The Assassin
Simone’s head popped up at the sound of my knuckles rapping against the bedroom door. She was sitting on the bed, her nose in a book, where she’d been since we arrived home from our assignment last night.
The second we stepped through the threshold, she rushed up the steps and hid in our bedroom. Maria frowned at her back, but she didn’t have time to console her. Not with all the blood she still had to wash off of her.
I’d seen the horror on Simone’s face when she saw the evidence of Jules’ death staining Maria’s dress and skin.
Honestly, it wasn’t much compared to other assignments we’ve been on.
There were times we’ve walked away drenched in another’s blood.
I couldn’t imagine how Simone would’ve reacted had this been one of those instances.
I’ve already told her twice that she wasn’t ready for this. A part of me hoped seeing the bloody side of it would help her realize it. Another part was disappointed. She’d been so eager to learn that I’d been excited to teach her - to have her by my side in all aspects of my life.
After entertaining the possibility of adding her to my small team, I didn’t want to dump her back in Baltimore to work a boring nine-to-five. But I would if that’s what she wanted once we went back to the states.
“Put one of your dresses on,” I told her.
She raised a brow. “Why? Are we leaving already?”
“No. Just get dressed.”
“But, Mateo-” I shut the door before she could finish her complaint. I didn’t want to hear it.
“I don’t hear you moving,” I yelled from the other end when I didn’t hear the thuds of her footsteps against the floor.
She dramatically sucked her teeth between the ruffling of the covers. Her feet padded around the room for a few minutes before the door opened again.
One of her blue maxi dresses hung over her body, clinging to her chest and flowing into soft ripples around her legs.
Her dark lashes seemed longer, defining the curve of her eyes.
Gloss coated her plump lips, outlined with a soft brown.
Her short curls had a refreshed shine, the aroma of coconut oil mixing with the amber notes of her perfume.
She put a hand on her hips. “Happy now?”
“Almost.” I held out the blindfold in my hand. “Put this on.”
Her brows came together. “I don’t think I like where this is going. Are you about to drown me or something?”
I almost laughed. “Or something.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll close my eyes, but I’m not putting that thing on.”
“No. I don’t trust you’ll keep them closed.”
“I will. Promise.”
I shook my head. I’ve wasted enough time arguing with her. I didn’t want to waste any more. “Fine. Close ‘em.”
She obeyed my command, and I grasped her shoulders. From behind, I led her through the hall and down the steps. We continued through the house towards the back patio.
“Alright,” I told her as we passed through the french doors. “Open them.”
Her eyes flew open, and her jaw fell at the scene in front of her.
Flowers wrapped around the wooden rails.
A wooden table from the storage room sat in the middle of the patio, decorated with a satin tablecloth and candles.
Fine china plates were topped with seasoned red potatoes, broccoli and blackened salmon.
Glasses filled with the red wine from the bottle sitting in the center of the table accompanied the food.
Beside one of the plates was a bouquet of red, orange, and pink flowers.
“Oh, Mateo,” Simone gushed. “This is beautiful!” She turned on her heel to look up at me. “You did all this?”
I nodded. “The other day, you said our first date wasn’t actually our first date. So, I thought I could try again - do it right this time.”
She couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face. “Thank you. This was really sweet of you.”
I grabbed her hand and led her to the chair in front of the flowers.
Her cheeks darkened as I pulled her chair out for her and motioned for her to sit down. “Hm, this smells good,” she mused, glancing over the food. “You cooked this or did you order it?”
“Don’t disrespect me,” I told her, taking my own seat. “I know my way around the kitchen.”
“I don’t know. I might have to see you take a bite first. Make sure you didn’t accidentally poison me.”
Rolling my eyes, I stabbed one of the potatoes with my fork and stuck it in my mouth. “There,” I said between chews. “Happy?”
“I guess,” she replied with a shrug.
“Eat,” I commanded, jutting my chin towards her plate. “Before it gets cold.”
The clinking of our forks against the glass plates replaced conversation for a while. Simone moaned in delight with each first bite of food, her eyes closing as the flavor danced on her tastebuds. She’d barely eaten anything all day, so I knew she was hungry.
Between bites, she sipped on her wine and admired the view of the waves crashing a few feet away from us. Every now and then, I caught her gaze on me.
“What?” I asked after the third time I noticed her staring.
She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just, I… I still can’t figure you out.”
“And what, exactly, still has you stumped?”
“I just don’t know who you really are. And I…I’d like to.” She slipped her hand across the table to gently grasp mine. “If you’ll let me.”
I looked from her fingers, intertwined with mine, to the genuine expression on her face.
Warmth rose up in my stomach like heat from a furnace, spreading heat through nearly every inch of my abdomen.
It wasn’t the type of fire you ran away from, rather, it was the one you curled up close to.
There was no reason for me to be afraid of it, yet here I was, about to scramble as far as I could away from it.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Simone spoke again, defeat clear in her voice. Her grip around my hand loosened, and she started to pull it back. “I understand if-”
“No,” I said, gripping her hand before it could slither away. I’d rather be scared shitless than be without her. So, that means I’d need to face that fire - no matter how uncomfortable it made me. “What, uh… what do you want to know?”
“What’s your name? Your real name?”
“Malachi,” I replied, the name foreign on my tongue after all these years. “Malachi Omari Kingston.”
“Malachi is a nice name,” she mused. “Why’d you change it?”
“Because the person I became is nothing like the person he was.”
“What was he like?”
“Huge prankster. Loved to play tricks on his siblings. Stayed in trouble for those pranks too.”
Simone smiled. “How many siblings did he have?”
“Three.”
“What were they like?”
I averted my gaze, letting the memories take control of my thoughts.
“Malik was the eldest; he was the strongest out of all us. Played football since he learned how to hold a ball. Then there was Zahara; she was a goody-two shoes. Told on me most of the time when she’d get caught in the crosshairs of one of my pranks.
But she was incredibly smart. You’d never find her without a book.
I was after her. Sade was a few years younger than me; she was the baby of the family.
She had the sweetest face, but a dangerous temper.
If she wasn’t part of my schemes, then she was trying to deck my ass for being the target of them.
” I almost smiled. “Maria reminds me of her sometimes.”
“What were your parents like?”
“My mother stayed at home with us. She loved cooking and cleaning and tending to all of us. Motherhood was one of her greatest joys. My father wasn’t around much.
He worked a lot, but, uh…he didn’t disclose much about his actual job.
Used to tell us that he worked in an office.
It wasn’t until after everything happened that I learned what he really did. ”
“May I ask what that is?”
“He ran with one of the biggest drug dealers in our city. Hell, he was practically his second-in-command. He was the one who worked behind the scenes; organizing the shipments, managing the distribution of their product, and tracking their profit. He’d become the brains of the operation, and was the main contributor towards their success.
” I cut up pieces of the salmon with the side of my fork.
“Tell me about your father. You’ve mentioned him a lot, but you’ve never really spoken about him. ”
“He had a background similar to yours - a city boy who found himself in trouble more than half the time. He straightened up his act when he was in high school and almost got sent to juvy for doing something stupid with his friends. One of the cops in the local precinct took interest in him and started mentoring him; he started teaching my father about the justice system and helped him get into college. That’s where he met Logan - they were on the same academic track and had a bunch of classes together.
Met my mom there too. She was a bougie pre-law major he couldn’t resist chasing. ”
She smiled. “Despite their struggles, he never stopped loving her. He loved being a husband - a father. He always made time for me. Not just for the recitals and the birthday parties, but for cartoons on Saturday mornings and movie nights on the weekdays. He wanted nothing more than to be a good father; to be a good man.”
“I’m sorry you lost him.”
“It’s alright,” she murmured, her smile fading. “May I…may I ask what happened…to your family?”
I chewed on a bite of fish as I opened the box I’d trapped the memories in, bracing myself for the waves of emotions I felt whenever they flooded through my mind.
“My siblings and I started noticing little things about the work my father did, like the wads of money in his wallet and the scary-looking men coming by the house to speak with him. We started asking questions, started taking interest in that lifestyle. He didn’t want that for us.
He never did. Growing up, he didn’t have a choice whether he wanted to be involved or not.
He wanted to make sure we never had that problem.
“So, when Malik started showing interest in being a runner and some of the corner boys in their neighborhoods started to take interest in Zahara, he decided it was time to walk away. By then, my parents already made plans to buy a house a few hours away in a nicer area and were planning to enroll all of us in private school. My dad thought it’d be easy to cut ties so long as it was amicable.
But, he knew no matter how nice he was, there was a chance he wasn’t going to walk away unscathed. ”
“They didn’t let him go willingly…did they?”
I shook my head. “The day they were meant to say their goodbyes, my dad already had us stowed away in a safe house - somewhere he thought they didn’t know about.
The attack caught us all off-guard. Malik died first, trying to protect my mother.
She tried to avenge him, shoot back, but they had too many guns.
Zahara tried to run with Sade and me to the back door; she thought we might be able to get to the car.
But, they shot her in the back as we ran.
I, um…I had to pick up Sade. She…she didn’t want to leave Zahara behind.
We were almost at the door, almost there…
then they threw some Molotov cocktails through the window.
The fire not only blocked our only way out, but one of the flames caught directly on to her.
Consumed her so fast that I…I didn’t even have a chance to save her.
Sometimes I still hear her screaming, calling for me, begging for the pain to stop. ”
“Oh my God,” Simone murmured, moisture glistening in her brown eyes.
“By then, I was nearly out of options. For a second, I thought I was better off laying down and inhaling as much smoke as I could get. But, I remembered one of the little passageways I’d been eyeing for one of my pranks.
Everyone had been on edge because of the upcoming move, so I was planning a little something to clear the air.
It started in the kitchen and led out a few yards past the house to the garden.
So, I wiggled in there and crawled through.
When I came out on the other end, the entire house was ablaze. ”
“Jesus,” Simone murmured, squeezing my hand. “Mateo, I’m so…so sorry.”
I slid my hand out from her grasp. The last thing I wanted was her pity.
“I never found out how they killed my father. I just knew he was gone. It didn’t take long for the dealer’s men to realize they were short a body.
Bastards couldn’t find me anywhere, so they hired outside help. That man now happens to be my handler.”
“Wait, he didn’t kill you?”
“He tried. Multiple times. Outsmarted him every single time. Playing pranks may seem like fun and games, but it actually takes a lot of cleverness and resourcefulness to pull off effectively. I adapted those skills into handing Ares’ ass to him anytime he came within a square mile radius of me.
Eventually, he got tired of being punked by a child and decided to be allies rather than enemies.
It took some time to convince me, but eventually, I let him take me in.
Let him train me. Ares channeled my rage and thirst for vengeance and transformed me into one of the best in my field.
My first assignment: my father’s old partner-in-crime.
I, single-handedly, slaughtered him and everyone associated with him.
I didn’t care whether they had a hand in my father’s death or not. In my mind, they all deserved to die.”
Simone frowned. “Did you feel better…after you killed all of them?”
“After, no,” I admitted. “But during…” A smirk tugged at my lips. “To this day, nothing has felt better than drenching my hands in their blood.”
She leaned back in her seat, her brows rising up her forehead.
“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “You’ll understand what I mean soon enough.”