Chapter 2 Talbot
TALBOT
“Ibooked you a job!” Elsa skips into the warehouse, where we just got done listening to J-squad debrief from our latest mission.
I make a big show of looking at my watch.
“My schedule is packed. I’m supposed to go snowboarding in Colorado—snow bunnies, fresh powder, and bored, neglected housewives all alone in their million-dollar lodges.
I’ve done sixteen hits this year, not including that disaster in Seattle.
My Christmas break starts in three, two, one… now.”
“No, it doesn’t.” My little sister pokes her finger in the hole in my skullcap. “You have one more job before the holiday.”
“Hudson, I thought you said I was done after this one,” I complain to our eldest brother as he walks into the briefing room with our other three brothers.
Anderson is the second oldest and sometimes the meanest, though he’s a slow runner, so I can usually evade him when I steal his bike.
Then there’s Jake, the youngest and least important, and then Lawrence, the second youngest. He’s mildly useful because he knows the most about computers.
Yours truly? Smack-dab in the middle. I don’t mind it. The middle child is often overlooked.
All the better for me to put a knife between your ribs. Literally.
Oh yeah, just to be clear, I off people for a living. I’m good at it. I enjoy it. I’m not looking to settle down and fall in love with a nice girl in the suburbs. I’m a hitman. I don’t do commitment. My commitments all end in death. I live in the moment.
When a woman falls in love, she wants the house, the kids, the safety. I’m not cleaning the blood off my ledger. I think the red looks nice. It’s festive! I have no intention of changing. I sleep just fine at night, thanks, smiling as I remember the screams of my victims.
Well, they don’t scream.
They never see me coming.
And definitely not leaving. Heh.
“Who’s the target?” Jake flops down next to me, grabs my sandwich, and takes a big bite.
I shove him.
Elsa grins. “Austen Langley.”
Jake chokes on the sandwich and gulps from my water bottle. “The NHL hockey star? Captain of the Boston Harbor Hawks? Dude. No.”
“Dude,” Elsa mocks.
I grimace. “Hudson, seriously, we can’t target him.”
My oldest brother frowns. “You sure it’s not a trap? Who requested this hit?”
“Not one of our usual frequent flyers. That is, not the Svenssons, Richmonds, Holbrooks, or any of the other big-time billionaires in Manhattan. I think one of them recommended her, though,” Elsa muses.
“Her?” Anderson frowns.
“Oh yeah!” Elsa pulls out the chair and stands up on it.
Someone shouts, “Hell yeah, it’s Christmas pageant time!”
“Suck a dick, Lawrence.” She gives him the finger. “Set the stage. A woman wronged. Her fiancé cheating on her with her own stepsister. And it all comes out at the altar right before they say ‘I do.’”
“Oh shit. Austen’s ex put out a hit on him?” Lawrence snickers.
“She used to work at the Direwolves, so I think Spencer Richmond sent her our way as a Christmas present. He owns the team, and he’s very employee focused. They were voted best place to work in Techbiz this year.”
“Hudson, this smells fishy. I don’t think we take this job.” Anderson crosses his arms.
“Agreed.” I raise my hand.
“You just want to go snowboarding and fuck your way through Colorado. We’ve done hits on exes before,” Lawrence argues. “Financial and…” He trails off.
“Blood spilled in the snow,” I add cheerfully. “Brains all over the Christmas tree. Choking on your poisoned spit over the Christmas goose.”
“You need therapy,” my youngest brother says.
“I need the rest of my sandwich.”
“I’ll buy you a hot dog,” Jake promises.
“I handmade that burrata.”
“She already paid,” Elsa argues, “and she knew the passwords in the correct combination: she needs her chestnut roasted, to get lit like a Christmas tree, and to ride the Nutcracker’s candy cane off to the Land of Snow.”
“That’s the password?” Hudson squints.
“It’s Christmas. It’s fun if the password is festive.” Elsa blows a fistful of glitter at him.
“It’s on my food!” Jake complains.
“I’m not letting you work here anymore.” Hudson glowers at our younger sister.
“Please. I got you that Holbrook job.” Elsa tugs on my ripped skullcap. “You have to be at an engagement party in Maplewood Falls. Dress nice.”
“It’s Maplewood Falls,” Anderson scoffs. “He doesn’t have to show up in a tux.”
“All the NHLers are going to be there.” She licks her lips.
My brothers are starstruck.
“And he’s dating Ryan West’s daughter.” Another smirk from Elsa.
“Is Ryan West going to be there?”
“You think Emil will come? I bet Zane Murphy’s there.”
“Hey, bro!” Jake drapes a dirty hand—the one that holds my now-eaten sandwich—over my shoulder. “Do you need an accomplice?”
“I work alone.”
“Alright, Batman.”
“Get me Emil Maynard’s autograph, though,” Lawrence tells me. “I’m going to put a puck to sign in your murder bag.”
“Shit, get me Langley’s John Hancock too.” Anderson tosses me a puck. “Sounds like it’s going to be worth a fortune in a few days.”
He fist-bumps me.
I smirk. NHL captain or not, Austen Langley’s life is an advent calendar counting down his last days on Earth.