CHAPTER 12 #2
Lazarus stood at the large window of the spacious room, his hands clasped behind his back, silhouetted against the sunset glow bleeding through the glass.
He slowly turned as the oak door opened quietly, and Lord entered with the two men—Chaz and Helio—both in their mid-to-late twenties, reeking of cheap cologne, whiskey, and ass.
Chaz, originally from Chicago, had longish dark hair, greasy at the roots but stylishly cut, that hung partially shielding his face.
He wore a black sleeveless shirt revealing tattoos—prison blues mixing with professional ink, gang symbols partially covered by newer designs—evidence of a criminal life etched from wrists to shoulders.
Chaz had a permanent sneer twisting his handsome face, with the left corner of his mouth higher than the right, as if born to mock the world.
Lazarus wasn't fond of it but accepted it due to the respect Chaz showed—eyes down, voice deferential.
Helio, with Lazarus for nearly five years, had attached to Chaz like a remora to a shark when the man joined the “family.” They'd become inseparable—drinking, sharing women, using cocaine in hotel suites Lazarus paid for, and likely fucking in the early hours as inhibitions dropped.
Lazarus didn't give a shit about any of it as long as they did their job with the cold efficiency he demanded and stayed within the precise boundaries he had drawn.
The polyethylene tarp, stretched over the hardwood floor, crackled beneath their Italian leather shoes as they entered the mahogany-paneled room. Both men looked down, Adam's apples bobbing, with identical flickers of uncertainty.
“What's the plastic for, boss?” Chaz asked, his voice pitched half an octave too high despite his attempt at nonchalance. A bead of sweat traced the sharp edge of his jawline.
“Don't worry,” Lazarus smiled—just a brief twitch at the corners of his thin lips, while his obsidian eyes remained flat and emotionless. “It isn't for you.”
The tension in their shoulders eased by millimeters, though sweat still gleamed along Chaz's hairline. “You wanted to speak to us?” he ventured, his throat bobbing with a dry swallow. “Is there a problem?”
Lazarus leaned against the polished mahogany meeting table, his Italian suit whispering against the wood as he drew his chrome-plated Colt 1911 from its shoulder holster.
His manicured fingers moved with practiced precision across the weapon, ejecting the magazine and inspecting the brass-tipped hollow points nestled inside.
The air in the room congealed like cooling wax.
Chaz's left eyelid developed a microscopic twitch; Helio's throat convulsed in a dry swallow.
“A couple acquaintances of mine stopped by,” Lazarus said, his voice smooth as aged bourbon.
“Accused me of authorizing a drive-by.” Lazarus raised hooded eyes and snapped the magazine back into place with a metallic click that echoed in the silence.
“You boys wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you? Because I sure as hell didn’t. Now, you know I don’t go in for that gangland shit, taking potshots at my enemies, then running away like a fucking coward.
No.” He turned the gun in his hand. “You see, if I have a beef with a man, I’ll go straight to him and…
” He raised the weapon and pointed it at Chaz.
“… shoot the fucker myself, in person, like a real man.”
Chaz's pupils contracted to pinpoints. A trickle of sweat slithered from his hairline, leaving a glistening trail down his temple. Helio's fingers twitched against his thigh, tapping an erratic rhythm only he could hear.
Chaz met Lazarus's gaze, his voice steady despite the vein pulsing at his temple. “No, boss, we don’t know anything about it.”
Lying little cunt. “Funny. Because they came to me with names.” Lazarus rotated the gun barrel in small circles before Chaz’s face. “Guess the names.” Chaz just stared at him, throat bobbing. Lazarus squinted one eye. “Come on, be a sport. Guess.”
Chaz gulped. “Mine and… Helio’s?”
“Right.” Lazarus nodded with a cool smile. “You know this game.”
“I-I don’t know where they got our names,” Chaz stuttered. “But it… it wasn’t us, boss.”
Lazarus rubbed his mouth. “Is that your official answer?” he huffed. “That your story and you’re sticking to it?”
Another gulp. A few more droplets of sweat trickling down his face. Chaz nodded. “Yes.”
Lazarus's head swiveled toward Helio, the movement fluid as mercury. “What about you? Same answer? Same story?”
“Y-Yes, sir.” Helio's right foot shuffled against the tarp, making a sound like distant thunder. His hand rose to tug at his collar. “I didn’t know anything about it. When did it happen—”
The gunshot ripped through the room, shattering the silence like a hammer through glass.
The back of Helio's skull erupted in a volcanic spray—bone fragments, brain matter, and blood suspended for one eternal microsecond in the amber light.
His eyes registered shock, then nothing, as his face went slack.
The body dropped like a stone, knees cracking against the hardwood beneath the tarp, torso pitching forward until his forehead struck the plastic with a sound like a watermelon splitting open.
Chaz's legs buckled, and he staggered sideways, his face draining of color until it matched the sickly white of old bone.
“Jesus Christ!” The words escaped as a strangled whisper, while his eyes, wide as silver dollars, remained fixed on Helio's body—the dark crimson pool spreading beneath his skull.
Lazarus calmly cocked the weapon, the metallic click echoing through the room like a death knell.
His eyes, cold and unblinking as a reptile's, settled on Chaz.
The man's gaze remained fixed on his fallen companion—partner in crime, drinking buddy, midnight lover—until the silence grew so heavy it finally dragged his attention away.
“You...” Chaz's Adam's apple bobbed violently as he swallowed. A thin film of sweat formed on his upper lip. “You said the plastic wasn't for... us.”
“I said it wasn't for you.” Lazarus moved with fluid grace, each step deliberate as he raised the still-warm gun.
The polished barrel pressed against Chaz's forehead, leaving a perfect circular indentation in the flesh.
“But maybe I lied.” He increased the pressure until Chaz's head tilted back, then withdrew the weapon with a slight twist. “I don't lie.”
Chaz trembled in place, his watery eyes bulging in their sockets as they repeatedly darted to the body on the tarp. Something like anguish rippled over his face.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lazarus said softly with feigned remorse.
“Did I just…” He looked down at the dead man.
“… shoot your boyfriend?” He shook his head.
“Fuck, I am sorry. A good fuck-buddy doesn’t come along every day.
Were you two…” Lazarus raised an eyebrow.
“… fucking when I paged you? Shit. Again, I’m sorry.
That was just rude of me.” He stared at Chaz’s frightened, distraught face.
His voice lowered and dropped all pretenses of giving a fuck.
“It hurts to lose someone you care for, doesn’t it?
Gets you right…” He shoved the gun barrel hard against Chaz’s left pec, causing the man to stagger back a step. “… here. Right in the fucking heart.”
Chaz hung his head and tears rolled down his face.
“People like you.” Lazarus thrust the gun under Chaz’s chin and forced his head up.
“Cowards who shoot up neighborhoods without a fucking thought of the collateral damage you leave behind…” His eye twitched, and his finger tightened on the trigger.
“… you deserve hell.” His voice turned soft as velvet over steel as he nodded at Lord, whose face remained impassive. “Deliver him to the devil.”
Panic erupted across Chaz's face like a sudden rash as Lord stepped forward, his rough hands twisting Chaz's trembling arms behind his back.
The metal cuffs bit into his wrists with a decisive click that echoed in the blood-scented air.
Chaz's gaze darted to Helio's corpse—the crimson halo spreading beneath his shattered skull, one eye still open, glazed with the dull surprise of sudden death.
“He was just the driver,” Lazarus said, his voice soft as silk. “The devil wants the one who pulled the trigger.”
Lord's fingers dug into Chaz's bicep as he shoved him toward the heavy oak door, leaving twin red streaks where his Italian shoes dragged through the blood.
“Have someone clean up this mess,” Lazarus instructed, flicking his manicured fingers dismissively toward the cooling body on the tarp. Lord nodded once, a soldier's acknowledgment, and shouldered the condemned man through the doorway.