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“We’ve known each other for quite a while now, Simon,” I tell him. I throw him forward by his head, and he barely manages to throw out his palms to catch himself from falling face-first into his own lawn. “You’d think we’d have an understanding by now, you know?” I turn out to face him, raising his face up to me with the steel tip of my boot. “You come to my place, you shake me down for money I can’t give you, you do the whole threatening thing, blah blah blah—that’s the play we’re supposed to be putting on. That’s what I thought, anyway. I didn’t know we were putting hands on each other now.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, you s-stupid bitch,” Simon stammers.
I kick him right into the jaw. A clean, low sidekick, steel tip to jawbone. I rock him like he’s a sack of shit; he goes flying into his lawn with a yowl of pain. I crouch down and pick his head up by the hair.
“I’d be quiet if I were you, Simon. Your kids are asleep, you don’t wanna wake them up. You don’t want your wife to come out and see what all the commotion’s about, do you?”
Simon’s eyes widen. He’s started shaking now, and not from the cold.
Keeping his head up by a fistful of his hair, I show him the knife I’m holding.
“Here’s something I’m going to teach you for free, Simon. Next time you slap someone in the face, make sure they don’t own a knife.”
“Don’t—don’t,” he says.
“Don’t what, Simon? I don’t get it.” I drop his head back onto the ground and raise a hand in a gesture of exaggerated confusion. “What are the rules exactly? I thought we were just doing threats and insults. I was perfectly willing to cower and beg, wasn’t I? But then you hit me—youhitme, Simon. You laid your fucking fingers on me, and I really—Ireallydon’t like that. You could say that dislocating your jaw was payback enough, that we’re even, but now I’m thinking: if Simon hit me once, what’s he going to do next?”
“I won’t touch you.” He’s shaking his head frantically. “I didn’t hit you that hard, Willy. I was just putting on a show.”
“Right, but here’s another thing.” I throw my knife up, catch it by the hilt, blade down, and I sink it deep into the place between Simon’s neck and his shoulder. It’s gotta hurt like a bitch. Simon lets out a strangled screech of pain, which he barely manages to bite down on. “My name isn’t Willy.”
“You fucking bitch,” he grunts.
“That’s better. I prefer that to Willy, honestly.”
I yank the knife free, drawing another scream from him. At this point, lights are starting to come on. I sigh.
“For god’s sake, you’ve gone ahead and woken people up. That’s going to be a lot of awkward questions to answer. So I’m going to leave you to it, alright?” I stand, and then I kick my boot hard into his shoulder. “I’m sure I’ll see you again soon enough. That’s fine. You’re just doing your job. But next time you put your hands on me, you should probably man up and finish the job. If you touch me again, killing me is the only way you’ll stop me from hunting you down and stabbing you right in that flabby lump of flesh you call a dick.”
He’s gripping his shoulder, blood pumping through his fingers. I lean down over him, narrowing my eyes.
“Got it?”
His face is white as a sheet, his eyes blurry with alcohol and pain and anger.
“Nod if you got it, Simon.”
His hate is palpable, and he’s probably desperate to return my threat with one of his own. But Simon isn’t that man. In the pantheon of evil men I’ve encountered in my life, Simon isn’t even fit enough to carry the bucket they’d piss in.
So he nods and says nothing.
“That’s what I thought. Great.” I wipe my knife against his coat, flick it shut and give Simon a thumbs-up. “Happy New Year, mate.”
And then I turn and leave; I have more important fish to gut.
8
Worse Predators
Luca
I dedicate the entiretyof January to my hunt.
That night in her hotel room, when she challenged me to hunt her down, she seemed so certain I would fail to catch her.
I soon understand why.
As soon as the winter holidays are over, I gather staff and get to work. Every last scrap of CCTV footage from CHOKE over the past year is pulled. Every camera, every room, every last minute. Thousands of hours of footage, probably more. I hire an entire team to comb through the footage for any glimpse of Sasha.
