17. Coen #2
Seeing her in that bar, talking to her for the first time in years, it ripped the half-assed stitches I had mended my broken heart with and tore me apart all over again.
She's always been just out of reach, a cruelty I was cursed with, never able to be with the person I care most about in this world.
Stuck living this life of solitude, a killer by day and night, the only thing that brings me the smallest satisfaction are the shackles keeping me from her.
Sure, I have Dom and Bryant, but we were a team because of our skills.
We share a taste for bloodshed and bourbon, and now, women.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Dominic asks me through the silence.
“No.” I reach for the handle of the door and pull it the second the vehicle has slowed down enough. I hop out while simultaneously grabbing my pistol from its holster. Chambering a bullet, I run up the front steps and kick in the front door, wasting no time at all.
Dom takes his time, walking with less urgency to catch up to me. He’s not bothered by my rampage; he’s used to it.
There’s a thin line between being reckless and efficient, and I walk that tightrope more often than I probably should. I guess that’s why I’m good at my job, because I’m not afraid of taking risks. At least not when it comes to me. With June, that’s an entirely different story.
Hence our efforts of finding the man responsible for the cuts and bruises on her porcelain skin. We’ve killed a dozen men, and will continue to slay them until we are satisfied she has been avenged.
Beckett has us exactly where he wants us, focused on retribution instead of the war.
It’s genius really, although I doubt he understood the lengths we would go to when he made his order.
He will meet the same fate as the rest, it’s only a matter of time.
Dominic was right about one thing all those years ago, death follows in my wake and I welcome it with open arms.
“What the fuck,” a man calls out from his spot on his couch. His disgusting stomach hangs out of the bottom of his shirt. He reaches for the gun on his side table, but I point mine at him.
“Move another inch, I dare you.”
“Okay, okay. Fuck.” His eyes go wide when he spots something behind me.
The typical reaction from the fear-inducing legend I share a home with.
Dominic’s shadow is cast over me as he appears in the room. He skims his gaze over it and settles on the man. “Pull your sleeves up.”
“What?”
I step closer with the barrel aimed at him.
“Fine, Christ.” He complies, revealing two pasty, hair-covered arms.
“Anyone else in the house?” Dominic comes around to my side.
“No. What’s this all about?” The man anxiously glances from me to Dom.
“We’re looking for someone. Brown hair, beard, scars on his face.” Dom strolls around the room, peering at anything he can for a clue. “Into knife play. Has a tattoo around here.” He sticks his index finger on the spot June had mentioned it was located.
“Vincent, yeah. What’d he do?”
“You know him?”
The guy nods and relaxes a bit now that he assumes he’s not the one in trouble. “You could say that. Why? What kind of trouble has he gotten himself into?”
Dominic ignores his questions and asks one of his own. “Where is he?”
He shrugs. “Last I heard he was holed up recovering from some knife wound. Went rogue and kidnapped some bitch who got the best of him. Fucking hilarious if you ask me.”
My heart rate picks up speed. “What part of that do you think is funny?”
“All of it, really.” He lets out a chuckle then his expression shifts to serious. “Oh, was she your bitch?”
I pull the trigger without another thought, the vibration of the recoil settling in my wrist, the bullet lodging itself right between the man’s brows, exactly where I was aiming.
His eyes go wide and a bit of his blood splatters around, his head whipping back against the couch he’s sitting on. Red trickles down his forehead and his mouth hangs open.
Dominic sighs. “You couldn’t have waited, maybe, I don’t know, another minute or two?”
“We got all we need. A name.” With June’s description of her assailant, we’ve made more progress tonight than we have since we found out she was taken.
We had been going around blind, asking everyone we could about a man who might be into knife torture.
And considering the crowd we run with, that could be a multitude of people.
We had narrowed our search to a handful of suspects remaining, but without her help, who knows how much longer it would have been until we found the one guilty.
“I’ll call it in.” Dominic pulls out his phone, pushing a button and bringing it to his ear.
I leave him to give the details of our location to our clean-up crew—something that shouldn’t seem so routine to a person, but is second nature to us.
I just killed a man, spilled his blood onto the wall of his living room, and I feel no different than I did before. Not better, not worse. Just numb.
Is there something wrong with me for being cold with death, and careless to inflict it on others?
For ten years, it’s all I’ve known. The only thing keeping me remotely sane, if I can even still be considered that.
I’m a murderer. A killer. A destroyer of evil.
But doesn’t that make me the most sinful of them all?
I don’t care what happens to others. No part of me harbors guilt for what I’ve done. Every ounce of care inside my black heart is reserved for one person, and one person only. Her.
And yet she wants nothing to do with me. She hates me.
Still, I will continue on my mission to do everything I can to save her from this life that has consumed me, even if that means an ocean of bloodshed.