one
The first timeI slit a man’s throat, I cried.
In my defense, he was my father, and I was twelve years old.I haven’t shed a tear for a dead bastard since.If an Adam’s apple ends up under my knife, I promise it deserves to be there.
One such man is bleeding out at my feet.Fucking rapist.
He gurgles loud and messy as blood floods his throat, bubbling up and spilling past his lips in thick, sticky ribbons.It splatters on his shirt, his boots, my jeans.His eyes go glassy, wild with disbelief.
His next gurgle is hard as blood keeps flooding his windpipe, turning every breath into a wet, choking rattle.It sprays when he tries to speak and coats the alley wall like a goddamn signature.His hands claw at his neck, nails scraping skin, trying to hold in what’s already spilled out.
I keep my eyes on his.Wide.Panicked.Uncomprehending.Iwanthim to see me.His killer.His reckoning.He shakes, seizes, and slumps, still staring up with dead eyes that are waiting for mercy that will never come.
This one takes longer than most.Nerves firing after the heart stops.Always fascinating, the way the body refuses to admit it's dead.
I've watched life leak out of enough men to know the difference between a quick death and one that makes a statement.
Someday it’ll be me on my back in an alley, bleeding out on cold concrete, choking on my own blood.Wonder who’d watch me go.Wonder if they’d flinch.
I’m the monster the streets whisper about.But I’ve spilled enough blood to know one truth they all forget.
No one’s untouchable.
I don’t usually kill unprepared or unsolicited.But I’d barely parked my Harley when I saw him shove her into the alley.
Reckless.Sloppy.Not how I operate.I’m calculated, meticulous.I rarely make moves without the backing of my brothers.I sure as hell don’t draw blood without a plan.That’s what keeps me out of cuffs.
My older brother, Adrian, looped the two alley cams seconds before I moved.Or, that’s what I’m hoping for.Fucker tracks me like it’s his full-time job which is mostly annoying, but has also saved my ass more times that I can count.He’s blind, but that doesn’t stop him.His system pings him the second motion trips a lens, and he’s got voice macros that run cleaner than most hackers’ fingers.Caleb or Mavik feed him details when he needs them, but the call is always Adrian’s.Doesn’t matter that he can’t see—he sees enough.
I have enough black leather gloves to replace them daily, and the rainy weather washes the scene clean.My knife’s already back in the leather sheath on my hip.There’s nothing left to tie me to this man.Nothing left but pooled rain on the street and a bad man’s last breath lingering in the alley.
I touch the leather sheath at my hip.Three taps, always three.The woman thanks me and flees, surprisingly fast in five-inch heels.I never cover my face, and she got a good look, but something tells me no one’s going to come knocking.
Vigilante.
That’s what the headlines would read if anyone talked.If justice meant a damn thing.A neat little word for the mess left behind when the people who are supposed to protect you don’t.When protection becomes a privilege instead of a promise.Someone has to take the job.I learned to take it young.Learned who to kill, when to kill, and how to smother the part of me that needed a reason to press the edge until the skin gave.
I’m not better than the assholes I slaughter.But at least I’ve got some damn morals.
I walk back across the street.Vegas smells like blood in the rain, metallic and sharp, mixed with lingering cigarette smoke and stale beer to remind you the nights are never over here.Neon buzzes above rusted-out signs, casting sickly halos over pawn shops and liquor stores that never close.The sidewalks here don’t glitter like they’ll tell you they do on the Strip.They’re cracked and sticky, decorated with forgotten receipts, calling cards for dancers and prostitutes, broken lighters, and the occasional needle someone was too strung out to care about.
This part of Sin City doesn’t sell illusions.It deals consequences.
The tattoo parlor on the corner’s been here since before my voice dropped.I used to press my nose to the glass and count the skulls on the flash wall.Sometimes I’d read the faded spines on the shelf behind the counter and pretend I was the kind of kid who got to keep things.Tattoos are something permanent in a world that never is.The artists don’t flinch on the nights I walk in bloody-knuckled or burning with adrenaline and needing the ink to calm me.
Up north, there’s the boxing gym that taught me how to fight without mercy and lose without crying.And around the block, there’s a bail bonds shop that greets me with silence.They’ve never posted for me.I don’t get caught.
People around here know I’m not the man you call for help, but the one you hope is watching when the worst happens.
I’ve got my brothers, but none of them carry what I carry.They’ve never had to learn how to kill and live with it.So I walk these streets, a ghost known by everyone, understood by no one.
This is Vegas too.Not the glossy postcards or poolside penthouses, but the aching, rusted heart of the city.And me?I’m its pulse.
I don’t need maps to find my way and I don’t keep many memories.I was raised by this asphalt, shaped by the alleys and after-hours.The city speaks, but tonight it’s too damn quiet.My hand brushes the knife at my hip, tapping it three times.I'm never late to my monthly poker game, and the vibrating phone in my pocket says my brothers are worried.
The hinge on the rusted steel door at the edge of the lot gives a low creak that echoes through the hollow bones of the old warehouse, the kind of noise Adrian always hears first.
Inside the old warehouse, the familiar scent of cigar smoke, motor oil, and bourbon meet me at the door.It’s comforting, in its own fucked-up way.Folding chairs scrape concrete as a few heads turn.
