Rogue (In the life of the Rogue Book 1) (10 page)

Killing, when never done before, can be slipperly. When done repeatedly, it could be as easy as laughing, or so I’ve been told. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to meet the man who was laughing because he killed, and killed because he was laughing.

As easy as breathing…

A bead of sweat trickled from my forehead and ran down the line of my nose. Mr. White glanced at me, his eyes seeing me clearly under his black hood. He hadn’t needed to open his mouth because I read his stare too clearly.

You don’t have what it takes to do this.

I closed my eyes slowly and breathed. The apprehension was still caught in my throat. I swallowed and wiped the lone stream of sweat. When I was done
collecting myself – gathering just what it took to do this -
, I met Mr. White’s gaze again.

He nodded: You got your shit together now?

One of Lougotti’s hired men was lieing in bed, and had gotten sloppy by leaving the upstairs window open while he slept. As Mr. White and I, quietly, eased through the tight window opening, I heard movement downstairs, feet shuffling somewhere; voices, men talking in mid conversation, and not any the wiser to the intruders. I closed my eyes and counted the steps, the voices I could hear: maybe two men, maybe three? I wasn’t sure, but Mr. White and I had the third man – or the forth - right here that had dreamnt his last dream.

I wrapped my arm around the man’s throat and sqeezed. The guy opened his eyes wide, his mouth opening to scream but I covered his mouth and nose with my other hand. Mr. White straddled him, moving most of his bulk on the man’s chest to squeeze out every panicked breath, grabbed his arms and pinned them to his side. Luckliy the bed didn’t make a creak.

The man struggled, he tried to kick his legs, doing his best to make noise but it was futile and he soon realized it. He glared at me, his eyes growing red from the lack of oxygen. His stare had been angry and surprised at first, but that soon left. He was pleading with me.

Please. I don’t want to do die.

I closed my eyes tightly and shook my head. His stare alone was going to haunt me and I knew it. I wanted a drink, badly. I swallowed and felt my dry throat tried to respond, but it felt like I was swallowing a chunk of sand paper. I opened my eyes again and looked back into the dying man’s stare.

Why?

My eyes shut again. Voilently, I shook my head, my body was quivering; a cold stream of sweat moved down my spine and it tingled. Cutting up bodies after someone else had done the dirty work, had been a little too easy, a little too misleading. Who wanted to look into the eyes of a living soul, and then be the one to snub out that life like you would snub a dwindling burning cigarette with the heel of your shoe? Looking into the man’s eyes had been a bad move. I felt as he did, like someone was choking the life right of me. Like the world hadn’t been fair. Like I had been too busy living life, relishing the comforting thought that it would be a long life, rather good or bad, but long. And here, so easy, it could end. So easy, someone could walk into your life and end it. A person who knew nothing about you, not even your name, could have the power to end your life because they saw it fit, like it complied well enough with what they had to do.

Another long minute and the fighting stopped. The man’s body went limp and he had died with his eyes open and looking at me. I used my gloved fingers – the thumb and index – and shut his eyes for him.

Mr. White nodded approvingly to me with one jerk of his head then pressed a button down on his bluetooth. “One down. Footsteps below, maybe three at most.” He looked at me. “We’re going to instigate another fight. Get to the door. I’m going to make noise.”

I was frozen with the dead man’s head in my lap. My teeth clenched - my jaw flexing as I tried to catch a hold of myself, a hold of the world as it was changing before my eyes.

I hadn’t been a killer. Now I was.

I blew air out of my nostrils like I would a wallop of smoke from a cigarette that I desperately wanted.

I opened my eyes and looked at Mr. White.

His stare was intense and focused. He spoke with eyes once more: If you’re going to lose it, do it later. We’re not done with selling your soul.

Mr. White used his elbow to break a window. My heart lept into my throat as the glass shattered. He gently laid his body down on the floor by the bed. From that angle, from whoever came in, wouldn’t be able to see him from the door’s threshold. The strangled man had been turned on his stomach, and the sheet – minus the comforter – was pulled up to his shoulders. If I hadn’t known better, he looked like he was still sleeping soundly with that long life still ahead of him.

One set of footsteps rushed up the stairs. I clenched the comforter in my hands so tightly I heard a knuckle crack. The crack of the knuckle seemed like a gunshot in the deadly silent room.

“The fuck you doing in there, Jack?” Someone asked from the other side of the door.

No one responded. Of course, no one would. Jack was dead and Mr. White and I weren’t talking to the strangers at the moment. The door opened fast but not all the way. I was lucky because I was pinched behind it. Any further and it would have hit me and most likely gave away my position.

Light spilled into the room and a shadow formed on the floor. The shadow explained to me that the man walking in was huge and skinny but you could never trust a shadow. I could hear my heartbeat drumming in my ears as the man took another step into the room and then another. I could see the back of his bald head. He wasn’t as big as his shadow had made him to be, or as skinny.

“Jack,” he laughed, “breaking windows while you sleep?”

Jack didn’t stir. If he did then it would have been a problem for both Mr. White and me. The man took another step, clearing the doorway and I eased it shut behind him. The light from the hallway dwindled and I swore I could see the hair on the back of his neck stand when it did. He reached for his jacket, his body half turned but I blinded him by the comforter, pulling it over him and using it to pin his arms at his side. He struggled but the surprise made it easy for me to control his body.

Thack! Thack!

I had wondered if I had been hit.

Bullets had a nasty way of passing through a body but this time it didn’t. The body fell limp in my hands. Slowly, carefully, I eased the next dead man down to the floor. Mr. White nodded again, approvingly, before getting up. The gun was still smoking in his hands and the smell of gunpower burned the hairs in my nose.

Mr. White touched the button on his Bluetooth again. He listened for maybe more than two seconds and then looked at me. “We’re good to sweep.”

I imitated Mr. White’s curt nod, trying to be tough, and almost vomited.

*

Mr. Black was moving the two bodies he had felled down in the foyer, both with a neat bullet wound in the back of their heads as if they had been in conversation as they watched the game that was still playing on the flat screen. His face was drenched in sweat but he looked cool. He tossed a gun at me. The weight felt good and melted into the palm of my hand. In the beginning, the two Colors (Mr. Black and Mr. White) didn’t want me to have any weapon. In their minds, they had been doing this for too long and any new and young blood – which I was guilty of both – would most likely get trigger happy and complicate a job.

Mr. White conferred with his partner. “We get all the hired guns?”

“Don’t know but it’s too quiet here,” answered Mr. Black.

“Any sign of the girl?”

“Again, it’s
too
quiet here. Did you sweep upstairs?”

“It’s clear. Downstairs?”

Mr. Black shook his head. “Kitchen is clear but I haven’t gotten the other rooms.”

Both of the Colors hackles seemed to rise. There could be more men in the house, and still there was a girl in the mix of it all. And I felt their tension like a shared brother in the pack. I reached in my pocket and grabbed my last cigarette. It didn’t even have the pleasure of reaching my mouth before Mr. White and Mr. Black glared at me like I was stupid.

The cigarette was forgotten and placed back in my pocket.

***

In a home like this, a home where a Mafia Princess had been stashed away, my guess she was in the Master’s bed room. Mr. White and Mr. Black fanned out, checking room to room on the ground level, making sure there wasn’t anyone we must have missed.

I took the Master Suite for myself.

The door had been unlocked. I pushed it open and peered inside. The room instantly felt wrong. A bit of nervous energy was in the air. Holding my gun out in front of me as I crossed the threshold wasn’t a good move because, just like I had been only ten minutes earlier, someone could be pressed behind the door. I pushed the door further open and waited until I heard the doorknob strike the wall. Only then did I withdraw the gun and proceed forward, only then did I feel it safe to breathe, confident that it wouldn’t be my last – at least not yet.

Nothing was moving.

If Lulina’s daughter was in this house, expecting us to be here to get her, she should have showed herself by now. The silence, and the stillness, told me something was off. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but I closed my eyes and listened. I couldn’t trust my killer instincts, because before tonight, I didn’t have them. I trusted what my gut told me.

If this girl is in this room, she isn’t by herself.

The master suite was massive, like it was its own separate apartment in a home; a living room to my left with sofas, coffee table and a flatscreen; the sleeping area with a California king sized bed, high up with its bed spread touching the ground – a place someone could hide; a lavish tub across from me, an old, ancient beauty that sat up on porcelain legs, and also in the bathroom area, two doors – left and right – which I thought one door would lead to the toilet area, and the other to the closet. Both doors in the bathroom area closed; a potential hiding place, and not enough mes’ to check them all without giving my back and becoming vulnerable to an attack.

This room was too big.

I needed back up. Yet, I did’t call Mr. White or Mr. Black to give the aid I needed. Lulina’s words were sprawling about my head. I saw her clearly: her bare face, stained in tears and her full lips moving, explaining to me that I had to be the one to keep her daughter safe. Yes, bullets would fly, and I wouldn’t be certain that a bullet wouldn’t claim her daughter if I added extra guns to the impending mayhem. Extra guns meant extra minds with extra motives and extra circumstances that I just couldn’t control, but would be held accountable for.

My head sagged, my chin touching my chest as my lips persed at the indecision. I was stuck between what was smart and what was asked. I took a step forward, looking left and right, listening and trying to feel my way through this. My legs felt so heavy and so resistant to what my mind was commanding it to do – walk into a trap, yes, do it, walk right into a space where you know someone is watching and waiting and armed. My legs moved forward, step after another step, my intent on checking the closed bathroom doors first.

My mind was moving, my thoughts in a race. I was trying to live up to the likes of a Rogue killer, and this time I was doing it without a coach, or those watching eyes that I could read and take notes and make adjustments for. I was trying to be those men who had killed Jimmy Ricky and Z. Moss. My best attempt at reaching their coldness, knowing that they would enjoy this, enjoying walking into a place where there would be problems. They would love this chase, this convoluted game of hide-and-go-seek, this peek-a-boo little tryst.

My overthinking handed me a comeuppance I hadn’t known that was coming. My other senses: hearing, feeling, looking, had been impaired.

I hadn’t even felt the man behind me until he had rushed me. The gun was out of my hands and out of my reach. A fist hit into my ribs and sank hard. I started to fight but there was something cold and metalic pressed against the nape of my neck.

The man who had gotten the jump on me whispered quietly. “How many?”

He was whispering because the scuffle hadn’t made much noise. Even I hadn’t known just what was happening until it was over, the damage done. I hated myself for not being smarter, a hell of a lot more careful, but I was stuck, and beating myself up wasn’t going to help anyone.

He pressed the gun harder against my skin. “How many?”

I breathed, took a moment and spoke, happy my vocal cords still complied with the fear I didn’t want to recognize had frozen everything else. “You could have your pen against my neck. Come on, if you want to ask me questions by scaring me, at least let me see your gun.” My voice hadn’t exceeded a whisper but it was cocky.

I was happy at that, at least.

He flipped me over and what I was hoping was a pen, but wasn’t, was pressed right between my eyes. The man who had the gun to my head had dark, mean eyes and receeding hair - he wasn’t old enough to be peeking at bald but just unlucky.

“How many?” He asked again.

“Just me.”

He pushed the gun harder into my face. I grunted. “You’re lying.”

“So shoot me.”

He pulled the hammer back and shot.

There was gun powder in the air and it burned my nostrils and my head erupted in pain as my eardrums felt like they had just exploded. The man with early hair loss fell on top of me. There was blood in my face and in my eyes but I was blinking past it.