He wanted training.He wanted to know how to fight.He wanted to be strong, an immovable force, someone who nobody would ever threaten.He wanted to become invincible.
“Revenge,” I say quietly.
“I served ten years before I left.I told them I had a job to do, something I’d been meaning to do for the last twelve years.”He slides the empty glass onto the table, the whisky fuelling his words.
“You wanted to find the people who killed your family,” I guess.
“Yes.”
“And did you?”
I feel the walls shrink, as if the whole room is waiting with bated breath.
“Yes.”
His face is so cold now, I can feel the chill coming from him.
I don’t want to ask, afraid of the answer, even though I know what it’s going to be.
“Are they…?”I begin, and he must see my struggle, as he finishes my question.
“Dead?”He tips his head to the side.“Yes, all of them are dead.”His eyes burn, a fierceness to his voice that I’ve only ever heard when he’s mad with me or cross about something.The words he says next are like a knife to my gut.
“Morris Hamlin was the man who shot my dad and my mum.He’s dead.Tyrone Miller was the man who poured the petrol and dropped the match.He’s dead.”
The names are familiar.I’ve heard them whispered at home when no one thought I was listening, and Fenrir mentioned them when we first arrived at Belial House.They are—were—members of the Castro gang, until they were killed.I never paid much attention to the gossip.This is my father’s world, not something I choose to get involved in, but I am now.I’m in the firing line because….
I stare at Fenrir.It can’t be.It’s not possible, but his face is telling me otherwise.
I swallow hard as my next question works its way out of my head and onto my lips.“Robert Castro?”
“Was the man who gave the order.”His gaze is hard, brutal, and unforgiving.“And he’s dead.”
It’s not just the whisky now burning my insides.He’s just told me that he was responsible for killing three members of the Castro family, the likes of which has now started a gang war.
“You?”
“Yes, Hayami.Me.I’m the one who killed them all.I’m the reason the Castro family are now sending you death threats.I’m the reason you’re in danger.I’m the reason we’re here.”He holds my gaze as this sinks in, the enormity of it, before adding, “I brought this on you.”
I want to respond, but my brain is struggling with this new information.
“Does my father know?Did he sanction their deaths?”
He doesn’t blink, doesn’t break eye contact as he answers, “No.No one sent me.”
“I don’t understand.”I want another drink, but the bottle is half-empty and too far out of my reach.“If my father knew nothing of this, then how did you pull it off?”
“When I left the army, it was with the sole purpose of finding the men who killed my family.It took longer than I expected.But after tracking down some of my dad’s old friends, I discovered that he’d been working for the Castros, delivering things for them and using his legitimate business as cover.But something went wrong.He messed up a delivery that cost the Castros a lot of money and put them in dicey waters with some other gang.Robert Castro wasn’t happy with my dad, which resulted in two men being sent to kill him: Morris Hamlin and Tyrone Miller.”
He pauses and drains his glass before slamming it down on the table.
“What I don’t understand is how you ended up working as a Hellhound.”
“Hamlin was easy to find, even easier to kill.He liked women and he liked to party, so catching him one night whilst he took a piss around the back of a club was like child’s play.”
About a year ago, I remember hearing something about one of Castro’s men being found behind a nightclub.They thought he’d been jumped and robbed, but he’d been beaten so badly that they had to use his tattoos to identify him.I shudder, pulling my robe tighter around my body.
My next question slips out even though I’m not sure I want to know the answer.“And the other two men?”
