1
Aniello
It’s never a good business practice to become Public Enemy Number 1.
If history has anything to say about it.
Years ago, there was a group of men who had been Public Enemy Number 1. They were known as the “killers of killers.”
These killers of killers were a crew of men who acted as a reinforcement arm to the national crime syndicate—New York and elsewhere in the country. It was a specialized branch, their services available to any syndicate member, and they varied from threatening to maiming to murder. They took contracts and turned them into hits.
Murder was their business, but the main deal was to make money. The organization can’t make money, though, if it goes down because of a fucking rat, or if one man encroaches on another’s territory without justification or permission, or if one man gets disrespectful with another man’s woman. Those reasons, among others, start epic fucking wars.
What’s good for one should be good for all. If not, then lawlessness rules. Men will take it upon themselves to make rules that fit them, their purposes, instead of what’s good for the organization as a whole.
Laws. Everyone has them, even criminals, and when they do, they need titanium arms to enforce them.
The killers of killers lasted about twelve years, but after the government came down hard on them, they imploded from the inside out.
Public Enemy Number 1 was brought down, and the good people of the world sighed in relief and slept sound at night with these monsters either locked up or dead. It’s the entire “give a man an inch and he’ll take a mile” mentality. If a man is killing the worst, then he must be bad enough to be the worst.
Killers of killers should not exist.
For years, they didn’t. Until the idea was reformed and reborn, built in the minds and on the backs of five men. These five men took an oath to do things differently this time.
More quietly. More laws amongst the men who would belong to the crew.
It took a blood oath to plant the seed that would become Murder for Hire, Inc. The same but different from our former predecessors’ moniker—Murder, Incorporated (or to some, Murder, Inc.).
The reformed and reborn enforcement arm was moved to Desolation, New York, running underneath the underground criminal network The Ruin, and from there, it grew into what it is.
The name might have changed, but the newer establishment was no less murderous. It still took contracts from organized crime groups and turned them into hits.
We were the solid shapes of our former shadows—the killers of killers.
Among the men we killed, there were two common words that came to mind when they saw us coming: lights out. It was our gimmick. Our slogan. Words we could have put on business cards and ads if we could have legitimately run them.
I’d never understood the term on such a personal level until she appeared. The moment I saw her:lights fucking out.
She was going to be the death of me.
They say every man has a fatal flaw, or what the Greeks callhamartia. Some would say mine was that I was a cold-blooded murderer. I was a killer of killers. The boss of Murder for Hire, Incorporated, chosen by a man, a predecessor, who some called a psychopathic killer. I replaced him.
From the moment my eyes found hers, the moment her perfume drifted underneath my nose, I knew that my job was not my hamartia. It was someone more beautiful than anyone or anything that had ever touched my life.
It was a woman who would ultimately be my downfall—she’d turn me into Organization Enemy Number 1.
2
Rosalia
It was hard to put into words—the sensation. If I were going to try, I’d have to take it in scenes.
The reckless speed. The violent swaying. The loss of control. The screeching brakes, the shattering impact. The sensation of flying without wings.
I wondered if that’s what the fall from grace felt like. A violent purge before the landing certified what most of us know but don’t acknowledge until we’re older—we’re human to a fault. We’re not unshakable or unbreakable. We’re all made up of flesh, blood, and bone.
One day, despite how strong we think we are, we’re going to die.Ashes to ashesanddust to dustand all of that.
