by J. M. Dabney
He didn’t possess fear or empathy—he’d destroy anyone in his wake, and he wouldn’t stop until someone did it for him. I couldn’t suppress my tears or terror any longer. As soon as Cowen entered the room, they’d take him out. I took in the men on either side of the door just waiting for the moment to strike Cowen down.
The booming sounds of gunfire made me flinch as I pictured Cowen laying in a bloody heap and then the door flew open. Cowen stood there in all black. There was a deadness to his eyes and then his gaze met mine.
“Boy, are you okay?” he asked, and his voice was almost soft with that edge of caring he used after he finished with my lessons.
“Y—yes, sir.” I lied so as not to distract him. If he did care, I didn’t want him worried about me.
“Cowen, so glad you could join us,” Cristo replied as if he’d invited Cowen over for dinner and wasn’t holding a gun to my head.
“I could've forgiven your attempts to kill me, but you took my boy. That I can't forget.”
“Your boy is very…sweet.”
I held my breath as he raised his arm in slow motion and watched as Cowen pulled the trigger. Everything in me froze at that moment, and the spell was only broken as Cristo screamed in pain. Instead of releasing me, the man braced his weight on me as he favored his injured leg.
“You sonofabitch!”
After that, it was chaos and Cowen was in a battle for our lives and I was too useless to help. It was two against one, and I was waiting for Cristo to tire of the scene playing out in front of us and use his gun to strike Cowen down.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cowen
They were so confident. I watched from my position on the roof a few buildings away from where they held my boy. I'd taken out several of Cristo's enforcers, but I had kept one alive long enough to tell me what I needed to know. I'd listened to the last message Cristo had left. My boy telling me he wanted to come home had caused my stomach to do a strange thing. He sounded so lost, and I'd hated it, but I needed to take down everyone who could carry on Cristo's operation or scare them enough as I tortured their whores, wives, husbands, partners.
I had made it my mission to destroy Cristo, and now it was time to end it. I'd scanned the building by infrared and figured out they kept my boy in a corner bedroom on the northeast side of the dilapidated hotel. Parts of the city were rundown and abandoned, shadows of their former grandeur. The foundation of this city was built by prohibition, gangsters, and speakeasies.
There would always be someone to carry on history, but it wouldn't be Cristo.
For most of my adult life, I observed the world through the scope of my rifle. Mentally I tagged each target as I found them roaming the roof and balconies, waiting for me. Their faces lined with exhaustion from the days of war I'd subjected them. Just like with the men who'd tried to assassinate me before, they'd underestimated their target.
I pressed the butt of the gun comfortably against my shoulder, the rough texture of the stock touched my cheek. The world shrunk down to fit in the view of my scope. Nothing existed outside this moment—the kill. My heart beat a steady, easy rhythm and the pace of my breaths were deep and even. It didn't require emotion, just a steady hand and the will to do what I found necessary. I aimed my scope at the room I assumed Harrison resided. The windows were cracked and the night was chilly, and I wondered if he was cold. I inhaled as I found one of the guards on the roof. The man was hidden from view from the others by the roof access. As I'd done hundreds of times before, I exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The silencer muffled the sound. The man's head exploded as I hit him between his eyes.
I efficiently ejected the cartridge, loaded, and took out the other three without alerting anyone. There was a reason they compensated me well for my work. I didn't give into second thoughts.
Pausing, I made sure the coast was clear and no one else appeared from the propped open door. I had two hours between guard changes, but I didn't need that much time. The people I'd already taken out were considered Cristo's inner circle, except for two of his most trusted. They never left his side. Setting my weapon aside, I jumped to my feet and bent to pick my rifle back up. On my way to the fire escape, I slung the strap over my shoulder and stepped over the edge. I jogged down to the street below. I opened the trunk, stowed my rifle inside, armed myself with a blade and added extra magazines into the holders on my flak jacket. I checked and rechecked the twin 9mms and returned one to my thigh holsters.
It was time to get my boy back and take care of Cristo and the rest of his crew. The shadows concealed my approach. I'd only counted eleven heat signatures inside the building, and I'd eliminated four of them on the roof. Only six to go. I checked the scene and saw no one, so taking advantage, I jogged across the street. As soon as I was back in the shadows cast by the building, I hugged the wall and slowly made my way to the front entrance.
I raised my arms and extended them, then made entry. The information extracted from the man I'd briefly kept alive gave me a rough outline of positions. They seemed to stay close to where they kept my boy.
There was a skinny guy posted next to the elevators. He automatically reached for his gun when I pressed the barrel of mine at the base of his skull.
“Now, you don't want to make this more painful than necessary. Throw it away.”
“You're outnumbered you know that, right?”
I didn't bother answering as I kept a close watch on him as he leaned slightly to the side and dropped the gun, kicking it several feet away. I rested my free hand on his shoulder.
“Push the button.”
“You're going to die here.”
“Maybe, but you'll draw your final breath before I will.”
I kept the bastard as a shield while we waited for the elevator to descend. When the door opened, a man stood inside. His shock made him slow to draw his weapon, and I fired once.
“Motherfucker,” my shield screamed when I squeezed the trigger right next to his ear.
I shoved him forward and shifted to put my back to the rear of the car. I peeked around him to make sure he hit the right floor. As we ascended, I mentally prepared myself for the coming firefight. I'd taken precautions to take out the easiest targets first. All the men left were the ones guarding my boy and the bastard in front of me.
Calm came over me. I'd done this hundreds of times before. A few more bodies wouldn't stain my soul if I was wrong about the afterlife. Unlike the kills of my past, the last few days were about getting my boy back. I'd waited a long time to find someone to call mine. They'd made the mistake of thinking they could take him from me.
The old elevator shuddered as it came to a stop and the sliding panels opened. I pushed the man forward and heard shots ring out. Curses came from either end of the corridor.
After that, my every action was choreographed. Yells rang out to announce my arrival like the gunfire wouldn't have alerted the others. I crouched down, keeping the panels open. I took down the guard in the hallway to my left. He shouted in agony, and I barely flinched at the round that hit my vest right on my shoulder blade. I spun and fell to my side, taking out the guy on the right. I grunted as shots rang out wildly and a few hit my chest.
I jumped to my feet and followed the plans I memorized until I reached the suite where my boy was being kept. With a single kick, the door swung open, and I trained my gun right on Cristo. He was using my boy as cover. Harrison's face was streaked with tears. The bruises, cuts, and swollen eye caused my rage to break free, even as I tried to control it. Not only had they dared take him from me, they'd put their hands on him.
“Boy, are you okay?”
“Y—yes, sir,” he lied to me as he shook his head to tell me he was hurt.
“Cowen, so glad you could join us.”
“I could've forgiven your attempts to kill me, but you took my boy. That I can't forget.”
“Your boy is very…sweet.”
I aimed, exhaled, and compressed the trigger hitting the
toe of his expensive, left shoe. He screamed, and I felt satisfaction.
“You sonofabitch!”
He didn't release Harrison, instead used my boy as a crutch to keep him on his feet. Too much of him was hidden behind Harrison. As I was about to take out his kneecap next, I caught a blur in the corner of my eye and ducked and rolled just in time. One of Cristo's enforcers tried to take my head off with a bat. The gun slipped from my hand and skittered across the floor. I drew my blade and gained my feet again.
“We can forget all about this, Cowen. I must say you impressed me with your skills the last few days.”
Cristo's voice was slurred and broken with pain. I kept my focus on the enforcer as he was joined by another man, bigger than the first.
Then I made my first mistake, Harrison cried out in pain, and I jerked my head around to check on him. As soon as I did, the two men were on me. I fought for myself, for my boy, I took hits and kicks, but they never got me to the ground. The bigger of my opponents went down as I caught the side of his throat with my blade. The warmth of blood splashed across my face, and I quickly swiped my forearm across my eyes.
I felt the sharp stab against my ribs and looked down in time to see my opponent's bloody knife appear from beneath my vest. I felt nothing. He stared into my eyes, a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. His arrogance proved his downfall. I grabbed the back of his head, flexed and feigned right, as I brought my knee up to shatter his ribs. He fell face first as he lay prone on the floor as I severed his spinal cord.
Cristo took the coward's way and fired, but his aim was ruined by panic and pain. The shots hit my vest, and as I approached, his gun jammed. He shoved my boy to the floor. Desperately the man tried to clear the chamber but didn't make it in time to save himself.
The wall I pushed him against cracked, then gave under his weight. I stalked to him and dropped to one knee where he'd sagged to the floor.
“Now, what were you saying?”
“Price isn't a problem, name it.”
“You think I want money. No, Cristo. We made a deal, when I was done, I was done. You came for me through my boy. You touched him. I can't let that go unpunished.” I grabbed the hand he used to touch my boy. I placed the blade at the base of his index finger and severed it. “I'm going to take each piece of you that touched him.”
“Sir, please, I wanna go home.”
I removed two more before I looked at Harrison.
“Did he rape you, boy?”
“No, sir.”
I turned my attention back to Cristo. “You're not as stupid as I thought you were. Any more deals and offers?”
“You can't do th—”
His words ended in a scream as I cut through his femoral artery and he grabbed his crotch. It was useless to try to stop the bleeding. He'd be dead in a matter of minutes. I straightened, and the adrenaline of the fight started to ebb.
I approached my boy and held out my hand. “Let's go home and get you cleaned up. I need a doctor to check you over.”
I stumbled as I became dizzy, but I shook it off. I helped him downstairs and over two blocks to where the car waited. He refused to look at me. He understood that the assumption of the violence I was capable of was one thing. Seeing it was another. Carefully I buckled him into the passenger seat and made the call to a doctor I knew who'd make a house call if the price was right.
The blood that was quickly wetting my pants told me I needed to see him myself, but my boy came first.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Harrison
The doctor left an hour before with strict instructions to keep an eye on Cowen. The man had taken care of my own stitches and checked to make sure I didn't have any permanent damage. Cowen had made a call to the stranger minutes before he'd collapsed. I hadn't noticed he was bleeding until it was almost too late. I'd thought about what his so-called job entailed, but until he'd rescued me, I hadn't understood just how dangerous the persona was that Cowen kept beneath the surface.
He hadn't flinched when he killed one man after another, but what had scared me the most was he hadn't cared about what happened to his body. The rounds he'd taken to the vest hadn't slowed him down. The thrusts of knives and hits from all sides were brushed off as if he were just shooing away an annoying bug.
Could I stay with the knowledge one day he might not come home? He seemed uncaring about his safety while putting me above him. I didn't like it. I'd lost my mother, and I couldn't lose anyone else. Especially when that person had so quickly become my center—my weird comfort.
He started to thrash in his sleep, and I acted without thought. I ran my fingers through his sweaty hair. He didn't allow me to touch him often. He appeared to calm. It brought back too many memories of watching my mother waste away and how helpless I'd been to help her.
I checked the bottles of pills the doctor left. One he'd told me was for pain and another to help fight infection. The doctor hadn't offered to come back, and I figured the visit wasn't really legal. I snorted at the thought. Of course it wasn't legal, Cowen killed people for a living. He couldn’t really go to the hospital with impact bruises from multiple gunshots or the knife wound that had barely missed his liver.
“What if I just ran?” I asked myself as I straightened to go get bottles of water for him.
A surprisingly firm grip circled my wrist. “I'd prefer not to kill you.”
I let him pull me down to sit beside him on the bed. “Be still my heart, you're so romantic.”
“I never claimed to be.” His voice was weak and gruffer with pain.
It worried me. He was always so capable and untouchable. The sight of him in assassin mode had transfixed me. I had to admit for a brief moment I'd thought him bad-boy sexy.
“You are rather sexy when you're beating people up.”
I wanted to place my hands on his chest, face, somewhere but I didn't know where. If I hurt him, I wouldn't be able to handle it. Caring for him had made me forget about my own pain. I ached over every inch of my body. I could no longer open my left eye, not even to peek beneath the swollen lid. The doctor had checked me over after he'd examined Cowen. Bruised and banged up, but nothing appeared to be broken. I'd been the lucky one, and I needed to focus on him. The physical effects would fade soon enough.
“No one has ever said I was sexy before.”
“You're too scary for people to approach. I think I'm going to take advantage of you being off your game for a bit.”
“I never forget anything. I'll keep a tally of lashes.”
“Of course you will. I'm going to go grab you some water so you can take your pain pills.”
“Don't need—”
“Quit being tough.”
“I'm not. I don't feel pain like normal people.”
I frowned and realized I didn't know much about Cowen's past. We existed in the present.
“Why do you do all this?”
“I'm good at it.”
“Cowen, it has to be more than you being good at it. From what I can tell from your win rate, you're an amazing lawyer.”
“Assassins need backup plans.”
He didn't expand on what that meant. I wondered if he'd ever grow to trust me.
“I'm supposed to trust in you, so why won't you talk to me about your life?”
“Do you want to know that I killed my first psychiatrist when I found out he was going to commit me as a danger to society? Maybe when I made my parents disappear. They'd become frightened of me when I was no more than a toddler. I was…broken. I've never felt anything but the need to kill for as long as I can remember. And I remember everything.”
Those were the most words I'd ever heard him speak at one time. Even though he said he didn't feel pain, I could see the strain in his thin face. I figured anyone else would be screaming in agony from their wounds. He wasn't so I didn't push the meds, but I wanted him to keep talking even if I knew he needed his rest to get better.
“You want to keep me, though?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know. Solving problems is all I've ever enjoyed. You're an enigma. My fascination didn't wane after being in your company. You didn't bore me.”
“I guess that's good.”
He wasn't a sweet talker, and I didn't hold my breath waiting for him to confess some undying love. I doubted I would ever hear him say it—even if he felt it. Emotion was an abstract concept to him. While locked in the basement and spending time with him, I realized he spent time analyzing everything, every word or action needed to be broken down to a molecular level—even me.
“When you became a witness, I couldn't kill you. Taking lives is simple for me. I was going to play with you. Test my hypotheses on why you were different. As I watched you, the more days to pass, I became unwilling to let you go.”
“While I'm happy to be alive and that you changed your mind, what happens when you're no longer fascinated with me? Do you still plan to kill me?”
“You're the only person I stopped wanting to kill. I will keep you. Never run from me. There's nowhere you could hide.”
I didn't know why that made me smile, but I figured that's as close as he was going to get to admitting he cared for me.
“I need you to be honest with me. Don't hide. This thing between us isn't normal.”
“It's all I have to offer.”
“All I need is your honesty.”
“I've killed hundreds of people. Barely tolerate the human species, but I can't imagine not having you.”
That's romantic in a twisted way. I leaned down until my mouth hovered over his. “May I have a kiss?” My busted ribs screamed with pain, and I barely held myself up when my body threatened to collapse.
“Your lips are busted.” His slender hand stroked over my bearded cheek, and his thumb skimmed the cuts on my lips.
“Then be gentle.”
“I don't know how.”
I didn't think that was true. He'd shown me how tender he could be when he cared for me after my lessons and he bathed me. He knew who he was, but his perception of himself was skewed by living in his head. Unlike me, I'd seen glimpses of a different man. Yes, he had his sadistic moments. His infliction of pain more comfortable than giving pleasure. Although all the times we'd had sex, he'd never left me wanting, except when orgasm denial was used as discipline.
