Mercy

by Lucian Bane

  She looked around, imagining him playing in it. It was so easy to do.

  Still not turning on any more lights, she finally climbed the stairs and stood at the foot of a short hall. Faint moonlight streamed in from a window at the end of the hall. She noticed doors on the left and right of it as she walked to peer out. She stared down into the darkness below, unable to make out much of the shadows.

  She turned to the door on the right and opened it. A bathroom. She explored it enough to make sure it was empty then found another dormer window along the wall near the toilet. It was smaller than the hall one and again she peered down into shadows.

  She looked around the bathroom and found more items that said it had been lived in. A woman’s items. His mother? Thoughts of it being something else made her stomach sick. She hurried out to the final door and found the master bedroom as she’d expected. The décor was very feminine. Lots of white lace and tiny flowers. Mercy burned with questions. The walk in closet turned out empty. Odd. In the room itself, she found a few items on the dresser—a jewelry box. Hair brush. She opened the jewelry box. Empty. She picked up the brush and pulled at the bristles, coming away with nothing.

  She glanced around, ready to explore downstairs a little better. She needed to keep her mind occupied until daylight. Shit, the lights on the truck!

  Mercy headed downstairs to the kitchen and searched for a flashlight. At finding one in a pantry, she made the mad freaky dash to the truck, locked it up, and raced back inside.

  Mercy’s breath froze then at hearing muted ringing. A phone? She jerked around listening and quickly searched, still afraid to turn on lights. Where was it coming from?

  Chapter Twenty

  “You don’t need to come in.” Sade got out of his car.

  “I’m coming man. I’m with you in this,” Bo said.

  “You realize how this can end? Do you?” Sade eyed him as he headed toward the backside of the club leading to the meeting room where his father waited for him all ears concerning Sade’s mention of a proposition.

  “I know man, trust me,” Bo said. “How long have we known each other? You had my back all my life, I’m here to the end.”

  Guilt hit Sade. He didn’t even like Bo on any reasonable level. He was just a part of his life like a stop sign was part of the road. And yet you’d swear Sade had been such an amazing friend to him. Sade got a small glimpse of himself in that moment—who he was, what he’d become over the years. A cold, walled off human, unable to see outside his own bullshit.

  Until Mercy. She’d wiggled her way beyond his barricade. Slipped right in. And for the first time in his life, since his mother, he felt alive. The kind of alive you feel when you walk out into the sun and it soaks all the way into your blood and bones, fills you with hopes and dreams that are not impossible. And the idea that anything would dare threaten that rare fucking beauty again, brought out the vilest of his sadism. He was only four the last time that happened, unable to do a fucking thing but embrace the monster it made him. But now… now his father wasn’t pushing around a four year old. He was pushing around the freak he’d made. Now Sade took life like he took a breath. Without thought or care. But he needed to think now. He needed to be smart not just lethal. There was no room for fucking up.

  Sade ignored the demons in his head that had gathered against him, whispering and mockingly wondering if Sade could do anything without fucking it up. And now he had Bo with him and it suddenly seemed all wrong. He turned in the hall just outside his father’s office and stopped him. “Just leave, Bo. You don’t need to fucking be here.”

  The hurt look on his face confused Sade. Where did Bo get this loyalty? Why did he have it? “Man,” he said, offended. “I’m here. I’m here for you.”

  “Why? I’ve not been there for you, just leave!”

  He shook his head. “You’re wrong, you’ve been there. Not up my ass but there. A shadow in my life but a strong one.” He shook his head. “You’re my family even if you ain’t really. I can’t be picky, you know?”

  The desperation in Bo to have the very thing Sade was fighting for, hit him hard. “Listen Bo. If we don’t live past today, you need to know…” Sade locked eyes with him and grabbed the back of his head and put his forehead to his. “I’m sorry. I should have been better to you, okay?”

  “We’re not angels, man?” he chuckled softly. “That’s your Mercy. She’s worth it. And I wanna be with you in this, let me be with you.”

  Sade nodded, vaguely remembering that desperate feeling of needing to belong to somebody, be with somebody. “I’ll do all the talking.”

  “Right behind you man.”

  Sade made a quick note to get to know Bo as an actual person if they lived through this. He had a lot to make up with him.

  The door opened after Sade’s code knock and in silence, they both walked in and the first thing he noticed was the new face. A man he didn’t recognize sat in one of the chairs before his father’s opulent desk in his opulent office.

  “The prodigal son has returned,” his father boomed as he stood with arms open wide. His Brooklyn accent seemed to grow thicker each year despite several decades and a thousand mile divide from his roots. Or maybe it just sounded thicker to Sade since he hated it. His aging fingers glittered with gold and diamonds, all paid for by stolen innocence in the form of blood, sex, and tears. But then what Sade bought to the table wasn’t much better. It wasn’t flesh trade, he’d drawn hard limits with the sick fuck on that front, but many of the men Sade fought and often killed weren’t exactly deserving of the death they got.

  “Sit down my good and faithful son. Bo, how are you? How’s business?”

  “Good Mr. Ashcroft.”

  Sade and Bo sat when his father did, as per his stupid custom. Sade had been taking notes on the new face. He wasn’t from around there, he was sure. The other three on duty he knew but this new guy carried a dangerous vibe. Sleek, well-dressed, well-built said professional killer. The gleam in his near black and penetrating gaze said heartless. Very bad combination.

  “Son,” his father began in an offended tone. “You never told me you were dating. I mean I’m heartbroken to think you would not introduce me.”

  “If you leave her alone, I’ll work for you another twenty years. I’ll even take over the arms division and make you more money than you can ever count.” You dumb fuck.

  “Wow!” his father said, slapping his hand on the desk. “That’s a beautiful offer. Irresistible. But… I have a little bit of a problem, see. I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce you to Mr. Buckles.” His father held a hand to the man. “See, he’s here right now, ready to give daddy two million dollars, and for what?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Not to hurt her, but just to have a few words with her.”

  Sade’s heart hammered. This was it. Where things got very fucking shitty. Just exactly how and to what degree was the question. “To talk?” he looked at Mr. Buckles. “About what? Maybe I can answer your questions.”

  The man only laughed softly with his crossed legs. “I must see her. She is… very important to me.”

  “Why?” Sade asked, unable to bite his tongue or smooth his tone.

  “Why? Simple,” the man said, uncrossing his legs and sitting straight. “I want to use her for bait. It’s her father that I want most of all.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Sade’s father boomed. “That piece of shit has all but ruined my empire! See… son. This is business. And you know my motto. Business before family. When I learned who your girlfriend was, I was heartbroken for you,” he lied smoothly. “So much potential that one. And talent. Before I decided to sell her out to Mr. Buckles here, I had actually considered offering her a job with the family. So we could all work together.”

  The reality of what Sade had done by allowing Mercy into his life hit him hard. What started as a cute little cat and mouse sexual game had gone very fucking wrong. This was it. The fork in the road. “I won’t sell her out. Not even if you torture me. And I
think you know that.”

  “Torture! Would I ever do that?” his father declared, an offended hand on his chest. “Torture my own son? Do I look like a heartless man? Now, Mr. Buckles here on the other hand is quite fluent in the business of slow or sudden heart cessations. He’s here in fact, to help accomplish this business transaction that is happening with or without your cooperation.”

  “Can’t get information from a dead man, daddy,” Sade muttered.

  His father stared at him, shaking his head. “Always the difficult son.” He stood and opened his drawer, pulling out his stash of cigars and offering one to Mr. Buckles who waved him off. He lit it and squinted his eye at Sade then turned to the man. “He’s always been a handful. Always difficult. Did you know he got his own mother beat to death?”

  Sade held his jaw shut tight.

  “He was a mommas boy, always has been. Don’t know what the fuck she saw in that little shit or what kind of spell he put on her but she was one of my best whores until that little fucker right there,” he pointed at Sade. “I tried to be nice. I let her keep the fucking baby, just to show that I was a decent guy. And what thanks do I get?” He eyed Sade with disgust. “She wants to leave the life of luxury. Go live a simple life. With her pussy son. Using my money that she saved up.” He barked a single laugh. “She saved up my money, go figure. To give her pussy son a real life. I can still hear her fucking whiney voice. See that’s what happens when you give to people.” He paced before his desk. “They take and take and take.” He spun on Sade and aimed his finger at him. “I made her a success, I gave her everything she needed to become a top—“

  Sade flew over the desk and dove on him, hoping to kill him before he was stopped. He sank his teeth onto his face and bit hard with a roar. When they pulled him off, he spit the chunk of flesh out, embracing the electricity shooting through his body until it all went dark.

  ****

  Mercy finally found the source of ringing and discovered it wasn’t a phone but an alarm going off upstairs in the bedroom. She turned it off. 5 am. She looked around, feeling creeped out now. Who set it? She examined the clock and saw it was set to repeat. Had Sade done that? Exhaustion hit her and she stumbled her way downstairs to the little boy’s bedroom and laid in the bed. She wasn’t sure how long it was before sleep claimed her. Somewhere around the point where she was imagining herself as Goldilocks, falling asleep in the baby bear’s bed while the bears were away and hoping they didn’t come back home while she was sleeping.

  ****

  Sade became conscious long enough to have water blasted in his face. It found its way into his lungs and he coughed and gagged on air and water for endless seconds before it stopped. “Your friend Bo is here with us,” the voice said. He recognized Mr. Buckles. “He’s not as strong as you are, I’m afraid. We’re going with hot and cold compresses for him. Very effective.”

  Bo’s screams ripped the air and Sade threw his weight in the direction of the voice, but whatever he was tied to didn’t allow him one inch. Sade blinked and realized his eyes were swollen shut. He tried to remember what happened. How long he’d been there. Flashes of fists in his face was all he remembered. Not an unfamiliar memory though with his line of work. “You’re a million miles… away motherfucker,” Sade coughed and wheezed. “From getting shit from me.”

  “Who the fuck turned off the lights?” Mr. Buckles muttered.

  Silence reigned and Sade prayed that Bo would die quickly. He jerked right at hearing the faintest sound of a weapon with a silencer.

  “Excuse me,” Buckles muttered with a lethal tone. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  Sade waited in the timeless darkness then froze when crosshairs in the shape of a crucifix slowly crawled over his leg and stopped at his crotch. His heart hammered with holy shit. He jerked his head up and found a large shadow before him.

  “Johnathon.” The silky voice signaled an unfettered insanity but it wasn’t physical fear that gripped Sade, it was something else. Regret maybe. He’d finally gotten his old wish, to be under the crosshairs of KK, only he’d given up on ever getting the execution and made other plans. “I’m going to untie you and your friend Bo, and we’ll be leaving.”

  A moment of confusion hit him. Did he want to execute them at another location? Didn’t matter. Just so he took care of Mercy. “I.. I hid her.”

  “I know what you’ve done, son,” his tone was easy while loaded with unpredictability. “I know all about you. More than you probably know about yourself,” he said so very casually. “We’ll chat over coffee later. I need to go get your pal right now.” Sade groaned when his arms released from behind him. Then his legs.

  Was he making a joke? “Bo…” Sade stumbled along, barely able to walk as KK led him. “…they hurt him.”

  “That they did,” he muttered, again his tone was deceptively cool. It could mean he didn’t give a shit and it could mean the opposite. “No more talking. Can you walk out of here?”

  “I can,” he whispered, staggering, barely able to feel his legs.

  “Stay at my back and keep moving.”

  Sade looked around at the scattered dead bodies as they made their way out the back and into a waiting vehicle with Bo dangling from the man’s shoulder. After he dumped him in the back seat, he went around the car. “Get in and buckle up,” he said before sinking into the driver seat.

  Yes fucking sir. Sade still didn’t know what this meant but he wasn’t about to argue and the second his ass hit the seat, KK punched the accelerator.

  “Mercy is…”

  “I know where she is.”

  Sade pushed through the pain in his body and turned his head to see KK with his barely good eye. He mostly wanted to finally see what he looked like. Wow. A slim, middle aged man with the build of a fucking postman.

  KK angled a look at him with a half-smile. His blue eyes were large and serene. “Not what you expected, I see.” He checked all his mirrors and sighed long. “I know you have questions son, and I’ll try and answer a few for you. How’s that?”

  Sade could hardly believe his ears. Who was this dude?

  “I’ll take that stunned silence as a yes. Here’s the rundown. I was in the Navy all my life. I joined because I wanted to be a hero. Lost a sister to prostitution when I was twelve. She was murdered. Not by your father, no, but same kind of shit. I became a Seal eventually and witnessed some pretty fucked up things. I found Mercy in one of the flesh trade houses during a raid. She was ten. I took her out that night, against orders.” He gave a light chuckle. “Hard to put a child back down when she’s clinging to your neck for dear life screaming don’t leave me don’t leave me.”

  “I put her in another place that I thought was safe, and took my demotion. A few months later, when I tried to arrange to get her, I wasn’t allowed. So I went AWOL. Disappeared long enough to change my identity and then I came back for her. Turned out the place I’d put her at wasn’t as safe as I thought and she’d been sold again. I found her and killed every motherfucker remotely attached to her pain.

  “Then I retired. Raised her off the grid. Made sure—”

  “You trained her.”

  He looked at him a few seconds. “You felt some of that?” He let out a low laugh. “Wanted to make sure she could handle anything that might come her way.”

  “She can, just about. But how do you know where she is?”

  “I always know where she is.” His silky confidence soothed him, even if it wasn’t intended to. “I think you need to check our pal.”

  Terror gripped Sade as he spun and looked at Bo. He reached and searched his wrist for a pulse knowing in his gut there wouldn’t be one. At finding the faint thumping with his finger, Sade put a hand over his eyes. “Little shit is fucking alive,” he gasped. The relief of it made Sade sag into the seat. “He’s a tough kid.”

  “Just like you.”

  Sade still couldn’t discern his tone, it could be good or bad coming from a cold blooded killer. He had so m
any things he wanted to ask him. Even half dead, Sade couldn’t shake the feeling of awe. He was sitting in the car with his hero. That turned out to be his girlfriend’s dad. Unreal.

  “Go ahead and ask,” he said. The air is crackling with your curiosity.”

  Sade didn’t need to be told twice and he wasn’t about to waste the chance. “Why did you fake your death?”

  “Many reasons.”

  His tone said that was all he was getting on that for now. Sade thought for a moment, thinking of the things he really needed to know versus wanted to know. “Did you know Mercy was going to find me?”

  He gave a boisterous laugh and shook his head a little. “My sweet Mercy. Always the optimist, she was. Her finding that envelope was supposed to go much different. She was supposes to bring that to authorities. Which would get you put into prison and out of my way to finish a job. Not once did I ever consider she’d make the wrong assumptions.”

  “What… was I going to prison for?”

  “That hit and run. You killed me.”

  Holy shit.

  “Only our little Miss Mercy…” he shook his head. “She thought you were my next mercenary assignment. And while you were…”

  “I was?”

  “Mercenary in your favor. I was getting you out of the way, son, to deal with the devil, your father, no offense.” His tone lowered to a note Sade guessed belonged to the man who branded testicles and cut off dicks. “You’re nothing like him. You take after your mother.”

  “My mother,” Sade’s heart hammered now. “You knew her?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. “I did, yes.”

  “How?”

  “I know everybody remotely connected to you.”

  This news baffled him. “Why?”

  “Because you were her son. She was my friend,” he eyed him, his gaze hard like his words. “I gave a shit about her, that’s why. I have a special set of bullets for your father. His death isn’t going to be quick. Or clean. Or merciful.”

  Sade didn’t care one bit about how his father would die. “So you know how she died?” Sade had heard several mixed stories.