Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
I’ve only ever been good at one thing. And it isn’t this.
“Fitz?” Crow breaks the silence. “All good?”
“It’s all in hand,” I tell him. “I’ll sort out Andrei.”
“They want it done clean,” Crow says. “OD or suicide would be preferable. Anyone he’s been working with needs to know he’s dead.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I reassure him.
“I’m sure I don’t need to remind ye how you mentioned you wanted more responsibility,” Crow says. “This job is an important one, Fitz.”
I don’t reply. He doesn’t need to spell it out for me. He wants me to prove my worth. To the syndicate. To him.
To Sasha.
I had a notion that taking on more responsibility might make me worthy of her. But as it stands I’m clearly not, and I doubt I’ll ever be the sort of man she needs. My weakness tonight only further proved that. It wouldn’t do to be cocking it up every time I’m around her. It’s the reason I’ve kept my distance.
“Are ye sure everything’s alright?” Crow asks again.
“Aye. Everything’s just grand.”
***
When I reach the address that Crow texted me, the familiar pressure and rage has coiled so tightly inside of me I can scarcely contain it.
This is why I’m the Reaper.
None of the other lads in the syndicate are keen on this job. They don’t have rage like I do. Or bloodlust like I do. They don’t feel this pressure inside them. They kill when necessary. But it’s a switch they can turn on and off. Mine never turns off. There’s always this rage, simmering below the surface. I only have to choose a memory, a thought… and it’s there.
I disengage. These lives I take are insignificant to me. They mean nothing. These men have done wrong. The unredeemable. My only job is to send them to meet their maker. It’s never bothered me much before. Only now, I see Sasha’s face. The way she looked at me in the basement at Slainte. I wonder what she thought of me, in that moment. I wonder what she thinks of me right now.
It makes no difference, I suppose.
I pull the duffle bag from the car and gather what I need. The house has too many lights on, which tells me that Andrei isn’t alone. Most people don’t leave so many lights on when they are alone. Unless they are afraid. And Andrei isn’t afraid.
He’s a butcher, like me. But unlike me, he does it for pleasure. Women, mostly. Prostitutes. He’s been carving them up and leaving a trail of gore in every city he visits. He was an associate of the Russians, but he betrayed them. It doesn’t surprise me. I doubt the man has ever met a moral he didn’t scoff at.
Crow wanted this done cleanly. If I go in there now that isn’t going to happen. His expectations of me swirl around in my head, combining with the bitterness of this evening. Of Sasha.
I embarrassed myself in front of her.
The rage resurfaces, and washes away everything else. I screw the silencer onto my weapon and walk around to the back of the house. There’s a window at ground level. I kick it in and then move to the back door, waiting quietly as voices erupt inside the house.
Footsteps sound on the stairs into the basement, and someone yells out in Russian to check the back yard.
The first man barely has the door cracked before I put a bullet in his head. He falls to the floor and I walk over his body and straight towards the spray of gunfire that’s now aimed at me.
From the adjoining wall, I manage to take out another shooter.
The remaining two voices speak in muffled Russian before coming to an agreement. There’s still a man in the basement. And two in the kitchen. I haven’t worked out which one of them is Andrei. I won’t until I see him.
The front door shuts, and I have no choice. I go in blind. A bullet whizzes past my ear and then another hits me in the shoulder.
The man who fired it receives a bullet between the eyes in return. His friend is edging towards the door. It isn’t Andrei. I suspect that being the coward he is, he’s the one who slipped out the front door and ran. This one’s only a young lad. He’s holding a gun, but I have a notion by the hopeless look on his face that it’s empty.
His eyes are wide and filled with fear. It isn’t an expression I’m unaccustomed to. Most people fear death. It’s only natural. But this lad, he looks like someone else I once knew. That boy from the compound. The one who died under Farrell’s hands. The one who set into motion all of the events that made me into the man I am.