Soren stared down at the three names, brow furrowing. “Nobody’s killed Estevez yet? I figured that asshole had it coming last year after that bullshit with the cartel.”
Ronin shrugged. “Nope, still kicking. Interested in any of them? I’ll share. We could go halfsies,” Ronin jested with a grin. “Or you can just claim seniority and tell me to fuck off.” He lifted his hand for the server and gestured for another bucket of beer.
Soren’s eyes wavered from the list, then shot back to it again as he considered. “I’m retired.”
“People come out of retirement all the time. You’re currently out of retirement for demo work. Why not tack on a few jobs?”
“Because I don’t need them. I’m comfortable.”
“Yeah, but you keep baiting me to argue with you so you can talk yourself into it.” Ronin lifted his keen gaze to Soren. “You could just save some time, tell me which one you want, and I’ll back off. I’ll even pretend to act surprised that you want the job, if you’d like me to.”
Soren’s gaze moved over Ronin’s face thoughtfully. Maybe the guy wasn’t so green after all. He was astute enough to pick up on Soren’s bullshit, after all. Then again, Soren wasn’t one to wear much of a disguise.
He glanced back down at the name that had caught his eye. That cool hollowness grew and spread through his gut as he flicked the name with the edge of his nail. “This one.”Paddy Killeen.
Ronin eyed him sidelong. “Yeah? You know him at all?”
“Not from Adam. That bounty will buy me another year in Bali, though,” Soren lied. The bounty was negligible compared to what he’d socked away, but Killeen had cost him a hundred grand and nearly killed one of his mentees during a botched job a decade or so ago, and it was hard to resist a little poetic justice in seeking his pound of flesh.
“He’s a little wild from what I hear, but he’s one of Eastman’s clients and the doc owes me, so if you tell him I sent you, he’ll talk.”
“I don’t need his help to get to this guy.” Soren pushed the empty bucket on their table aside to make room for the new one as the server reappeared but put a hand up when Ronin offered him one.
“Done already?”
“I reckon I’m catching an early flight to Beantown tomorrow.” Curiosity made him pause. “This Eastman…what’s he like?”
“Weird.” Ronin let out a chuckle that made Soren suspicious. “If you talk to him, you’ll see.”
3
Tobias
Tobias was a creature of habit. Each day, he grabbed his black Americano, overtipped the barista, and made small talk about the weather. Then he’d get in his car and either head to his office or his first client of the day. It was the same routine, day in and day out. Repetition bred structure and structure bred control. Tobias needed control.
But not today.
Today, Tobias sat in his Volvo looking out at a different coffee shop. One with a long line full of millennial professionals and students and a flashier, hipper more Instagram-friendly look. Tobias hated it. He hated it so much that he sat white-knuckling the steering wheel as he tried to settle his mask of pleasant inscrutability into place. He didn’t like new things. He especially didn’t like new places. He preferred controlled environments, but this wasn’t about him. This was about Paddy Killeen. Specifically, stalking Paddy Killeen.
Tobias had spent his whole life trying to prove that men killed because they lacked discipline, impulse control, all the things he excelled at. He’d convinced himself his willpower was all that stood between him and the mountain of bodies he wished to leave behind. His urge to kill had taken root in the fertile soil of his twisted mind years ago, when he was far too young to understand it. But he’d overcome those urges through sheer force of will.
Or so he’d thought.
It was all bullshit. His hypothesis was bullshit. His whole life was a lie, a carefully crafted fraud designed to keep his own urges in check. Tobias had firmly believed the only difference between him and his clients was control of his impulses. That if he gave in to them, he would become a predator like those monsters. Until he’d met John and Akil and the scales had fallen from his eyes. Predators, yes. Evil, no. And that changed everything.
Now that Tobias had decided his experiment had failed spectacularly, the decision to systematically eliminate his client list became not just a matter of public service but a gift to himself. Killing two birds with one stone. Pun intended. He’d made a study of murderers. He knew how to kill. Those same clients who were too evil to live had handed him a blueprint on how to eliminate people who needed to die.
Step one. Recon. He liked that term better than stalking, even if stalking was precisely what he was doing. He’d had plenty of time to decide Paddy Killeen would be his first victim, but he knew too little about where the man existed outside of his garish home, and Tobias had already ruled out killing the man at home. Aside from the security system and his wife, there were too many variables he couldn’t control. If he was going to do this correctly, he needed to keep complete control of the situation.
Luckily for Tobias, the man owned a number of businesses, mostly cash pay, making it easy to launder his dirty money. But there was no reason for Tobias to be at a strip club or a scrap yard or, hell, even a laundromat. The only real place for him to conceivably case without looking out of place was his auto body shop.
Tobias would never take his precious Volvo to a back alley mechanic with no knowledge of foreign cars, so it had to be something simpler, more convenient. A coincidence. He’d been at the dealership just last week after some animal had slashed all four of his tires, an unfortunate consequence of seeing the clientele he did. But it gave him the idea.Hence, a coffee shop close enough that a trip to Killeen’s shop for a simple flat tire would be believable.
He’d already planted the nail in his tire, and the pressure gauge was alerting him of a problem, but he needed to make it real in his head.I decided to try a new coffee shop and came out and bam, flat tire, what are the odds?The key to selling a lie was believing it. Nobody knew that better than Tobias. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. Breaking his routine was like spending the day with a rock in his shoe. He could do it, but it pinched, leaving him feeling off-kilter and out of sorts. He couldn’t afford to be out of sorts. Angry people were easily remembered.
He sighed, forcing the door open and stepping out before he could change his mind, smoothing his hand over his sweater vest and tightening the tie at his throat, pushing his black-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose, messenger bag over his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the storefront window, content that he looked absolutely forgettable as he stepped in line with the others.
Two twenty-something girls in business casual stood in front of him, talking about a guy named Chris, a mid-level manager who was mediocre at his job and grossly under-qualified for his position. He was also their boss apparently. When they noticed him, he smiled blandly and looked away, sure that would be the end of it. He was wrong. God, he hated being wrong.
