Chapter Fourteen

Campbell

FOUR DAYS LATER, Amato comes back for me, just as expected.

He’s early this time, beating breakfast, but I was already awake. Cunningham has kept up his middle-of-the-night routine every day this week, watching pornography on his phone while standing in the camera’s blind spot between my cell and Seven’s. I would applaud the combination of time theft and ingenuity, save for the fact that Cunningham’s galling lack of headphone use has confirmed his prurient tastes can be summed up as “underage girls.”

I’m weighing the pros and cons between two of the most excruciating ways to kill him with my bare hands when a baton clangs against my door, followed by a bark of static. “—get up. You’ve got a visitor.”

“I’m up,” I say.

“Hands behind your back. Back to the door.”

Can’t wait until I never have to hear that again.

I’m escorted to a different interrogation room this time—one with working cameras. Whatever Amato’s plans are, he wants this on the record, so I have to act accordingly. I could stonewall him by calling Sofia, but I want him to think his warning last time roused my suspicions. The more comfortable my stalker is, the more likely he is to get overconfident.

He has a large white envelope this time rather than a manila folder. The side of Amato’s mouth twitches as I sit down, the hooks of a smug smile trying to pull free. “Enjoying your accommodations, Campbell?”

“Better food than the military. More quiet than the city. It’s not all bad.”

A hook slips; his teeth clench. “Well, let’s get down to business then so you can head back to your cell.”

Amato slips a stack of pictures free from the envelope. Many, many more than he had before, although I recognize the locations just the same. These are from different angles and of worse quality, but present abiding proof of how long he followed me. If nothing else, I have to give Amato credit for never drawing my attention before this point; it’s not easy to maintain surveillance in the long term.

“I took another look at your financials,” he says. “And matched payments to all of these places. You land, and cash goes right into your account.”

I stare at him for a few seconds. “Yes, agent. That’s how jobs work. People pay me after I consult for them.”

Blue eyes—so unmistakably blue—narrow. “And I’m sure your clients for these consultations would be happy to provide an alibi.”

“Not in my particular business, no. Security requires privacy. I’m under more NDAs than you can shake a stick at, and even saying that is too much, really.”

He scoffs. “NDAs. Right. I’m supposed to believe you’d risk going to prison over breaching client confidentiality?”

“My business won’t survive if the people I work with find out dealing with me could mean being dragged into federal court.” That isn’t even a lie, regardless of context. “And I’m not risking anything. Because I haven’t done what you’re accusing me of.”

“Campbell, think about how this looks. No public record of your clientele. Your military background. You were a real, bona fide mercenary. Presumption of innocence is off the table when everyone knows what you’re capable of doing.”

“If being a veteran automatically makes me a murder suspect, you have eighteen million other people to interrogate,” I counter. “Although you might have better luck going after the police. They slaughter innocent people every day.”

Irritation creases Amato’s brow before he changes tacks. “I got a look at your birth certificate too.”

Of course he did. People like him always want some source of “truth” to humiliate people like me, as if a handful of letters on an old sheet of paper mean more than material reality.

“Funny thing. There was no father listed on there. Did your mother not know who got her pregnant, or did your daddy sign an NDA too?”

Another reason to dislike the paint in here; if I beat Amato to death, his blood would clash horribly with this shade of green. “I assumed you’d be sympathetic to an absent father. We’re two of a kind.”

A knot of tension flickers along his eyelid, sheer disbelief compressed into a single muscle. The silence between us is a beat too long. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“December boy, right?” I smile, too wide for comfort. “Beatrice must have been ecstatic—until she realized you were a little blue-eyed bastard spoiling the big Sicilian pot. Whoever she was sneaking around with didn’t want to take responsibility, did he? A real sob story. Do the feds know you’re—”

Amato slams a fist on the table so hard the chain between my cuffs rattles. “This interrogation is over. Enjoy prison, Campbell. You’ll be spending the rest of your life here.”

“Don’t forget your pictures,” I say.

The mask falls for a split second. Incandescent rage twists Amato’s face, eyes sulfuric, every molecule of air in the room suddenly ablaze. Murderous and pure, an instinct old as drawing breath into our lungs. In the end, humans are born predators; some of us just stay in practice more than others.

Then he breathes out, bluster punctured like a balloon, and storms out of the room before I can say another word. The guard reappears with a quizzical look but escorts me back to my cell without bothering to ask what happened. I suppose if I’m not trying to escape, what goes on behind those doors isn’t anyone else’s business.

When the cell door locks behind me, I stagger. My hands twitch like someone put a taser to them, tendons tight, veins pushing out against my skin, carved in relief. This isn’t adrenaline or panic; this is a hunger long denied. I bite my tongue until it bleeds, then swish the mess around my teeth until they’re coated in a film of iron. It doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t help either.

Why did I stop? Why did I think anything would change?

Six months means nothing. The dead are still dead, and those I might have killed were probably picked off by another assassin. My skill set is rare but not exclusive. Isn’t it putting myself at greater risk, letting hard-fought lessons dull with time? At least with contracts, I know the killing has a purpose, rather than unleashing myself on the first unfortunate stranger in reach. Better to hunt with a permit than chase wanton slaughter.

Justine.

I did it for Justine. I did it to try to pretend we could have a future where I wasn’t beholden to this consumptive urge, as if the wound inside me would finally close and heal clean. She tolerates my need for violence now, but that can’t last forever. Someday, I’ll go too far, and that sympathy in her heart will turn to ash.

She doesn’t tolerate it, a soft voice whispers in my ear, she loves it. Remember her face the second you slid that needle into La Rosa’s arm?

I shouldn’t have looked at Justine that night. Every part of me should have been focused on his execution, but I couldn’t help but watch for the instant fear became victory in her eyes, when she tasted how powerful it feels to choose someone and take them out of life’s equation. The victim doesn’t even have to know it’s happening—the rush is the same.

If I concentrate hard enough, I can feel her arms wrapped around me. The stray length of Justine’s hair drapes over my shoulder, a dark kiss against my pulse. She always sits in my lap a certain way, utterly at ease, as if our bodies were split at creation and Justine knows where to line up the seams, a point of connection between old scars.

What happens next? She’s sure to ask. When this is over?

I want to be with you forever, I would have to say, but I’m not strong enough to stop.

Or maybe, worse than that, I don’t even want to.

I’ve had years to come to terms with the fact that I’m one bad day from becoming a serial killer. The only real difference is structure, a few technical steps. Taking money is more about screening clientele than it is about survival.

There was a point early on when I could have held back. Returning to the States with my last tour finished, standing on a New York street after a red-eye flight. I saw a man threatening a woman on the street, and couldn’t walk away. Breaking Mickey’s hand in four places was easy, but it wasn’t enough. People like him don’t stop because of a few shattered fingers. Mercy would have only gotten Sofia killed.

Justified or not, the scales tipped.

If this was compulsion alone, it could be justified, even if my actions have no excuse. But to choose to do it again and again, well—there’s a reason Alexandra forced me out of the Siege lineup. She was afraid that one day, someone worse would convince me to kill ten people at once, a hundred, a thousand. The right catalyst would make me a walking war crime.

Going home meant honing the finer points of homicide. I learned to cull away evidence, how to delay and redirect suspicion, the weaknesses of police departments in every major city. Was I happy? No, never, but in the first few years, stability was all I could ask for, with the distant hope the death following in my wake served a purpose.

I don’t want Justine to think her love isn’t enough. The joy I feel with her—only with her—has saved me time and again. I’d give her everything without hesitation, except this last broken piece I can’t seem to grasp.

Should I stop reaching? Can I let my most primal fear slip away and stop giving chase?

Eight points of pain pierce through me. I open my eyes—when did they close?—and look down at both fists, white-knuckled, crushing glass. No, not glass. I open my fingers and take in the matching crescents left behind, each one filling like a cup, slick and red. Wounding myself is never satisfying; there’s no exchange, no challenge, only emptiness to emptiness, a serpent starving on its own tail.

I have to hold on. I have to keep faith that when I come home to Justine, she’ll welcome the blood on my hands—every old stain and every drop yet to spill.