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Prologue
The dim light flickers overhead, casting shadows around the cold, damp basement. The longer I look at the congealing blood surrounding my mark’s feet, the more it resembles the shape of a bear. My last mark’s blood resembled a horse.
Maybe I spend too much time staring at blood.
The bitter, copper scent would cause most people to puke, but not me. To me, the scent smells sweet, especially when I’m the reason it’s seeping from a body. Crouching down, I run my finger through the pool and stare at my red stained fingertip. It amazes me how every person is different, but when it comes to blood, we all bleed the same. Wiping my finger off on my mark’s trousers, I stand up and grab the knife from my tool kit.
Rotating the six-inch blade between my fingers, I circle the guy in the chair, listening to every raspy breath he’s trying to take.
His torso is slashed all to hell.
His left arm has been sliced open from elbow to shoulder.
His ribs are black and blue, and caved in on the right side.
And his face… well, is unrecognisable.
I’m the guy people call when they need someone dealt with efficiently and discreetly. My fee is high, but you get what you pay for. If you want a job done properly with no comebacks, you have to pay the price.
The client who hired me runs the local underground gambling scene, and found he had a grass in his midst, hence why the rat is now in my presence. I’m not aware of the ins and outs of his crimes against my client, but in our world, a grass is the worst thing to be. There’s only one conclusion, and that’s death.
Me fucking around, making him bleed, is all on me, though. My client just said he wanted the grass gone. But I’m not going to waste an opportunity to unleash the darkness I work so hard to keep reined in.
“Please.”
I chuckle. That one pleading word that gets me every time. Please what? Please let me go? Please stop fucking me up? Please let me live?
It never washes with me. If anything, it spurs me on to fuck them up even more. The prick probably can’t remember the last time he used it, and now he’s on repeat, throwing the word around like it means something. Like it’ll save him.
Dropping the blade on the table in the corner of the small basement, I run my fingers over the tools I brought with me and stop on a screwdriver. Grinning, I pick it up and turn to the bleeding sack of shit.
“Can you guess where I shoved this the last time I used it?” I say, remembering it clearly.
One of his eyes is swollen shut, but he watches me closely through the slit of the other, his lips pursed firmly together. To be fair, I wouldn’t want to guess where it ended up. But still, I tell him, “The last guy tied to that chair had an experience like no other. I can still hear his screams when I shoved it in his dick like it was yesterday.”
Even though he’s covered in blood, it’s obvious he’s scared shitless. Dragging a chair across the basement, I set it in front of him and take a seat, tossing the screwdriver from hand to hand.
“I’m getting bored, so I’ll be ending your life soon enough. Regardless of who you’ve pissed off, I don’t care for grasses. I think you’re the fucking lowest of the low, and I’d have fucked you up for free.”
“I didn’t—”
I hold my hand up, stopping him. “No, no, I don’t wanna hear it. You’ve already been through the worst, and I’ve got somewhere else to be soon. So, let’s end this, yeah?”
It’s at this moment, a calm sense of acceptance radiates from him. It always gets to this point, where the mark finally accepts his fate. They know there’s no going back, no changing the outcome.
“So this is where we part ways. I’d say I’ll see you around, but…”
Leaving the rest unsaid, I drive the screwdriver into his neck and sit back, watching the life drain out of him. Death doesn’t bother me in the slightest. People assume I’ll kill anyone, but it’s not like that. The type of people I hurt, and occasionally wipe from existence, are people who aren’t missed by the so-called normal people of society.
The second his head falls forward, hanging limply, I know he’s gone.
Deciding to take a breather, I stare at the blood trickling out of his neck and down the front of his chest. Once I toss his body into the river, my job will be done, and I’ll wait for the next one to come. There’ll always be another job. As sure as the air I breathe, there’s a guy who’s making the wrong decision, and their fate will fall into my lap.
And so it goes.
