m going to believe you. You’re the same man I went into business with all those years ago… right?”
“Itoldyounotto mess around on my quarter. This city is owned by the Scorpion cartel. And you will do well to remember that.”
“There is room for a new king.” The figure picks itself up from the chair, its heavy cloak guarding every feature I try to discern from underneath the heavy fabric.
My finger cocks on the trigger. I’m ready to shoot, ready to kill this man who messed with the wrong cartel. The only choice I need to make is deciding between whether I want him to go slowly, or end his pain here and now.
Things are about to get ugly.
This hit has almost felt like an intervention. I get to take out my anger healthily, a way that helps my business even if it means killing innocent people. Except the man in front of me isn’t innocent. Just like Tallulah wasn’t.
He’s the sole man responsible for running this prostitution ring, which specializes in women younger than acceptable. I was surprised to find Selena here. I thought she would have been too old for them.
But they took her, anyway.
I found her in a cell, dusty, with no water and just a bucket in the corner to fulfill her basic needs. She told me she hadn’t eaten in a week. And she was delighted to see me. It wasn’t quite the union we’d both hoped for when we last saw each other, but it was going to have to do for now.
I had Saul take Selena out of there, get her the help she needed. Now I’m stuck in this office with the man who ran it all and about and I’m about to put this bullet right between his eyes.
“Did you know how old some of those girls were?” I asked him. “Did you know some weren’t even twelve?”
“The younger ones were my clients’ favorites.” The man laughs darkly. “If they were under nine... even better.”
Pure rage takes over me and I see red as I launch myself at the man, pummeling my fist into his body repeatedly. I hear teeth clattering to the floor. The dark fabric of the man’s coat soaks with red blood as I continue beating him to a pulp. And then, on one of my last kicks, his hood falls back, revealing his face.
That’s not a man at all. It’s a woman, and she’s young, probably mid-thirties.
She’s not moving and I can tell from the way her eyes are open that she’s never gone to move again. I killed her. I killed awoman.
This is something I’ve tried hard to avoid most of my life. There have been some kills that I deemed necessary. I had to do it for myself and my brother. But after that, I swore to myself, I’d never hurt a woman again. I don’t even slap them, not unless they begged for it.
But now, I’ve killed the most evil man in the city. And it isn’t a man at all. It's a woman scheming behind her mask.
Of course, she deserved that. We all do. Every single one of us. In this cartel business, everyone has done enough fucked up shit to merit our acceptance into hell.
So seeing the dead woman on the floor is fucking eye opening. All I can think about is Tallulah being found like this by a bad person wherever she is now. I can imagine these scary, shadowy figures hurting her, bruising her.
As I imagine scars marring her perfect body, I feel myself getting angrier and angrier.
I need to get her back. No matter what happens in the cartel and in my business, I need to get Tallulah back where she belongs. This anger will not go away by itself. It’s going to fester and rot until it becomes something even uglier and deadlier. I need to take out my feelings for her. Need to punish her for trying to kill me and running away from me.
I’ll never forgive her for what she did.
But hopefully I can break her down enough to fulfill my need for vendetta.
Spitting at the corpse at my feet, I force myself to walk away without looking back. I share a look with Saul and he nods to signal he’ll take care of this mess.
My worries over killing a woman have been forgotten, replaced only with the relief I feel for getting the world rid of one more bitter character, making this city a more dangerous place. I don’t think Saul is going to reprimand me this time. After all, it’s his job to clean up after me. And now that I’ve left the biggest mess, it will be on him to hide the traces and scrub the blood out of the floorboards.
The dead woman is of no consequence to me.
