by M. C. Cerny
It was all so–so very fucked up.
“I broke that trust. I get it, but for what it’s worth, I am sorry. Nothing I do can fix this and I’m leaving town for a while. The shit Ken got me involved with is crazy.”
“Well, if coming onto your best friend and taking her to a sex club to be a toy for a whack job without her knowledge isn’t bad…then color me stupid.” Her actions were pretty unforgivable.
“I know you won’t forgive me, but I wanted to say I was sorry before I left. He said he wasn’t going to hurt you and I thought it would be us with him just watching or something. He said he was a voyeur, you know a watcher.”
“Still fucking creepy, Ella.”
“He told me to bring you because that’s all I talked about. He was jealous of my feelings for you.”
“This isn’t about jealousy, or forgiveness, Ella, I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry that you felt breaking my trust was worth an ounce of his time. If you needed money, a place to stay, anything, I would have given it to you freely. Heck, I could have been into you, but this killed it completely.” I rubbed the flesh above my heart that ached from the betrayal. I would get over this eventually, but the hurt would take some time.
“Jude?” Ella cried into the phone and I’m glad she didn’t just show up at my house while Lorand was here. There’s something about him that is dangerous and I didn’t know how he would have taken Ella’s apology, meaningless as it was to me.
“Please don’t ever call me again.” I hit the end button on the phone as she cried and put it down on the nightstand.
A shower would clear my head and help me with what to do next. Lorand and I had a lot to talk about and I wasn’t sure where to begin.
* * * * *
Stepping out of the shower, my phone was ringing again. It was like Grand Central Station opened up and everyone wanted a piece of me today. I reached for a towel that blended into everything else and stubbed my toe hard against the cabinet. Hobbling and trying to not hit my toe with anything else I hopped into the bedroom thankful I owned no clutter that could otherwise sabotage my walk to the bed.
“Hello?” I answered feeling annoyed. I wanted Lorand to come back and the shower didn’t do much in the way of making me feel better. I sat on the bed rubbing my foot to massage the sting away.
“Judith, sweetheart.” My uncle’s voice came through the phone. Deep and clear, he addressed me formally as he always did. I really needed to set individual rings for people so I knew when to pick up and when to let it go to voicemail, but I was stubborn.
“Hi, how are you?” He’s known me since birth. He’s my mother’s much older brother. My uncle lived as a confirmed bachelor for years with no children of his own and often stepped up to be my father figure when my own couldn’t be bothered.
“I’m fine, but I was calling to check in on my favorite niece and take you to lunch if you have the time.” It’s not often we got together and I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity. Unsure how long Lorand would take, I decided to use my speech to text program to send him a text message when I get the chance.
“I always have time for you uncle. I just showered so I can dress if you’ll pick me up.”
“Perfect, I’m actually in the neighborhood so I should be there in about fifteen minutes.”
“Okay. I’ll be ready.” I reach for the first hanger in my closet. The organized band around the hanger tells me I’m selecting an easy sundress that I know has short sleeves and a modest top that will cover the bruises on my chest. I hired a personal shopper to select a few nice pieces and to arrange them in my closest so I don’t have to worry about looking like a mismatched hobo with my limited sight. My mind wanders for a minute and I feel a flashback overwhelm me. I don’t have a ton of them anymore that feel this real, but when I do, I’m left rattled and this one has me sinking to my knees shaking.
Antiseptic smells sting my nose and a bandage covers my face I can’t seem to reach. Panic grips my chest and I tried to breathe through the ventilator. “You’re going to be okay, Judith. I’ve got someone keeping an eye on you now.”
My uncle’s voice permeated the drugged cloud they kept me in. Sedated someone said. Scarred for life another said. She’ll never be the same, my mother’s words laced with horror as she dictates plans around me.
I was the new freak show since the accident at school. The science lab off campus exploded and I barely made it out alive. It was an accident that killed two of the school administrators who were meeting there. I don’t remember leaving the building, just opening the door and then struggling to breathe and my eyes on fire. Someone helped me out–Lorand–I know that now, but it’s all hazy.
My uncle always protected me since then. He helped me get my townhouse here in the complex and filed the law suit on my behalf for damages. He held me when I cried over emancipating myself from my parents who wanted to take me away from here to Connecticut to another school I refused to go to. I needed my freedom and he understood that, but I also needed what was familiar. There was a strange comfort to staying in Karim. I didn’t have to start all over, and people here at least knew what happened to me so the stares seemed less probing and curious. At least here I was their freak show and if I couldn’t see who pitied me at least they weren’t all strangers.
Knocking at the door jolted me from the memory locked inside my dark head. I finished getting dressed slipping on flat shoes to answer the door.
“Uncle!”
“Sweet girl!” He wraps me in a hug and kisses my head guiding me to his car where I slipped inside on smooth leather seats. A smell that reminds me of metal and Lorand jolts my nose, but I dismiss it because it’s impossible.
“I haven’t spent time with you in a while. What’s been going on?” I asked him.
“Traveling for work, you know how selling airplane parts go....” I don’t but wait for him to elaborate when he doesn’t. “I decided to take some time off and wrap up a few things in town. I got a letter for the final settlement amount from the Academy’s lawyers.”
“Oh.” Now I felt awkward. I’d never asked for anything, but the court has been more than generous thanks to my uncle’s team of lawyers practically parading me around like a puppy. As long as the school paid the settlement and secured the science lab, paying the environmental fines for the chemicals that leeched during the explosion, it was supposed to be over. I needed for this to be over.
“I’ll have it deposited into your account by the first of the month my dear.” He patted my hand reassuringly as he drove the car into town. It wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful to him for doing all of this but he had a tenacity that almost scared me with how he went after them.
“Thank you.” Simply put that’s all I wanted to say on this matter.
“I hope you like the Tumbleweed Café. It’s a beautiful day and I thought we could enjoy sitting outside.” He pulled the car to a stop.
“That sounds lovely,” and I let him help me out of the car which was more for his benefit then mine this time.
“Here you are sweetheart, wear these to protect your eyes.” He handed me a pair of large sunglasses. I was virtually blind in the bright Texas sun and with eyes as damaged as mine it seemed pointless, but I took them and placed them over my face to make him happy. “Now we’re ready.” He guided me to the restaurant and a waiter sat us down serving us with mimosas. It felt strange to be out in the open like this, we usually dined somewhere private but the sun felt good on my shoulders caressing me. I missed Lorand and I hoped he’d come back soon from doing whatever he did for work.
Twelve
LORAND
If I’d known last night what I knew today, I wouldn’t have let him leave the club after touching Jude. He disgusted me in every way possible. A part of me wanted to eviscerate him limb from limb while the other part wants to Prince Humperdinck his ass and leave just his ears so the people who pass by him can stare and scream at his ugliness inside out.
I continued to w
atch him eat and lick his greasy fingertips, my stomach churned in disdain for his very existence. My phone beeped and vibrated with a text message, but I ignore it. I’m in the moment working and can’t afford a distraction right now. I let him finish eating because this will be his last meal as far as I’m concerned. I’m an assassin and this is what I do. I make the choice of when things end and how. I took my gun from the glove compartment and slide the silencer into place. The total sum of all parts clicked together and washes over me in my ritual of preparing for the end. It’s a large gun that feels comfortable in my hands like an extension of my body, lethal and dangerous. I become the weapon, the complete package.
My Range Rover is parked across the street from him with a clear view to take the kill shot. I looked around eyes narrowed. A park with children sitting on swings is nearby. Their mothers pushing them without a care in the world and decided this won’t do at all. I can’t kill him in broad daylight like this with witnesses, but more importantly with children around who could be forever changed by my careless actions. I’m a bad man through and through, but I’m not a fucking idiot when it comes to killing my marks. I take out the people who deserve it. The scum of the earth, I am the judge and jury casting final judgement on the depraved. Nobody needs to clean up a careless kill.
Junior gets up to walk down the street and I elected to follow him and wait for my opportunity. Slipping the gun inside my holster under my jacket I felt complete in the moment. The years of Sorenson’s training and guidance soothes me through the task as I get out of the vehicle.
Standing from my vantage overlooking the Tumbleweed Café I saw a dark luxury vehicle pull up into the handicap spot. The back of my neck tingles as Sorenson gets out and opens the door. He’s probably the only man in Texas who wears a three piece suit and a fedora year round. I looked back and forth between my mentor and my mark.
Fuck.
He’s playing with me.
I don’t have many options here and even less when the door opens and pale legs exit the passenger side of the car. My stomach bottoms out to see Jude come out of the car, a smile on her lips and Sorenson handing her a pair of large oversized sunglasses to wear.
“What the hell kind of game are you playing here, Sorenson?” I muttered to myself knowing what I had to do. As if he could hear me over the busy street he turned and gave me a nod of his head tipping his hat off to me regally. The man has a lot of balls. I’m screwed, royally screwed. I was supposed to protect her, not fuck her and now he knows something is up. Sorenson always seems to know. I take off on foot to catch Kenneth Halstad and leave Jude with a wolf in sheep’s clothing I’ll have to deal with later.
I pursued the mark, no longer a human living thing in my mind, down the main street thoroughfare. Compartmentalizing each kill kept me sane and was necessary.
He ducked down an alley disappearing from sight for a second. I turned down the alley expecting to surprise him. Instead he jumps me with a metal bar swinging at my head. I flew back instinctively pissed I wasn’t more aware that he might have spotted me. Thinking of Jude kept me off kilter.
“Fuck!”
“You’re following me!”
“Observant.” I grunted dodging another attempted blow which sparks when the metal bar hits the metal drainpipe coming off the brick building’s façade.
Clang!
Clang!
The vibrations intensified as he gets closer to me. I taunt him to the left and he countered. “What do you want? I barely touched that whore last night! How was I to know you claimed her as your sub?”
Roaring with anger barely contained under the surface, I charged him. I grabbed the bar and pull swinging it in a wide arc to clatter against the asphalt.
“She’s not my sub.” Growling I spit the words out.
“Pity, she’d make a good one with the right hand.”
“It’s your heavy hand that’s going to pay first.” I aimed the gun at his left hand and fired discharging the bullet into bone and flesh.
“Ahhhh!” He fell against the wall clutching the damaged hand against his chest. “You’re fucking crazy!”
“And you’ll be dead soon anyway.” The blood seeped down darkening the color of his shirt and the smell of the gun discharging turned the acid in my stomach. I should have eaten breakfast before I followed him this morning. I should have stayed in bed and made love to Jude in several positions until my dick was limp. Kills on an empty stomach and unsatisfied desires were never a good idea.
“She’s still a whore,” and this guy just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. I didn’t think I had it in me to make this look like much of an accident after all.
“And you’re a fucking pervert breaking the club’s rules.” I stepped closer to him and he scooted back with nowhere left to go. Fear left his eyes wild and urine stained his pants. He was disgusting.
“So fucking what? She asked for it coming with my stupid little twat.” He spits in my direction and I decide death might be too good a punishment for him.
Pissed I grabbed his face with my gloved hand taking him off guard as I picked him up bodily and slammed him into the building.
“You don’t get to speak about her. You will never touch her, utter a word to her, or look at her again. This is about what your father did years ago at the Karim Academy.” His eyes lit up like wildfire and recognition bloomed.
“I don’t–”
“Yeah, don’t. We both know you knew what he was doing, the sex trafficking, telling lies that those poor girls dropped out to take nanny jobs or transferred to another school. All of it lies.”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“But you’re tainted just the same with his sick DNA and preying on young women vulnerable to get your rocks off.”
“Like you don’t?”
“Any woman I take to my bed consents, not like I need to explain the difference to shit like you.”
“Who sent you? Someone who knows all about my father surely knows he wasn’t alone.”
“Funny, that’s how I was directed to find you and lucky you, you gave me even more reason to take this job and destroy you piece by piece. You’re the third and final piece of this puzzle. I’m gonna take an extended vacation after this. ”
“Three? You really think it’s just three?” He laughs choking on some joke I don’t seem to be aware of hearing. “There were more than three including my father involved.”
I shook him until I felt he was rattled enough. “What did you say to me?” I held him squirming against the bricks, dust shifting and he clawing at my arm to let go. I could snuff the life out of him this way squeezing until he stopped moving, but I needed names. Four? Five? How many were responsible? Sorenson gave me three names. Three men investigated and found guilty by our sources. We didn’t do messy, we cleaned up loose ends. Who else was on the list of suspects beside this man’s father and two others?
My burner phone rang a generic ring tone with some hip hop beat that’s not really my speed. I only had two numbers on this particular phone and I wondered if these things came with something besides annoying bells and whistles.
“Fuck.” I let Ken go pissed because I needed to do more reconnaissance before I finished him. “Hello?” I answered the phone and Ken falls to the ground crouched over and backing away slowly. I kicked my foot out at him hitting his leg to remind him I’m not finished with him and the bastard cowered.
“Hi.” That shy sexy voice filtered through the alley like a balm to my chapped senses.
“Jude.” I’d give anything to be with her right now instead of this shitty alley, doing shitty work I had no business doing anymore. How is it that one ill-fated accident made my world shift? She had power over me that made me vulnerable and yet a stronger man at the same time.
“Hey, I wanted to hear your voice.” My paranoid instincts were rearing their ugly heads.
“Jude, where are you?” I hoped she’d tell me the truth.
“I went to lu
nch with my uncle, he’s in the restroom. We just sat down at the Tumbleweed Café. Have you been before?” All the small talk was making my head hurt. She had no idea the danger she was in.
Fisting my hand tightly around the gun, I punch my leg as I grit out my words to her. “Are you alright?”
“Of course I am, Lorand. Are you coming back after lunch?” Jude teases me through the phone and my mission to end this shit for brains guy ceases. Her voice calms the violent torrent within me and I almost for a moment forget why I’m here between dirty buildings with my silencer about to pop the scum of the earth.
“Please, be careful.” I tell her. What more could I say?
She giggles and I want to hurry this up and rush back to her, punish her for making me worry. “I promise to not get accosted between here and the house.” She tells me and a huff escaped my chest because she doesn’t have a clue how possible that scenario is right now. I’m not exactly what you would call a by the books kind of guy.
“Cute. You’re trouble later.”
“Am, I?” Coyness doesn’t suit her and I’m mad she didn’t listen to me in the first place.
“I’m going to spank that ass for leaving the house when I get back. I told you to stay put and stay naked.”
“Seriously?” She whispered into the phone and I can hear Sorenson returning in the background asking her who she’s on the phone with.
“I gotta go.” I say more sharply than I intended.
“Already?” Her voice snapped me back to reality where I’m holding a gun on an asshole in the alley. I wonder if she thinks I mean long term. I have left her in the past, but all this stuff coming to a head makes leaving her again next to impossible. Nothing, not even her uncle will keep me from her.
