“Anyone else have a problem?” I ask the other two at the table. It’s two women. I recognize one as being Lucinda.
“Not one,” Lucinda replies and folds her arms. “This is Bec,” she motions to the other woman.
I nod. “Good.” I look back toward Travi and Jake.
“I need information on the Bianchi family,” I explain. “They’ve got their sites set on us and I need to know everything you got on them.”
Jake blinks at me, then laughs. “Well shit.”
“What?” I ask him, eyes narrowing.
“It ain’t me you want, I mean. I can give you some information, but it’s just what he’s told me,” Jake explains.
“He, who?” I ask.
Jake sighs. “Look, we can get you the information you need, but if you want it direct from the source, you wanna talk toAleksandr. We’ve got him on an inside job, he knows more than any of us. Probably even more than he’s told us.”
I eye them and then look toward the table for a second.
“Aleksandr?” I ask them curiously. “I didn’t meet any Aleksandr last time.”
“He’s new. Only been here a few months, but he’s a damn good hitman and he’s in the eye of the fire with the Bianchis,” Travi explains.
“Aleksandr Volkov.”
2
ALEK
Every house with anyone important inside it has cameras at every corner of it. Almost every corner.
There are always little cracks where they miss that someone can sneak in and around and right into the lion’s den. It’s what I do for a living these days. Weasel my way around a house in the cover of darkness, looking for a blind spot to tiptoe my way in.
Dressed in all black from my booted feet to my face, I’m a shadow in the bushes and barely a speck on any camera that might be there to see me. I’m used to this, and tonight is no different than any other job I’ve done.
With my tactical rifle strapped to my back, I avoid the cameras until I make it to the back of the house. By the time they realize I’m there, it’ll be too late.
The grass presses down under my feet, and I smell the floral scent of flowers planted in a garden bed overhanging the window a few yards away. The cold near Spring breeze brings it toward me and it beckons to me to come closer. Just a little closer.
I step forward a little bit more. I need to be at least another yard closer to the window anyway to land my shot with accuracy, and break through the window.
My eyes catch the flickers of movement from behind partially drawn curtains.
There behind the window, casting light from an overhead chandelier, sit a family having their dinner. Two young boys on the left, a woman on the right, and a man at the head of the table, facing the window.
They talk, they laugh and they smile.
Soon, that’ll be just memories for them.
I pull my gun off my back and turn the safety off. After putting the round in the magazine with a soft click, I line up the rifle on my shoulder.
There’s no room for mistakes. Not because of the importance of the mission, but because of how easily lined up this all is.
Sitting and eating his food, the man my gun is aimed at has no idea that he’s about to be the bloodiest meat in the entire room. He sits with his shoulders straight, neck and head held high. Every little bit of him so confident in this moment.
He probably thinks he’s invincible—they all seem to—but he’s on another level entirely.
I watch him and every movement he makes. I watch him lift a glass to his mouth, take a sip and set it back down.
