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It was freezing out. The unexpected ice storm that had paralyzed Chicago had somehow missed Highland Park, but the temperature had still forced me into insulated clothing. At least I didn’t look out of place in a ski mask in this weather.
The garden was very simple, dominated by tall cypresses which formed a privacy screen on each side of the property. Apparently, the Ivanovs really didn’t like nosy neighbors. But it also meant I could work without being seen and would have a bit more time to escape unseen afterward.
I didn’t know what the Ivanovs had done. All I knew was that my pakhan rarely got this angry about anything. When he did, people died. Tonight, those people would be the Ivanovs—a married couple, and two other adults who lived at the property. The husband was a kindergarten teacher, the wife a pediatric nurse. Kind of obvious they were supplementing their income illegally if they could afford Highland Park. The others were both men who sources claimed were grown sons, but one of them may have actually been a hired bodyguard.
The wife was supposedly a pill addict and never left the house, which made the cover story of her being a pediatric nurse a bit pointless. Other than that, I couldn’t dig up any dirt on them. No idea what they could be armed with, or what to expect. But I did know one thing. Vasily did this so rarely, that the Ivanovs must really deserve what they were getting.
I thought back to the last time I had been sent to kill a household. Three years ago—a group of four brothers who had taken over as counterfeiters for us after the death of their father.
Unfortunately, whereas the father had been brilliant and diligent, his eldest son and his half-brothers cut corners, blabbed to their girlfriends about their work and us, and when one girlfriend left and went to the police, all four of them panicked and turned informant.
Vasily had called me up that evening when his moles within the PD had told him of the brothers’ betrayal. He’d wanted them dead, with proof, and the house burned.
I’d done just that. The only survivor of the blaze had been a half-starved black kitten I’d grabbed from one of their rooms. Feodor was now twenty pounds and spent most of his time patrolling my apartment.
Vasily had laughed at me when he’d heard that, along with some of his other men. But the others didn’t laugh long. I made most of them a little nervous. Some, more than a little.
I was the boss’s red right hand. I did the jobs the rest didn’t have the courage to do—or the stomach. When the pakhan had a problem nobody else could solve, he sent me to eliminate that problem.
Off work, I was a pretty easygoing guy. But on a job, I got focused in a way that scared the others. Maybe even the boss, too. It had kept me isolated, save for a few friends and my pets. It also tended to keep me single. Women in the business got scared off by my professional reputation. Women outside the business got scared off when they learned I was in it.
All I had for the last ten years had been brief affairs. Short-lived friends-with-benefits arrangements, low on drama and low on commitment. I never let myself get attached. I had watched one too many women I wanted to keep in my life walk out of it once they had learned the truth about me. Now, I never kept them around long enough for them to learn about it.
Focus, Gregor. Wait for the right time, get in, kill the inhabitants, rig it to explode, and get out.Hopefully, they didn’t have any big dogs. I hated having to shoot dogs.
My teeth were chattering. I took another swallow from my Thermos of coffee and felt the heat from it sink into me. The family was still awake after midnight when everyone else in this neighborhood had gone to bed hours ago.
Hurry up before I burn the house around you just to avoid hypothermia.
I knew I shouldn’t make jokes. This situation was deadly serious. I might be able to be workmanlike about it—shut off my feelings, shelve any pity, and do the job—but those were still human beings down there. I wanted to at least grant them a quick death, and it was easier to do that with the element of surprise.
Besides, I had to actually check the house before I burned it down. One of Vasily’s shoot-and-burn jobs from years ago hadturned out to have a meth lab in the basement right next to a massive fuel tank. I had been forced to improvise a timed device to set it all off without it killing me before I could get out of range. Fortunately, none of their neighbors had been close enough to be in any danger.
Finally, their lights went off.
I slipped and almost fell in my eagerness to get to the house, but caught myself one-handed. Then my gear bag slipped off my shoulder, and I had to catch the strap with my free hand so the whole thing wouldn’t hit the ground ten feet below. I swore through my teeth in three languages as I was forced to re-shoulder the bag while hanging there, then jump down.
I landed in a flexed crouch and let out a grunt as the impact rattled every bone and joint. I had to stop and check myself as I straightened, setting the bag down and rolling my shoulders, then flexing my hands. I would be sore in the morning, but everything was working.
I made my way up the yard, keeping my eye out for any security cameras I had missed through my binoculars. Nothing besides the ones I had already noted—two on the corners of the house and the one above the back door. I snuck up on all of them and disabled them with the help of some black spray paint.
Then, a stroke of luck, these morons had left their back door unlocked. I got out my shotgun and slid it into its back sling, buckled on my ammo belt, and clipped the holster of my silenced pistol onto it.
Time to earn my paycheck.
I slipped into the darkened house and gave my eyes several seconds to adjust before moving on. It was warm, the heater rumbling away as the family wasted a pile of money keeping every corner of the huge house toasty. Vasily was paying them well for something. They lived like they were rich. They had two Teslas registered at this address and no normal cars. I wondered what they told their coworkers when they rolled up in a rich guy’s toy.
Discretion was important. My cover employment was security consultant, and a chunk of my pay came through that cover business. The rest of my income, I had to hide. Offshore accounts, investments, and land off in the countryside that I was slowly converting into an off-grid getaway. I lived in a modest apartment, not a suburban mini mansion. I drove a pickup truck.
It wasn’t lack of discretion that landed them on Vasily’s shitlist, though. That would get them a visit and a warning, maybe a beating if they got obstinate.
I cased the entire ground level carefully, there were no occupants. No pets either. I hesitated at the basement door, noticing that there was a bar lock on the outside.
I unlocked it and found a black, musty space, a concrete box with a well for a sump pump and the usual fuel tank dominating one corner. My flashlight revealed no signs of life, but I saw something strange in the dust on the ground, small footprints, the size of a child’s.
A cold finger of wariness slid down my spine. Did they have a kid?
Children were off-limits for me. Vasily knew better than to even ask. I had never hurt a kid, never even scared one if I could at all avoid it. But Vasily was insisting all occupants be executed, no exceptions. I couldn’t believe he knew about a child in the home. Vasily and I had an understanding, damn it.
