Heart of a Killer (Ashenheart #1)

Chapter 1

one

The first time I slit a man’s throat, I cried.

In my defense, he was my father, and I was twelve years old. I haven’t shed a tear for a dead bastard since. If an Adam’s apple ends up under my knife, I promise it deserves to be there.

One such man is bleeding out at my feet. Fucking rapist.

He gurgles loud and messy as blood floods his throat, bubbling up and spilling past his lips in thick, sticky ribbons. It splatters on his shirt, his boots, my jeans. His eyes go glassy, wild with disbelief.

His next gurgle is hard as blood keeps flooding his windpipe, turning every breath into a wet, choking rattle. It sprays when he tries to speak and coats the alley wall like a goddamn signature. His hands claw at his neck, nails scraping skin, trying to hold in what’s already spilled out.

I keep my eyes on his. Wide. Panicked. Uncomprehending. I want him to see me. His killer. His reckoning. He shakes, seizes, and slumps, still staring up with dead eyes that are waiting for mercy that will never come.

This one takes longer than most. Nerves firing after the heart stops. Always fascinating, the way the body refuses to admit it's dead.

I've watched life leak out of enough men to know the difference between a quick death and one that makes a statement.

Someday it’ll be me on my back in an alley, bleeding out on cold concrete, choking on my own blood. Wonder who’d watch me go. Wonder if they’d flinch.

I’m the monster the streets whisper about. But I’ve spilled enough blood to know one truth they all forget.

No one’s untouchable.

I don’t usually kill unprepared or unsolicited. But I’d barely parked my Harley when I saw him shove her into the alley.

Reckless. Sloppy. Not how I operate. I’m calculated, meticulous. I rarely make moves without the backing of my brothers. I sure as hell don’t draw blood without a plan. That’s what keeps me out of cuffs.

My older brother, Adrian, looped the two alley cams seconds before I moved.

Or, that’s what I’m hoping for. Fucker tracks me like it’s his full-time job which is mostly annoying, but has also saved my ass more times that I can count.

He’s blind, but that doesn’t stop him. His system pings him the second motion trips a lens, and he’s got voice macros that run cleaner than most hackers’ fingers.

Caleb or Mavik feed him details when he needs them, but the call is always Adrian’s.

Doesn’t matter that he can’t see—he sees enough.

I have enough black leather gloves to replace them daily, and the rainy weather washes the scene clean. My knife’s already back in the leather sheath on my hip. There’s nothing left to tie me to this man. Nothing left but pooled rain on the street and a bad man’s last breath lingering in the alley.

I touch the leather sheath at my hip. Three taps, always three. The woman thanks me and flees, surprisingly fast in five-inch heels. I never cover my face, and she got a good look, but something tells me no one’s going to come knocking.

Vigilante.

That’s what the headlines would read if anyone talked.

If justice meant a damn thing. A neat little word for the mess left behind when the people who are supposed to protect you don’t.

When protection becomes a privilege instead of a promise.

Someone has to take the job. I learned to take it young.

Learned who to kill, when to kill, and how to smother the part of me that needed a reason to press the edge until the skin gave.

I’m not better than the assholes I slaughter. But at least I’ve got some damn morals.

I walk back across the street. Vegas smells like blood in the rain, metallic and sharp, mixed with lingering cigarette smoke and stale beer to remind you the nights are never over here.

Neon buzzes above rusted-out signs, casting sickly halos over pawn shops and liquor stores that never close.

The sidewalks here don’t glitter like they’ll tell you they do on the Strip.

They’re cracked and sticky, decorated with forgotten receipts, calling cards for dancers and prostitutes, broken lighters, and the occasional needle someone was too strung out to care about.

This part of Sin City doesn’t sell illusions. It deals consequences.

The tattoo parlor on the corner’s been here since before my voice dropped.

I used to press my nose to the glass and count the skulls on the flash wall.

Sometimes I’d read the faded spines on the shelf behind the counter and pretend I was the kind of kid who got to keep things.

Tattoos are something permanent in a world that never is.

The artists don’t flinch on the nights I walk in bloody-knuckled or burning with adrenaline and needing the ink to calm me.

Up north, there’s the boxing gym that taught me how to fight without mercy and lose without crying. And around the block, there’s a bail bonds shop that greets me with silence. They’ve never posted for me. I don’t get caught.

People around here know I’m not the man you call for help, but the one you hope is watching when the worst happens.

I’ve got my brothers, but none of them carry what I carry. They’ve never had to learn how to kill and live with it. So I walk these streets, a ghost known by everyone, understood by no one.

This is Vegas too. Not the glossy postcards or poolside penthouses, but the aching, rusted heart of the city. And me? I’m its pulse.

I don’t need maps to find my way and I don’t keep many memories.

I was raised by this asphalt, shaped by the alleys and after-hours.

The city speaks, but tonight it’s too damn quiet.

My hand brushes the knife at my hip, tapping it three times.

I'm never late to my monthly poker game, and the vibrating phone in my pocket says my brothers are worried.

The hinge on the rusted steel door at the edge of the lot gives a low creak that echoes through the hollow bones of the old warehouse, the kind of noise Adrian always hears first.

Inside the old warehouse, the familiar scent of cigar smoke, motor oil, and bourbon meet me at the door. It’s comforting, in its own fucked-up way. Folding chairs scrape concrete as a few heads turn.

“Cassius, I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show.” Adrian speaks without lifting his shaded eyes. He lost his sight three years ago, but somehow the fucker knows the exact moment I enter a room.

Caleb, our younger brother, stands behind him.

His front nearly touches Adrian’s back, one hand resting on his shoulder.

They have their own system — finger taps for card values, a nudge for suits, and as much as I’ve studied them, I can’t fully decode it.

Caleb never sits at this table. Poker isn’t his thing, but he’s played every month since Adrian lost his sight.

Caleb’s thing is numbers, which is another reason my asshole brother wins more than he should.

“Have I ever not shown?” I slump in the metal chair next to our baby brother, Atlas.

Rain’s still dripping off me, and I don’t bother hiding the puddle I share with him.

I go out of my way to make sure Atlas gets some of the water.

His eyes, along with the rest of the ones surrounding the round table, all look at me in question, Adrian being the only exception.

This poker game has been going on for generations.

Our own father, prior to his untimely demise, used to bring Adrian and me here when he was the one playing.

We'd play in the corner of the room, dealing each other cheap plastic cards until we fell asleep. To this day, I have no clue how Dad got us both in our beds before morning. He never drove, and I can’t remember ever walking home.

Adrian says he must’ve carried us both, or called for a cab.

I’m sure he’s right, but I’m more shocked that he bothered to take us home at all.

Caleb and Atlas never got to experience the joy of poker with dear ol’ dad. They were too young and, fortunately for them, I stopped him from ever being able to put them through what Adrian and I had to endure.

“There can always be a first time,” Adrian answers, and the other players return their eyes to their hands.

Adrian was never much of a talker before his accident, but he does even more listening these days.

More often than not, he knows who has the winning hand before their cards hit the felt.

He spits some bullshit about people’s breathing and the smell of sweat, but sometimes I think he’s faking his blindness. Adrian loves this game.

When Dad was alive, this was the one night a month that these assholes called a truce and didn’t try to kill each other.

“If I ever miss this, you’ll know I’m dead.” I stare down at my shit hand. Seven of clubs, two of diamonds. Off-suit. Useless. The poker equivalent of a middle finger. This long night just keeps getting longer.

The door pushes open, and Adrian’s busty blonde assistant steps in, shutting the door behind her. She sets a zipped black leather bag on my brother’s right-hand side. She’s worked for him, for us, for nearly a decade but I haven’t a fucks clue what her name is.

“The phones you asked for, Mr. Ashenheart.”

“Thank you.” My brother’s voice remains emotionless.

He unzips the bag and pulls out one of the burners.

With his free hand, he tugs a slim earpiece from each ear, swapping them for fresh ones.

He places the two dead devices into the waiting palm of his assistant without an explanation.

Adrian runs on a constant feed—Caleb in one ear, and his head of security, Mavik, in the other.

Always watching, always talking, always in his head.

Thank fuck I’m not the one chained to that annoying-ass setup.

When busty knows he isn’t going to say anything else, she leaves the room the way she came without another word.

“Phones?” Atlas asks.