Chapter 11 #2
“They were dropped off in your mailbox at this address. I was clearing out your mail, and I saw the envelope. We came upstairs to check the contents, and that’s when we called fucking everybody.”
I slam my hand against the table.
“How did these clippings get here? And why?!” I’m raising my voice, and this is an anomaly to me. Because I never do that. Usually, I’m cool, calm, and collected, so this is quite a shock to everybody.
“M, somebody is targeting you specifically. And they are doing a damn good job of it,” Oliver states without any shame. He is always the one to break the obvious tension.
I turn to him with a puzzled look, and even though I don’t want to admit it, he’s right.
“The shrewd observation from Oliver may be delivered wrongly.” Josh glares at him, and Oliver blows him a kiss. “He is right. This information is only reserved for close family and us, right?”
I nod at Josh.
“Yes. How did they get this information? This is fucking personal.” Adam coughs.
“What is it, Adam?” I ask him. He clears his throat and puts his elbows on the table, looking at me intently.
“Could this be the work of your father?” Right as he says it, you could hear a pin drop. My father was the head of the second largest assassination group, the Vicious Vipers.
The Vicious Vipers were a group of hired assassins, with me one of their top members. We were deadly, vicious, and you wouldn’t see us coming. At its prime, we were bringing in money like a well-oiled business machine, and we did everything correctly.
Our subjects were primarily high-profile cases; even some politicians were on our hit list. The people who hired us were incredibly wealthy, powerful, and wise.
We screened everyone meticulously because we didn’t take on just any job.
Even though we were in the business of taking people out, we made sure we didn’t take out innocent people.
We have our values straight. After almost two decades, things started to shift.
Because we handled such high-profile cases, our administration had to be perfect, and I was in charge of that.
Numbers and solving problems were, and still are, second nature to me.
But one day, something caught my eye, and I asked Hana to look into something for me. And what she found was unsettling.
My father ordered four hits on innocent people.
He disguised it as jobs he took on for influential people, but the accounting for those hits was off.
More specifically, the bank accounts to which the money was transferred.
I was sitting in my office at our headquarters outside Sarajevo, and all the bank accounts were registered under Jensen Stables.
The tricky thing was that the accounts were in offshore accounts, which were hard to hack into.
Hana needed time, and in the meantime, I carried on with my job. Our hit men and hit women really started to respect me even more and asked for my advice, which I found odd. This stems from the fact that everyone was supposed to go to my father for advice, but they came to me.
Something that is a mystery to me to this day.
A couple of months after Hana started to get into the offshore accounts, she got in, and she discovered that the real person behind the Jensen Stables account was my own fucking dad. I wanted to confront him, but he vanished.
He dissolved the entire group by wiping our entire system without telling anyone anything. Everyone started working as freelancers after that, joined another group, or stopped doing what they did and took regular jobs.
But, before my father vanished, I discovered correspondence with an independent contract killer. And I’m racking my brain because I can’t remember his name. The only thing I do remember is that the contract killer was one of the most dangerous men on the planet.
Back to the matter at hand.
“That can’t be it. I haven’t heard a single fucking thing about my father for five years. And the type of man he is, he would kill me himself and not waste any time.” My father is a cruel man, and his approach to life is that to remain at the top of the food chain, one has to become a hunter.
But my dad became a coward, a stain on our profession.
“God damn it, M! Could you at least acknowledge the fact that it might be him?” Adam shouts at me. I stand up immediately, and with every step I take toward him, my anger rises. Not because he yelled at me, no, it’s because I don’t want to admit that it might be my dad.
Before I reach him, Oliver shoves me backward, and Sara is holding Adam back.
“This is the only time I’m going to give you a warning, Adam.” I want to push past Oliver, but he blocks me, yet again.
“Don’t do this, man,” he tells me as he huffs.
“Oliver, shut the fuck up and get out of my fucking way.” My eyes don’t leave Adam’s, but from the corner of my eye, I see Oliver moving away. The moment he is gone, I take one step toward that the motherfucker, but something stops me.
This isn’t how I should behave, because this is how my father behaved toward his top men.
I sit back down in my chair, and everybody follows suit.
“If we start fighting among each other, we are going to give this anonymous piece of shit exactly what they want.” My words hang in the air, and everybody is processing them. After a couple of seconds, the silence is broken by Josh’s voice.
“Exactly. What are we going to do next, M? What about the security systems in the dealerships?” he asks me.
“Hana and all of the other employees in our different branches have taken care of that. Our next step is to be more meticulous with every move we take.”
“What do you mean?” Sara sits up straight.
“Check your surroundings wherever you go, and the moment you suspect something, call me or these two here.” I point to Josh and Oliver.
“Did you hear that, darling?” Oliver’s question is laced with flirtation and aimed at Josh. He gives Oliver the middle finger.
“Come on, ljubavi2, don’t be shy.”
“I swear to fucking God, Oliver, if you don’t stop doing that shit, I’ll cut off your dick.” The banter between these two is gold, and we are all enjoying it.
“I would rather have you su—”
“Your tongue will follow suit if you finish that sentence.” Josh’s warning doesn’t adhere to Oliver’s logical side of his brain.
“I would rather finish in—” That does it.
Josh takes out his gun and places it against Oliver’s temple.
Having a gun pointed at you should scare the living daylight out of you, but again, this is Oliver we are talking about.
These two have had this dynamic between them ever since I met them.
It’s so toxic, but so them. They don’t know any other way to interact with each other.
I guess that’s why they can’t get enough of each other.
He licks his lips and wiggles his eyebrows.
“Okay, children, enough of that,” Sara orders them.
They keep staring at each other as Josh puts away his gun.
They break eye contact by listening to the most intelligent person in the room.
“I think I’m following your reasoning, M.
So, these two will handle security here, and Adam and I in Belgium and Germany? ”
I love this woman because she is dedicated to her job and smart. Sara graduated from King’s College in London as a criminal psychologist with honors. Her skills make her one of my most valuable employees. I also chained my mind about sending Oliver and Josh to Japan and the USA. I need them here.
“Correct. I’m also always available. Now, there is one last step I have to take care of.”
“You mean, we have to take care of?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.
“No.” A smile spreads across my face. “I personally have to take care of this.”
“M?” Sara opens her mouth to speak, but no sound leaves her. She is flabbergasted because she knows who I’m talking about.
“Everybody, go home, and we’ll talk in the near future.” My friends, whom I consider family, pack up their shit and head for the door, but Sara lingers for a moment. She is standing beside me.
“Does she know what she’s in for?” Her tone is hushed.
“Absolutely fucking not.”
1. Cities in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.
2. "My love" in Bosnian.