"Do you know much about his mom?" I pick up my binoculars and try to focus them in on the house, hoping I can see through the window to get a peak, but the shades are drawn.
"No, but I heard she's sick or something… He volunteers at the VA now and then, though. He's not a total piece of trash." I hear the words she's saying, but her tone of voice doesn't match them. I get the feeling this one might've had something more to do with what she went through than she's letting on.
It's easier to terminate someone when I know less about them, and finding out these details will challenge my resolve. But a job is a job. I know my fate if I screw up another mission. I don't have to check in with the boss to know he's not happy about that girl being alive. By now, he may have even sent someone else to finish her, which I don't want to know about if it happened. I just have to keep my head down and focus on what I'm doing here.
I have to dig in deeper, remind myself why I do what I do. And this time it honestly isn’t about the list. The tension on Sabine's forehead tells me she's upset by just the proximity to this man. I can tap into that because just thinking of what that sick bastard, Captain Jason Bryan, did to her is enough to make me want to murder anyone involved.
"And he's one of them who covered all that stuff up?" I can't look at her when she responds or I may just jump out of this truck right now and go slit his throat right there in his living room. The idea of his knowing what happened to her and not reporting it or defending her makes rage boil to the surface. And I don't even know this woman at all.
"Worse," Sabine says, and I can tell she's getting choked up. "He's one of the men I was supposed to report this stuff to, and he never escalated it. He went to Bryan instead of his superiors."
When I spot movement at the house, I bring the binoculars back to my face and watch. Caldwell is a gaunt man, spindly and willowy like a tree as he sways down the steps toward the sidewalk and ambles toward a 1998 Ford Ranger. The jacket he wears is too thin for how cold it is, and it appears that it's a bit too small, too. He's gained weight since he last wore it, which may actually have been years ago, before he enlisted. And from what I can tell, he looks slightly drunk.
"That's him." Sabine's voice is tight and her hand moves to lock her seatbelt into place. "Let's do this away from his mom's house." I can hear the reluctance in her tone. She knows my job is to kill the man, and I agreed to her terms, but I won't hesitate to renege on that deal if she gets cold feet. My list is still my list. I can't fathom returning to the boss without completing the mission to the best of my ability.
The sad part is, I've already gotten too attached to Sabine. I'm not sure how to reconcile that except that the deadline of Christmas isn't up yet and I still have time to figure it out. For now, she wants folks to help her take down this Bryan character, and the people on my list can help her with that. From what I can tell, she's gonna let me turn them for her to help her cause, or I'll follow my orders. The rest I'll figure out as I go along.
The sedan pulls out of the driveway and turns left at the corner, and I give it a few seconds before starting my truck and following at a distance that keeps us invisible in his rearview mirror. The neighborhood seems to get rougher before it gets better, and when Caldwell pulls into the parking lot of a dive bar three blocks from his house, I'm not surprised. Sabine wasn't kidding when she said he's an alcoholic.
The bar is exactly what I expect—neon signs in the windows advertising cheap beer, a gravel parking lot with more potholes than pavement, and a door that looks barely attached to its hinges. Caldwell parks near the entrance and disappears inside without looking around, and I pull my truck into a spot at the far end of the lot where we can watch and wait.
"How long?" Sabine's question is directed at the bar rather than at me, and her hands are fidgety, toying with her coat's zipper pull and the frayed string on the knee of her jeans where a small hole lets her knee peek through the fabric.
"However long it takes." My eyes scan the lot for cameras or witnesses, finding neither. "We need him outside and alone. Going in there puts too many variables in play."
She nods but doesn't relax, and the silence that settles over us feels heavier now that our target is inside drinking awaywhatever demons he carries. Minutes stretch into an hour, and somewhere in that time, Sabine's voice cuts through the quiet.
"How did you end up with the Barone organization?" The question is casual on the surface, and the undercurrent suggests she's looking for understanding rather than just information. I'm not sure anyone has ever tried to understand me before, and I'm not sure whether I like it yet.
My eyes stay on the bar entrance while I consider how much truth to give her. Men who talk about the family don't live to enjoy the connection that information might establish. I swore an oath when I became a Barone to protect the family and honor their secrets. So I'm not really keen to let this woman from my hitlist in on those family secrets. When I finally speak, the answer comes out more sanitized than honest.
"It was the only path forward when I was a teenager." I've never told anyone anything about my past. The only people who needed to know already knew. "My Pop died. They adopted me into the fold."
The explanation is true as far as it goes, but it leaves out the parts that actually drove me to what I had to do. Leaves out my mother working two jobs and still falling behind on rent every month—the utility shut-off notices and the empty refrigerator and the desperation that made running drugs for the Barone organization feel like my only option.
I'll never forget the first time I took a life and Don Vittorio told me my hands would eventually stop shaking. They did, and somewhere in the years between that first kill and now, I became a cold-blooded monster. Except lately, I'm not so proud of what I've been doing. And I'm not so fond of the men I'm doing it with.
"You're not proud of it." Sabine is watching me squirm, because that's what I'm doing.
"No." How could anyone be proud of what I am? "But pride doesn't pay bills and regret doesn't change history. I made choices, and now I live with them."
She returns her attention to the bar, and I'm grateful she doesn't push further because explaining the full truth would require admitting things I've spent years avoiding. I'm expendable, just like every other job known to mankind. If I fuck up, they'll replace me in a heartbeat. Except in my world, I don't get a severance package. I get a bullet.
And stains don't wash out. They set deeper with time, and the girl I let run is proof that my conscience isn't as dead as I thought it was. Don Vittorio knows it too, which is why this contract came with an unspoken condition—finish it perfectly or don't come home at all.
My chest knots up as I think of what's even happening here. Sabine Hart is supposed to be dead on her bedroom floor to be found by authorities, and all that's on her bedroom floor are traces of my DNA left behind when she didn't use bleach to clean up. The instant she got the better of me, she won and I failed. It isn't my job that's on the line. It's my life.
And I could put a bullet in her head right now, make sure the same failure I had in the previous hit doesn't repeat itself. But after hearing her story and reading that stupid journal, I just can't do it with a clean conscience.
I sit there for an hour watching that damn bar while Sabine fiddles with the hole in her jeans, making it larger, and I can't get out of my head. The back and forth of what I know I shouldbe doing and what's the right thing to do torture me. I'm almost ready to just raise my gun and end the torture when the bar door opens and Caldwell emerges, stumbling slightly as he navigates the gravel lot toward his sedan.
Heavily drunk now, or close enough that his movements are uncoordinated and his awareness is compromised, his swagger has become less willowy and more zombie-like. Sabine sits straighter too, forehead crinkling as her eyes go wide.
"Now?" she asks, and I nod.
My hand moves to the door handle and Sabine is already moving, both of us exiting the truck and crossing the lot to walk straight up to him. Caldwell has his keys out and is fumbling with the car door when we reach him, and his reaction time is slow enough that he doesn't register our presence until Sabine is standing directly in front of him.
"Sergeant Ethan Caldwell," she barks, and the tone she uses is the same one she had when she was trying to force answers out of me four days ago. "Remember me?" I press my gun to his ribs, careful not to let it be seen in case someone walks or drives back, and he grunts.
