Today, for the first time, I feel a squirming sensation in my gut when I walk in. A nauseating sense of unease. It’s almost welcome, just because it means I’m feelingsomething, which is a novelty. I’ve gone cold over the years. No fear, no anticipation, no desire, no grief or love or hope or joy. Just a cold, hollow space where everything that makes a man more than a killer has been carved out so that I’ll be what they need me to.
An assassin. An enforcer. Death personified and unleashed when need be.
The guard at the bottom of the stairs is young; not someone I recognize, but he seems to know who I am, or has been given a description at least. He jerks his head toward the stairs when I approach.
"They're waiting for you. Second floor."
As if I don’t know where the Council room is. But I don’t say anything, not wanting to waste the breath. It doesn’t matter.
I climb the stairs with steady steps, my face expressionless. Whatever's coming, I won't give them the satisfaction of seeing fear or hesitation. I learned that lesson a long time ago, long before I should have had to learn it. But it stuck with me, all the same.
They might call me the Wolf, but these men are their own kind of predators. And you never let something that can kill you see fear.
The Council meets in what was once a drawing room. There’s a long table with five chairs occupied, in a room that looks old but well-kept. There’s a stone fireplace burning at one end, the flickering light illuminating the dark wallpaper and ornate molding along the high ceiling. It brightens up the room on this grey day, but the expressions of the men sitting around the table are darker than the weather outside.
Connor McBride sits at the end of the table, the undisputed head of the Council. He's in his sixties now, but there's nothing frail about him. He has cold blue eyes, a thin mouth, and arthritic hands that might have carried out his own orders years ago, but now they’re left to me. To his right is Liam Fitzgerald, younger by ten years perhaps, and likely Connor’s successor. There’s also Brendan Kearney, Thomas O’Quinn, and one who calls himself O’Shea, with no first name ever given.
"Sean," McBride says, his voice carrying the weight of authority that comes from decades of unquestioned power. "Sit."
I sit at the far end of the table, my posture relaxed despite the tension that crackles through the air. I know why I'm here. We all know why I'm here.
"You failed," McBride says a moment later, not wasting time on preliminaries. "For the first time in twenty-three years of service, you failed to complete an assignment."
"Yes," I say simply. There's no point in denying it or making excuses. I failed. That's the truth.
"Cormac Brennan is still alive," Liam Fitzgerald adds, leaning forward in his chair. "Worse than alive—he's aware now that someone wants him dead. He's surrounded himself with security, gone to ground. You've made our job infinitely more difficult."
I don't respond. Anything I say will sound like justification, and I know well enough that my reasons don’t matter. All that matters is my failure. I’m well aware that I might meet my end in this room, though I doubt they’ll cast such a harsh judgment. But my silence will serve me better than excuses.
“Twenty-three years,” McBride continues, his gaze fixed on me intensely. "You've never questioned an order, never hesitated, never failed. Until now." He pauses. "Tell us what happened."
I keep my voice level, emotionless, as I draw in a breath and begin. "The situation was not what the intelligence I was given led me to believe. I was told Brennan would be alone in the vehicle. When I arrived at the location and had the explosive in place, I saw his wife and seven-year-old daughter get into the car with him."
"And?" Fitzgerald's voice is sharp, impatient.
"And I couldn't detonate it with them inside." It’s that simple. Killing a man is easy for me. Far too easy, though I don’tthink of it that way. But a mother and her child—that’s a line I won’t cross. No matter the consequences.
A man has to have boundaries. A code. Lines he won’t cross. Otherwise, he’s nothing but a feral beast, and no matter what they call me, I’m not an animal.
I’m a killer, but I’m still a man.
The silence that follows is heavy and oppressive. I can feel the weight of their judgment, their disappointment, their anger. To them, I've committed an unforgivable sin: I've let sentiment interfere with business. Made a choice outside of what I was ordered to do, followed my own judgment instead of theirs.
"You fired shots," McBride says. "Warning shots, according to the report. You gave them time to run."
I nod. "I did."
"And Brennan escaped. Used his wife and child as a human shield, got them all to safety, while you stood there and let him go."
"Yes." I clear my throat. “I’m a good sniper, but he was willing to let them die for him. I couldn’t get a line on him that wouldn’t have possibly killed the wife.”
O’Shea speaks up for the first time, his accent thick with disdain. "You're getting soft, boy. Twenty-odd years in this business and suddenly you've grown a conscience? That's a dangerous thing for a man in your position."
I don’t flinch, turning to meet his gaze. “They weren’t the job. I wasn’t ordered to kill a mother and her child.” Never mind that an order that called for it would be the first I ever refused, likely to my own demise. “And I was unable to get the shot on Brennan, or detonate the explosive without killing innocents.”
I know what they’ll say: that the first part is my own failure, and the last doesn’t matter. Collateral damage is a part of this work; there might have been others in the cars around Brennan’s that could have been hurt in the explosion. The truthof it is that I looked at Brennan’s wife in her sleek cream-colored suit and her little girl with her pink backpack, and couldn't pull the trigger. For the first time since I became the Council's weapon, I hesitated. I chose mercy over obedience.
Mercy is not what I was trained to feel.
