Rain pelts against my black vest and plasters my hair to my forehead. Lightning flashes, and I’m thinking about my wife’s tongue as I work picks into a lock and begin to move the tumblers into position.
She was so scared at first. I could see it in her eyes. The fact that she opened the door meant she was willing to do her duty, despite how much it terrified her.
That’s why I kissed her. I didn’t think there’d be any intimacy between us. What does it matter when all I have to do is get her pregnant?
But I couldn’t just take her right there in the hallway like an animal.
The lock clicks. I smile to myself and wipe rain from my eyes. There’s more lightning and enough thunder to shake the back porch of the quiet, dark Baltimore row home.
The neighborhood suddenly goes dark.
Streetlights turn black.
I check my watch. It’s ten minutes past three in the morning.
“Right on schedule,” I murmur and gently pull the back door open.
It’s a nice little kitchen, redone in the last year or so. I’m tempted to take off my shoes—I wouldn’t want to track mud on the nice floors—but that’s an absurd thought. Dirty dishes from dinner are still in the sink. There’s a picture of a smiling family on the wall: father, mother, little baby girl.
I creep past and into the living room.
Normally, I’m not so gentle. My tastes trend in a rough direction. I like control and viciousness because that’s all I’ve ever deserved. But with Dasha, it’s different. I was like a different man.
One I don’t recognize.
Surely not the same man I am right now as I creep up the stairs.
This is what I know. This right here, in this stranger’s house, this is the monster I’ve always been. Excited elation rolls down my spine as I reach the landing and pause. Another family photo on a small end table outside the bathroom.
I tilt it down, hiding their smiling faces. Am I going to have a photo like that with my wife and our child?
Not if she moves back to Philly after she gives birth.
Why does that even matter to me? I’m doing this for the Brotherhood and nothing more. Whether she stays or goes is irrelevant, so long as we’ve got the child to bind our two organizations together.
Frustrated with myself, I enter the door on the right and step into the master bedroom.
All is quiet and dark. Time to focus. There’s soft snoring from the bed. They have a nice place, well-furnished and neat. I bet they’re a happy little family. I bet they have plans for the future. Weddings, vacations, all those joyful moments still to come.
I draw my knife and hesitate.
The image of Dasha’s sleeping body comes to me. I don’t even know why. I can’t keep thinking about her, not right now. But I see her anyway: mouth hanging open, a little drool stain on the pillow, so small and vulnerable and beautiful. Her smell all over my clothes.
I fell asleep in her bed, holding her body against mine, and only just barely woke up in time to go on this mission. If it weren’t for my watch vibrating, I would’ve stayed in bed with Dasha until morning.
What the hell is wrong with me?
That’s not who I am.
I don’t cuddle with my wife. I don’t hold her against me and feel fucking safe.
No, that isn’t me.
This, right here, sneaking into a stranger’s house with murder in my heart.
This is who I am. This is all I can ever be.
I walk to the bed and crawl into it, moving slowly, making sure I don’t wake either of the two sleeping people until I’m straddling my target.
“Good evening, Donnie,” I whisper as his eyes flutter open.
At first, he doesn’t understand what’s happening. His doughy face is pinched in confusion. I like this moment. The confusion as he parses what’s dream and what’s reality. As he realizes the extent of his nightmare. It’s a glorious second of reality suspended, a moment of transition. From sleep to waking. From life to death.
I grab his hair, grinning like a madman, joy singing in my guts, and press the edge of my blade to his throat.
“Oh, fuck,” Donnie grunts, going extremely still.
That’s putting it mildly. But people react in strange ways when a monster from their nightmares appears in their bed with a knife.
“What’s going on?” his wife murmurs. She stirs, looks over, sitting up on one elbow and rubbing her sleepy face. Pretty, almost, but not my type. Big forehead, round eyes. Dark hair.
Not like my Dasha.
Get her out of your head, idiot.
“Move and I cut your husband’s throat,” I tell the wife.
Donnie is fully with me now. Fear is etched on his face, and his body is completely stiff. I can smell his breath. It stinks like he forgot to brush his teeth.
“Listen to him, Jenny,” Donnie says to his wife. His voice shakes with terror. “Just stay calm.”
“Who—what—how—” She’s stuttering, panicking, shoving herself back against the headboard and curling into a tight little ball like a prey animal playing dead.
“I’m here for one thing,” I say, leaning down into Donnie’s face, ignoring the wife. “Who planted the bomb?”
Donnie’s lips twitch. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I press the edge of the knife tighter and cut a neat little line under his chin. He groans as blood trickles. It’s not deep enough to kill, but he understands now.
I’m not here to play games.
Jenny’s breathing fast, a pillow held to her face like she’s trying to wake herself up.
Or trying to smother herself.
“Try again,” I tell poor fucking Donnie. “You’re Seamus McGrath’s top lieutenant. He’s the second most important man in the whole goddamn McGrath clan. There’s no way in hell you don’t know who planted a bomb in my car. Tell me who did it.”
Donnie’s jaw works. He knows how fucked he is right now. If he didn’t recognize me at first, he knows who I am now.
Tigran Sarkissian. Killer and butcher. Brother of the patron.
Cutthroat gunman with no moral compass and no compassion.
I know all the rumors swirling in his head. Mostly because half are true and the other half I started.
“Please, don’t touch my wife,” he whispers, begging now. “We’ve got a baby.”
“Give me a reason why I shouldn’t when you tried so hard to kill mine.”
His face twitches. Jenny’s silently crying. She’s sobbing into her pillow to keep from screaming.
“You don’t care about her. It’s just business; you know that. If your family and the Zeitsevs consummate this alliance—”
I jerk my hand and smack him across the face with the butt of the knife. Before he can react, I’ve got the blade back on his throat.
Who the fuck does he think he is, telling me how I feel?
The rat fuck. Rage explodes in my brain. I want to beat him until he’s bloody mush.
“I don’t want excuses,” I snarl in his face. “Tell me who planted the bomb.”
“Promise you won’t hurt my wife.”
I think about Dasha pinned underneath me, writhing and moaning. Her virgin blood on my dick. Her back arched and breasts pressing to my chest.
“Talk and I might spare her. I’m not like you. I don’t kill women if I don’t have to. But if you keep silent, then I’ll hang you both upside down and drain your fucking blood into your bathtub. After you’ve been mutilated, I’ll make sure your precious little daughter rots in foster care for the rest of her miserable life.”
That breaks him. The thought of his girl coming up in the system. It’s not a pretty idea, not here in Baltimore at least.
And because I’m Tigran Sarkissian, he knows I’ll fucking do it.
“It was Liam’s plan from the start. We can’t let your alliance happen. You have to know that. It means we’re totally fucked. So he tasked Seamus with taking the girl out, and Seamus handed the operation over to Ciaran and Oisin. That’s all I know, all right? I wasn’t a part of it.”
I know all those names. Liam is the leader of the McGrath family. Ciaran and Oisin are two vicious motherfuckers, these two psychopathic ginger twins who do a lot of the Irish dirty work in the city. I’ve come across them both more than once, but I haven’t had the pleasure of taking their lives yet.
“Thanks for that,” I say.
And I slit his throat.
He gurgles in shock. Blood wells up thick and dark. I back off, stepping over the bed as his hands scrabble at his neck. He jerks sideways and falls down onto the floor, more blood leaking from his pumping artery.
I watch him die. His wife watches too. She’s sobbing and shaking into her pillow.
Gentle and fast. More than he deserved.
I planned on making him suffer for what he did to my wife. But maybe I’m going soft. Just like I was soft with Dasha. My arms wrapped around my wife’s body. Her satisfied sighs and mewls as she drifted off to sleep.
Donnie lets out one last rattle and goes still.
Pathetic fucking bastard broke so easily.
I use their bedspread to wipe his blood from my knife.
Snot rolls down his wife’s face as she curls into a ball. She’s a wretched, pathetic little thing. “Please, please,” she begs, “please let me call an ambulance. Please don’t hurt my baby.”
I shove my knife back into my belt. She needs a morgue, not a goddamn paramedic.
“Next time, don’t marry a fucking scumbag,” I tell her, which is really good advice. I hope she’ll follow it.
I leave the woman alone. I hear her screaming as I descend the stairs, thinking about Dasha all the way out the back door again and into the rain.
Should I have killed the wife too? She saw my face. There’s a small chance that could blow back on me if this ever gets touched by the BPD.
Would I have spared the woman if I hadn’t slept in my wife’s bed last night?
The thought troubles me as I hurry down the block. There’s a car waiting around the corner. I slip into the back and sigh once the door’s slammed shut.
“Job done, boss?” My new driver’s an established and respected member of the Brotherhood named Alexan, a clever and technically gifted hacker. He’s ambitious and ruthless, both things I look for in a soldier. He’s also in his early thirties and not some fresh-faced kid. His age and experience make him a worthwhile addition to my personal team.
“All finished. You can turn the lights back on.”
He does something on a small laptop in the seat next to him, then the street lamps flicker back to life.
“Where to now?” he asks.
“Home.” I lean back and close my eyes. “Send a secure message to Arsen. Tell him we’re looking for Ciaran and Oisin McGrath next.”
Alexan’s eyes widen slightly. “The Murder Twins?”
I flinch and wave that fucking stupid nickname away. “Just send the message.”
Alexan types away, and I turn to the night, brooding on what happened back in that room. Dasha’s smiling face keeps ghosting through my mind. Her sweaty, satisfied body limp in my arms. My seed spent between her legs.
Was it weak, leaving that wife alive? Am I going soft, all because I was gentle with my virgin bride?
Better to harden myself and hold tight to my black heart.
If I lose my edge, I’ve only got myself to blame.
