Chapter One
Echo
Tonight, I’m going to kill someone.
Don’t feel sorry for the guy. He totally deserves it. He’s a low-level scumbag who’s been trading secrets with the enemy. He also likes his boys young.
Too young.
So, I’m going to watch the life drain from his eyes as he thrashes beneath me. Watch the fear blossom and bloom like a pretty spring flower as he gasps for breath, and enjoy the way hispupils dilate and his skin turns blotchy as I welcome him to the last six minutes of his life.
That’s all it takes.
Six minutes.
Sometimes less. Never more. I don’t allow it. Anything more than that is sloppy.
I always wonder what they think as they stare up at me, fighting for breath or trying to stem the flow of blood. Do they know it’s the end? Do they cling to hope or just accept it?
Father thinks that because I’m a girl, I’m weak. Incapable of causing harm, and on the surface, that’s what I let him see. I play the dutiful daughter and the pampered princess when the sun is up, but under the light of the moon, the wickedness comes out to play.
It’s the taste of chaos that drives me. The crack of bones and the sight of blood. The violence and the goddamn fucking anarchy. I also love that I’m secretly giving my father the biggest ‘fuck you’ I can muster. That’s probably the sweetest-tasting thing ever.
I might get a tiny bit of enjoyment watching him as he scratches his head, perplexed at the vigilante wandering his streets. Not going to lie, I sit there a bit smugly as the others try to work it out. Not that I get invited to the meetings often.
I still have tits and a vagina, and apparently that’s a flaw when it comes to the family business.
What a load of macho-fucking-bullshit. I’d like to think I’ve given up caring, but I haven’t. It pisses me off every time I think about it. I try to brush it off, but sometimes, I just have to take my anger out on unsuspecting little shits.
Like Bennie Walker. He’s the kind of guy that thinks he’s more valuable than he is and likes to worm his way into conversations. He collects information and then sells it to the highest bidder.He’d been doing well for himself until I caught him selling information about us to one of the Volkov boys.
And that just couldn’t stand.
I might not be in theFamily Business, but even I knew the Quinns and the Volkovs didn’t mix. So, I decided the asshole had to go.
I don’t just pick anyone. I’m not a complete monster. I have a code, and I make sure I stick to it. I do my research, get my evidence, and then take out the trash. I’m good at it. Better than the twins, at least. They’re just messy, leaving body parts and blood everywhere. Those two have no finesse, just a penchant and delight for violence. Sometimes, they scare the crap out of me. I mean, who enjoys skinning a guy? Way too much fucking effort if you ask me.
Bennie is on my list, but he’s not on my list for tonight. I’m not prepped; I don’t have a plan, but I can totally wing this.
Right?
I make my way through the sweaty bodies, shimmying my ass in time to the beat as I cross the dance floor to get a closer look at Bennie. Music booms and vibrates through the floor. It pulses against my eardrums, and my heart lurches in my chest in time to the beat. My friends think I’m going to grab a round of drinks, which I will do; I just want to make sure Bennie isn’t doing anything squirrely.
He sits in a dark booth chatting away to some guys who look like they’ve walked out of some corny gangster movie. Blocky power suits and slimy moustaches. All they are missing are the cigars. Bennie also has his arm around a boy who is probably barely eighteen, and that is me trying to convince myself he isn’t underage. Jesus, this pig needs to go, and I am going to skewer him tonight.
I take out my phone and text Veon, my long-suffering bodyguard and unwilling helper.
ME:
Can you get the car ready?
VEON:
Why?
ME:
I spotted Bennie.
