Hold on.
Just hold on for Daddy…
The Accord eats up the miles as I push it north toward the city, the engine whining in protest every time I demand more speed. The highway is still half-empty at this hour—only delivery trucks, early commuters, and the occasional state trooper who doesn’t bother pulling me over when I flash past at ninety.
I keep one eye on the rearview mirror out of habit, but no one is following.
Not yet.
Viktor’s people will be moving soon, though. When they realize I haven’t checked in with a body and a photo, the hunt will begin in earnest.
My hands tighten on the wheel until the leather creaks.
Landon is out there somewhere—alone, scared, convinced I was about to put a bullet in his head the moment I got the green light. He has no money, no phone, no safe place to run.
My darling boy has got academic smarts, but street-smart is different from book-smart, and the streets right now are a war zone waiting to ignite.
Suddenly, the memory surfaces unbidden, sharp and clear, the way old wounds sometimes do when the pressure builds…
It was sixteen years ago—late summer, the kind of heat that makes the air shimmer above the asphalt. Kasper and I had been sent cross-country to handle a problem in Reno: a mid-level bookie who’d been skimming from our old pakhan’s sportsoperation. Nothing flashy, just a quiet disappearance so the message would spread without headlines.
Kasper was the senior man.
Always had been.
He’d run dozens of these jobs before I was even shaving. Normally he called the shots: entry points, timing, exit routes, cleanup. I followed. Learned. Kept my mouth shut unless asked.
But that trip was different. I could sense it from the drive there.
We were two days out from the target when Kasper pulled the truck over at a rest stop somewhere in Nebraska. Dust swirled around the tires. My mentor lit a cigarette, took one long drag, then handed me the keys.
“This one’s yours,” he said.
I stared at him.
“Whole thing,” Kasper said. “Recon, approach, shot, exit. You run it. I’ll watch. I’ll only speak if you ask. But here’s the thing… don’t ask. Do what you need to do. Make the plays. Trust me, you can do it.”
I felt the weight of the keys in my palm like they were made of lead.
“Why?” I asked.
He exhaled smoke through his nose. “Because the pakhan wants to know if you’re ready to lead. And because I told him you were. Now prove me right.”
I didn’t sleep much that night.
We spent the next forty-eight hours moving like ghosts through Reno. I chose the motel—cheap, no cameras, back exit onto an alley. I scouted the bookie’s routine myself: same diner every morning at seven, same booth by the window, always ordered the same thing—two eggs over easy, rye toast, black coffee. I mapped the route he walked home, found the blind spot behind the dry cleaner where the alley narrowed and the streetlights didn’t reach. I timed the patrol cars. I bought the burner phone we’d use for the final call. I even picked the weapon—a suppressed .22, small, quiet, easy to ditch.
Kasper never once offered an opinion.
He just watched. Nodded when I explained the plan. Smoked. Waited.
The hit went clean.
Bookie stepped into the alley at 8:14 a.m. I was already there—hood up, back to the wall, weapon low. One shot to the base of the skull. He dropped without a sound. I dragged him behind the dumpster, wiped the gun, dropped it into a storm drain three blocks away, and walked out like any other tourist heading to breakfast.
Kasper met me at the diner. Ordered coffee. Lit another cigarette.
“Good work,” he said. That was all.
