8. Jesse
Jesse
“Positions,” Tucker’s voice comes low and clear through my earpiece. “Everyone confirm.”
“Diego, lobby. Clear line on the stairwell.”
“Hudson, hallway. Got my grocery bag and everything. Very convincing tenant.”
“Colton, roof across the street. I can see Diego picking his nose from here, so my angle’s good.”
“I wasn’t picking my nose.”
“Sure you weren’t.”
I ignore the banter, like always. What’s different is the rage burning through me. Elsie’s been afraid for two years. Zidaru put that fear into her, forced her to leave her home.
When I take out a target, I’m efficient. Although I don’t lose sleep over the act, I don’t enjoy it either. I earned the Ruthless reputation from my hitman years because once I had a target, I always completed the job no matter how long it took, how hard it was or how much they begged.
It’s different with Zidaru. I want to hurt the fucker, make him pay for what he did to Elsie. But I can’t do that with Elsie around and scared. I have to deal with the rage because her peace of mind is my priority.
“Jesse, position,” Tucker prompts.
“In.” I’m tucked into the kitchenette nook of Elsie’s apartment, back to the wall, close enough to the door that I’ll have her out of the doorway in a second once it opens.
Riker’s a few feet behind me, positioned by the bathroom, arms loose at his sides in the deceptively relaxed stance of a man who’s done this more times than either of us can count.
“How much of Andrei’s gonna be left by the time you’re done with him?” Colton asks, dry as ever, even now. “Asking for the cleanup crew’s benefit.”
“Elsie will be here. Gotta make it fast.”
“That’s what I figured. Lucky bastard.”
The heat’s thick in the studio despite the hour easing toward evening. I check my knife for the third time in as many minutes, because my hands need something to do besides think about how scared Elsie is.
“Taxi’s two minutes out,” Tucker says. “Elsie’s secure, no tail.”
“Copy.”
“One of Zidaru’s men is posted outside probably to check she’s alone, like we figured,” Diego adds. “He’s mine.”
“Take him quiet.”
“Always do.”
The line goes silent except for the low static of five people breathing, waiting, and I use the minute I’ve got left to run through the operation one more time.
I’ve run harder missions than this. Extractions from hostile compounds, targets with twenty men and better weapons than three thugs riding on a crime boss’s reputation. None of them ever had my hands this steady and my chest this tight at the same time.
“Taxi’s here,” Tucker says. “She’s walking up.”
My chest constricts. I trust the plan. I trust every person in position around this building. I still hate every second she’s out there exposed, even for the handful of seconds it takes her to reach the door.
“She’s in,” Tucker confirms. “Door’s shut behind her.”
I hear her moving inside, footsteps soft on the floor she used to pace alone for two years hiding from this. Riker catches my eye across the small space, gives one short nod. Ready.
I smile at Elsie, trying to reassure her.
“Vehicle pulling up,” Colton says, voice dropping the humor now. “Three men. Confirmed Zidaru, center. Two hangers-off either side, moving like they think they own the block. They’re entering the building.”
“Diego, go,” Tucker says.
A pause, then, “Outside clear. He never saw it coming.”
One down. I roll my shoulders once, settle into the stillness I learned to live inside a long time ago, the place I go when a job needs doing and feeling anything at all becomes a liability.
Through the thin wall I can just make out the low murmur of voices climbing the stairwell, unhurried, arrogant, a man who’s not imagining the night not going his way.
“Hudson, they’re passing you now,” Tucker says.
“Copy. Moving.”
I hear it in my head before I hear it on the comm. The casual nod of a neighbor heading upstairs, keys jingling, footsteps unhurried, nothing about him worth a second glance from two men focused entirely on the door ahead of them.
A long, taut silence. Then, quiet enough I almost miss it: “Man on stairs down. Clean.”
Two men down.
“They’re at the door,” Tucker says.
The bell rings.
From the kitchenette, I watch her square her shoulders and head for the door. Hear her open it.
“Well, well. There you are. Did you miss me?”
“I…” Elsie’s voice shakes, exactly enough to sell it, buying the second I need.
I’ve got her wrist before Zidaru’s bodyguard fully registers I exist, pulling her back and sideways in one motion, Riker’s hands already closing around her shoulders to finish the job, sweeping her straight into the bathroom and shutting the door before either man in that doorway has time to process what happened.
The bodyguard reaches for his weapon a half-second too late. I close the distance and put him down fast. He crumples without a sound, and I don’t spare him another thought.
Zidaru’s still standing in the doorway when I turn to him, shock only just beginning to register on his face.
“You,” he starts.
I don’t let him finish.
“You will never hurt another woman again,” I tell him, before I end him.
“Clear,” I say into the comm.
“Nice work, everyone,” Tucker says when everyone has confirmed there are no issues on their end. “I’ll get the cleanup crew moving. Give it twenty minutes and this floor won’t have a mark on it.”
I open the bathroom door. Elsie’s pressed into the far corner, her whole body shaking. Riker positioned himself between her and the door.
She runs into my arms without hesitation.
“Don’t look.” I pick her up and she burrows her head into my chest.
I walk past everything, out the door and down the stairwell into the cooling evening air before she has to see a single thing I don’t want living in her memory.
She’s shaking against me the whole way down, and it’s in that stairwell, her heart hammering against mine, her breath ragged and warm through my shirt, that I realize how meaningful she has made my life.
Before her, I lived to do my duty. Now, I live for me.
Each day, I want to wake up so I can spend it with her.
Diego has brought my truck around to the front of the building. As soon as we’re inside, my phone rings.
“It’s done,” Vincenzo says. “Rosalie’s a little bruised, furious as hell, but safe. My men are finishing the rest of it as we speak, every warehouse, account, every man on Zidaru’s payroll. By morning there won’t be anything left of his operation to inherit.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.” Something almost gentle creeps into his voice, an unfamiliar softness from a man I’ve only ever heard sound controlled. “Nobody touches what’s mine and walks away from it. Turns out we have that much in common, Jesse. Take care of your girl. I’ll take care of mine.”
The call ends.
“Thank you, Jesse, for keeping us safe.”
“I want to keep you safe, that’s how I can live.”
She breaks then. I reach over the console and pull her into my arms, letting her cry, saying sweet nothings and wishing I could kill Zidaru again and make it hurt this time.