“Agreed. But… don’t shoot anybody immediately.”
“Why not?”
“Just… don’t, okay?”
We slip quietly into the room. I stand behind Cole. Brian is behind Clarissa. Our guns are cocked.
Cole makes a move which I’m sure is for a gun.
“Hands on the table where we can see them. Both of you,” Brian says.
The two obey.
“We’ll give you whatever you want,” Clarissa says her voice wavering.
“Are you going to give us one and a half million dollars? Because that’s the combined price on your heads,” Brian says. “Your people are not exactly thrilled with the way you’re running your respective criminal enterprises.”
“I’m sorry, do you mind?” I ask Clarissa. I lean over and pull her plate toward me and take a big bite of the chicken primavera. “Oh. My. God. This is delicious. I would ask the cook for the recipe but we sadly already killed him.”
Clarissa is crying.Crying.She’s a crime boss now, for fuck’s sake. Cole remains stoic. Just once I’d love to see the man break down and the woman be cold as ice.
“This is why you wanted me to wait?” Brian says.
I shrug. “It smelled so good.”
“Can we do this now?”
“One sec.” I grab a piece of garlic bread and dip it into the olive oil. “Oh my god, Brian. Are you sure you don’t want some of this?”
“I’m sure.”
The music abruptly stops, and then there are screams. The string quartet has finally noticed our presence.
“I’ll take you for Italian later,” Brian says.
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“Fine,” I grumble and push the plate away. “My compliments to the chef,” I say as I fire on Cole and Brian takes out Clarissa. By this point my adrenaline is surging, so when the members of the string quartet get up to run, I’m not as upset about the collateral damage.
When it’s just us in the large quiet house, I blow out the candles on the table while Brian snaps photos of each of the kills with a thin black digital camera and slips it back inside his inner jacket pocket. He refuses to buy a smart phone for any reason. He says the security risk isn’t worth the convenience. He only deals with prepaid burners that don’t tie back to him, that he can easily dispose of after a job. Of course, cameras leave their own data and digital fingerprints behind, so he trashes those as well. We go through a lot of electronics in our line of work.
We’re about to make our exit when the front door opens, and a brunette girl who looks to be about seventeen steps inside. She drops her book bag in the middle of the floor. Her head is bent, focused on her phone. She laughs at something someone must have texted her and then says: “Sarah has a stomach bug, so I called an Uber. He’s outside waiting for his money.”
“Fuck,” Brian mutters.
She looks up, takes in the bloody scene in front of her, and starts screaming—one long never ending wail, a mix of horror, fear, and grief, each fighting for dominance. Finally she’s able to form one word.
“D-Daddy?”
My heart breaks for her. Crime lords and various random pieces of shit with heavy prices on their heads… I can kill those worthless motherfuckers all day long without breaking a nail or a single feeling of remorse. It’s almost a healing and cleansing act. Cathartic even. But I try never to think about those left behind. I have to compartmentalize. But it’s hard to compartmentalize when the innocent young daughter of the guy you just killed walks in on your bloody art project.
“Take her, I’ll get the Uber driver,” Brian says, heading for the door.
“What?” I can’t have heard him right.
Brian takes one look at me, and he knows I would never shoot this kid. I can’t believe he even suggested it.
