Chapter Seventeen

Cowen

I'd found the note on my desk after I'd returned from court. For long minutes, I'd stared at the piece of paper and figured he'd gone back on his promise. It was something I'd expected, and I had no issues with fulfilling my promise to kill him. He knew too many of my secrets, yet when I read the letter that had all disappeared.

My employer apparently had an issue with me not taking every assignment issued to me. We'd always worked under the agreement that when I was done, it was over. The man was well aware of my reputation and what this would bring down on him. He hadn't left a time or place to meet.

I knew all their names. Their family and friends. I hadn't gone into this job without learning what I needed to survive. When I received his first inquiry, and we'd agreed never to make contact, that didn't mean I didn't have means to gather the intel for a hostile takeover.

If they'd tried to take me out, I wouldn't have held a grudge, but they took something that belonged to me. My boy had pledged himself to me. I sealed that promise by repeatedly filling him with my cum. Once I'd felt his ass around my cock, I'd lost all control. My body was insatiable. I didn't understand why it was only for him. I'd gone to a bar I'd visited in the past to check if he'd broken something inside me.

The men and women who'd occupied the bar, even the men who reminded me of him hadn't caused a response. I looked at them as marks—my next kill. I'd quickly left and returned to the cabin, only to find him naked and waiting on his knees beside our bed. I'd fucked his mouth until he drank every drop. The intensity of my awakening romanticisms was jarring, and I still didn't understand why it had all come to life only for him.

All I knew was that I didn't want to be without him. He'd accepted me. He made no fuss when I left him alone to take care of my assignments. He simply waited for me to come home. Each kill made me more desperate to fuck him—the momentary euphoria of the murder prolonged by my need to take him any way I wanted. He didn't argue or protest, just submitted.

I'd closed the office down and had put a note on the door saying we were closed due to a family emergency. I gathered supplies and mentally made a list of my targets. I'd start from the bottom and work my way up until I reached the top, Cristo. They were so much creatures of habit. They partied at the same bars. Fucked the same men and women, it was almost as if they'd grown lazy in their complacency. They believed themselves untouchable because Cristo supposedly owned the city.

I was the worst predator, more skilled than they knew. Killing sustained me, but there were worse things than death. I could've taken them down years ago. I had files on all of them that contained every dirty secret—where every body was buried.

I stood outside one of Cristo's clubs where his lower-level thugs partied. I'd changed my appearance with a wig and glued on a beard. My blade was tucked inside a sheath in my boot. I turned up the collar on my peacoat and made my way across the nearly deserted street. I was plain and drew only minimal attention. I entered the dark interior of the club.

My gaze scanned the scene, and the four I'd picked out were scattered around the room. I approached the bar and ordered a drink, then pretended to sip at it. One of my targets was tucked into a corner with a woman. I picked up my drink, and as I neared the table, I feigned drunkenness and dropped my drink beside them. I pulled the knife from my boot as I heard him bitching about men who couldn't handle their liquor. I struck, inserted the blade between his ribs, and he didn't even have time to call out for help.

Just as the woman came out of her shock, I blocked her from the room and drove the blade upward beneath her chin. I calmly posed them as if they were whispering to each other. I wiped the blade off on my black pants. One down, three to go. I wondered if one of them had touched my boy or even Cristo, maybe the bastard had left that job to his enforcers. Either way, tonight began the destruction of Cristo's organization.

I placed myself with a full view of the room and spotted the next one heading toward the bathroom. Perfect, I thought to myself as I weaved through the crowd and I blinked hard at the bright lights. The bastard stood at the urinal with his cheap suit ill-fitting on his bulky frame. I sidled up a few spots down from him, and I waited. He didn't pay any attention to me, and as he finished up, he turned to wash his hands.

My movements were graceful with years of practice as I shoved him into a stall. He fought, slamming my body back into the walls of the small enclosure. People had always taken my lack of size as a weakness. It had always turned out to be their greatest and last mistake. My arms tightened around his throat as I gripped his chin in my left hand. I jerked, hearing the crack of his neck snapping. I eased him onto the toilet. Pulling his pants down. After locking the door, I shimmied out from under the stall door.

The last two were easier. They were secretly fucking and always escaped out back for a quick fuck in the dark of the alley. I took the exit and slipped into the shadows. This one would be harder as my patience was quickly reaching its end. I knew what they were probably doing to my boy. They were smarter than I'd anticipated, they hadn't kept him in one of the many safehouses around the city where they conducted business or held bait until the person was useful.

My boy dying wasn't an option, but if they were stupid enough to touch what was mine, then I'd avenge him. Afterward, I'd move on to another city, maybe slip into retirement with a few freelance jobs to keep me occupied.

Minutes past, and as I was about to reenter the bar, the door opened and the men I was waiting for exited. They were locked in each other's arms. They kissed brutally as if fighting for dominance and I was disgusted by the display. There was a sweetness in earning submission. Harrison had given it to me, and I didn't have to fight him for it after he’d accepted that he was mine.

The bigger of the two men turned and offered his back, shoving his pants over his ass. The other came up behind him. Quickly grunts and curses filled the narrow alley. I waited until they were lost in lust and unaware of their surroundings. My soft-soled boots barely made a sound as I neared them. Even if I had walked normally, my steps would be lost in the sounds of their fucking.

I held the hilt firmly in my hand and thrust it forward, entering at the base of the big guy’s skull and the other man yelled as the big guy fell to his knees. I cut off the man's next cry for help with an upward motion just as I'd done with the guy at the table. Piercing his back between his ribs to deflate his lung. Satisfaction filled me as I listened to the gurgling as the bastard drowned in his own blood.

The knife was carefully cleaned and returned to my boot. I left the alley as calm as if I was taking a midnight stroll. My heart rate hadn't even picked up pace. As I started to turn the corner at the end of the block, shouts rang out from the front of the club. People stampeded from inside, and I disappeared into the darkness. Leaving nothing but bodies behind. Any trace of myself would be lost in the chaos.

The clothes I wore were new, and I’d stored them sealed inside a bag in a locker at the local community center where homeless kept their belongings. The wig I wore was new as were the gloves I wore. I hadn't survived this long without learning how not to leave a piece of myself behind.

A few blocks later, I found a barrel burning and deposited the wig, gloves and facial prosthetics inside. I wrinkled my nose at the scent of burning hair, leather and rubber.

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket and headed to start the next phase of my plan. The phone I used for assignments was tucked inside the inside pocket—turned off so they couldn't trace me. I'd turned it on when I settled into one of the three buildings I owned. They were all abandoned and falling down, but the perfect place to stash supplies or hide out.

Cristo would receive my message soon enough. If he didn't realize the error of his ways, I had more lessons awaiting and what I'd do to his men, his family, would seem like a slap on the wrist compared to the hell I'd devised for him.