Arsen Lebedev sat on the stoop of an abandoned building, watching the windows of the small home across the street. They’d been dark for a while, but he was in no hurry. He sat, playing a game on his phone, swearing as he made a fatal error that sent his character spiraling out of existence for the sixth time.
He sighed, shoving his phone back in his pocket, and nodded to a couple walking their dog. It was three in the morning, but time seemed irrelevant on this side of town. There were day people and night people. Sometimes, Arsen was both.
On nights like this—when he had to kill someone—he was a night person. Murder was just easier in the dark. And it didn’t have anything to do with anonymity. Arsen made no attempt to hide his identity. He was well known in the neighborhood, from his turquoise hair to his distinct video game tattoos. Hell, even his good looks.
People knew who he was. He was one of Jericho’s boys. That made him untouchable, even to the police. Not that they bothered with that side of town. People there took care of their own, and when they couldn’t, they called Jericho and Jericho dispatched one of his “kids” to handle things. Tonight, Arsen was that kid, and he would’ve been lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to taking out this particular trash.
He rose and stretched as a man on a bike passed. He had a case of beer and Oreos strapped to the back. Arsen smiled. Oreos and warm beer didn’t sound in any way appealing, but who was he to yuck someone else’s yum? He ate his eggs with ketchup…and syrup.
There was no accounting for taste.
He stifled a yawn. The faster he got this done, the faster he could go home and lie in his own bed. He had an early morning at the garage, finishing the two late-day oil changes he hadn’t gotten to. He could have stayed and gotten them done to get a couple more hours of sleep in the morning, but sleep wasn’t really in the cards for him. His nightmares ensured he never slept more than a handful of hours at most.
He crossed the street, glancing at the dark, late-model BMW in the target’s driveway. He liked the sleek lines of the car and the engine was most capable. But the parts were too expensive to replace. His target didn’t worry too much about money, though nobody could really figure out where it came from. Nowhere good.
Arsen sighed. Even in the poorest neighborhoods, there was a hierarchy. There were those so poor that running water and electricity were out of their reach, and some who drove fancy cars back to their one-bedroom walk-ups where they watched cable on their wall-sized televisions. Not rich enough to survive in an upper middle-class area, but not as poor as the rest of them.
Arsen didn’t know if being the richest poor person was any real flex or if it was something akin to being a prisoner doing the least amount of time. Whether you were there for murder or jaywalking, there were bars around you either way.
Well, being the richest poor person in their neighborhood wouldn’t be a problem for Jennika Henniker much longer. She was about to learn that money couldn’t save child abusers from karma.
A chill ran through him when he approached the door and the knob turned with ease. There was something terrifying about people who didn’t lock their doors. It displayed a lack of fucks Arsen aspired to have someday. He spent a good amount of his life pretending not to care, but the truth was Arsen gave too many fucks about too many things.
His fuck bucket overflowed most days. Even now, creeping through the darkness, searching out his victim, he was thinking of the paperwork he’d left on Jericho’s desk, the game he was supposed to be playing with his friends, and the letter he’d received from his father.
Yeah, way too many fucks.
He found Jennika in her bed—not surprising given the late hour. He pointed the gun at her, letting the muzzle hover about an inch from the center of her forehead. She’d never see it coming. One minute, she was a person, the next a memory. But that wasn’t how Jericho wanted it. He needed them to know why they were being exiled from the planet.
She was much older than Arsen had imagined her to be. Not ancient by any means but mid-fifties. Her dark hair obscured part of her face, but the lines around her mouth gave him a rough estimate. She wasn’t unattractive, but who she was as a person made her ugly.
He pressed the cold steel to her skin. She flinched, shaking her head like she was trying to bat away a gnat or fly. He pressed harder until her eyes flew open. Arsen lifted a finger to his lips. “Shh,” he taunted.
To her credit, she didn’t cry or scream—didn’t look even remotely panicked about the intruder standing over her bed. “What are you doing in my bedroom?” she asked, her accent heavy. German maybe.
“Killing you.”
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “You’re Russian?”
It was odd the things people focused on when their deaths were imminent. Arsen had killed a lot of people. She was the first to skip over the dying to discuss his accent. “Aga,” he said.
“I have money,” she said, her voice not particularly panicky.
Arsen rolled his eyes. If he had a dollar for every person who’d tried to bribe him out of their deaths, he could probably afford the new PC he’d been saving for. “I don’t want your money.”
She scoffed. “Everybody wants money.”
Arsen smiled. “Not me. I just want you to die.”
Her eyes glittered even in the darkness. She was almost…reptilian in her coldness. “Why? What could I possibly have done to you?”
“Me? Nothing. But I’m not really your target age range, am I? Unfortunately for Tenesha Copenhaver, Melody Shrier, and Zaneta King, they were.”
She bristled at the mention of those names. “Who?”
“The toddlers you brought into your home under the guise of foster care and then abused so badly they took them from you. One after the other.”
“Children need discipline,” she said, tone bored. “I will not apologize for not coddling them.”
