Twelve Sins of Christmas (Twelve Days of Blood & Sin #2)

Chapter 1

JACE

The streetlight three houses down flickers every forty seconds, and I've been counting the intervals for the past twenty minutes while Kyle Dempsey's driveway stays empty and my truck idles at the curb with the engine ticking in the cold.

I flex my fingers around the steering wheel to keep the blood moving and watch my breath fog the windshield before I crack the window to let the November air bite at my face.

Ten days until Thanksgiving, and if I don't move tonight, Dempsey will pack up and leave town for the holiday, which means I'll have to track him down somewhere unfamiliar and finish this when the variables are harder to control.

A sedan turns onto the block with its headlights cutting through the dark, and I sit up straighter as it slows at Dempsey's house and pulls into the driveway.

The engine dies and the door opens, and a man unfolds himself from the driver's seat with a gym bag in one hand and his jacket collar turned up against the wind.

He stomps across his front lawn with his head down, fumbling with the keys on his key chain.

If he were a smart man he'd be checking over his shoulder to make sure he's not being watched, but such is the case in suburbia.

Folks expect their home to be the safest place on the planet, where they're untouchable and a simple deadbolt or lock will keep all harm away from them.

Mr. Dempsey is going to get a lesson in self-protection today. Too bad it will come too late for him to apply it to future instances.

I kill the engine and step out into the cold, tucking my hands into my pockets and walking at an easy pace with my head down and my shoulders loose.

The block is quiet after dark, with porch lights glowing and curtains drawn and everyone settled into their routines.

I reach Dempsey's driveway and angle toward the front door without breaking stride, and when I test the handle, it turns beneath my palm.

It's quiet when I slip inside and close the door behind me.

The house wraps around me with its warmth and the faint smells of coffee and laundry detergent.

A coat tree stands near the stairs and the gym bag sits on the floor where he dropped it as he entered.

Light spills from a doorway at the end of the hall where his footsteps beckon me closer.

I follow the sound down the hallway silently, rolling my feet heel to toe to avoid making any sound while keeping my breathing steady. And when I reach the threshold of the kitchen, I stop and watch him standing at the fridge with his back to me while he pulls out a bottle of water.

He's still wearing his jacket and he seems oblivious to anything I'm doing. He has no clue I’m here with him, which makes this all that much more satisfying for the moment.

Men like Dempsey should know better. I looked him up—an army vet like the others—but obviously, not a well-trained one. As easily as I've taken them out, I know they all have their guard down, and this one has been the easiest by far to infiltrate.

Then he turns and sees me standing in his doorway, and his eyes go wide before the bottle slips from his hand and hits the floor, splashing water across the floor and cabinets.

For half a second, we just look at each other, and then he's moving.

He charges like a bull, fist already cocked for my jaw, but I pivot at the last second.

His knuckles slam into my shoulder in a bone-jarring blow that sends nerves screaming fire down my arm.

I answer instantly, elbow spearing into his ribs.

I hear cartilage crumple with a wet pop and he exhales a ragged, feral sound.

He snarls, seizing my jacket with both hands, and hurls me sideways until we smash into the counter.

Plates topple from his counter, exploding into shrapnel that has porcelain shards slicing skin as they rain across the floor.

My fingers find his throat, digging into his flesh, and I ram him backward until his spine hits the cabinets with a hollow thud.

He sweeps my leg and we crash down together.

The back of my skull kisses the tile so hard, the impact detonates stars behind my eyes and blood floods my mouth.

My vision tunnels, then snaps back just as his weight settles on my chest, thumbs gouging for my eyes.

It's not supposed to happen like this. I'm supposed to have the upper edge, and I underestimated my opponent.

But I won't let him get the better of me.

I drive my knee up into his gut hard enough to lift his hips, and I know something inside him ruptures. He makes a wet, choking noise and rolls off me, vomiting air and bile. I surge upright, blood dripping from my chin, and circle as he claws to his feet.

He lunges again, and his fist buries itself in my ribs.

I feel one crack, a hot spike of agony that nearly folds me, but I trap his arm, twist, and hammer my own fist into his temple.

His skin splits, and blood sprays in a dark arc across the pristine tile.

His head whips sideways, eyes unfocused, but the bastard stays upright, swaying, lips peeled back from red teeth.

Recognition finally crawls across his swollen face, too late. I smile with split lips and step in to finish him.

"Who sent you?" he asks, though it's almost a gurgle. The words come out ragged, and he's already moving again before I can decide whether to answer.

I waste no breath on conversation. I feint left, and when he moves to block, I go right, grabbing the back of his neck and slamming his face into the counter’s edge with enough force that I hear bone crack and see blood spray across the white laminate as the bridge of his nose snaps and pushes into his brain.

He drops, and the kitchen goes quiet except for the sound of my breathing and the sickening thud of his limp body hitting the floor.

I stand over him and check his pulse at the throat, finding nothing but cooling skin beneath my fingers. His eyes stare at the ceiling, and blood pools beneath his head, creeping toward the grout lines between the tiles while I watch the final flickers of light in his eyes die.

It takes me a moment to catch my breath.

He was stronger than I thought he'd be, though I didn't put much stock into his background when I saw how lax his security is.

It's like he either had no idea someone might even come for him, or he was so confident in his own ability to defend himself, he never thought to lock his place up.

I feel a trickle of blood running from my lip and use the back of my sleeve to wipe it up.

The blood spatter on the floor is mostly his, but mine is mixed throughout.

I can't leave that, but I'm not going to stand here and clean it up properly.

So I head to the laundry room and get a bottle of bleach and a rag and start working.

I pour the bleach over the blood everywhere to corrupt the DNA, then I wipe the bottle down and start wiping down every surface I know I touched—the counter, the doorknob, the fridge.

And when I get there, I pause. A photograph hangs beneath a magnet shaped to resemble the Chicago skyline and in it, six people stand together in the sun with their arms slung over shoulders and grins on their faces.

They're wearing fatigues with flat green land and a cloudless sky spread out behind them.

Kyle Dempsey stands in the center with his arm around a woman with auburn hair and a wide smile, and to his left stands a man with black hair and a scar through his eyebrow.

Next to him is a younger guy with a cocky expression, and on the far right stands a woman with warm brown eyes and her arms crossed over her chest in a posture that reads as guarded even in a casual photo.

I recognize four of them immediately because their faces are burned into my memory from the folder Don Vittorio's broker handed me six weeks ago.

Everette Hamilton is number seven on my list, and Nathan Brooks is number eight. Hannah Frank with the auburn hair is number nine, and the woman on the right with the brown eyes and the careful stance is Sabine Hart—number six.

My next target.

I pull the photo off the fridge and turn it over, finding faded pen on the back that reads Fort Bragg, 2019.

Best squad I ever had. Five people in this photo are on my list, five out of six, and they're posing together, which suggests they not only know each other, but they probably worked together.

These aren't random civilians scattered across the Eastern US with no connection to each other. These are soldiers, operators, people who served together and knew each other well enough to smile for a camera while out on deployment.

And someone is systematically erasing them.

I've had hitlists before like this. The boss sends me out on all sorts of jobs—like the last one I fucked up pretty badly, though it wasn’t entirely my fault. No way I was gonna kill that little girl too just because she saw me. But this list felt fishy from the beginning.

When I took the job from a broker, it was immediately assigned to me with no question.

I figured it was punishment—twelve hits before the end of the year on a deadline with a bullet for me if it wasn't finished.

I screwed that last hit up, so now I'm expendable.

It's not like I'm family to him. I got sucked into this as a kid, and honestly, if I had my druthers, I'd find my way out.

I'm too old to keep doing this. I want something more in life than just murder for hire and taking someone's orders.

But I don't get a choice. When the Don gives you an order, you do it.

Though, I have a feeling my life in the Barone family has a timer that's nearing zero. All because I can't murder a child in cold blood.

I fold the photo and slide it into my jacket pocket before taking one last look around the kitchen.

Blood drips from the counter edge onto the tile, and Dempsey's body has already started to cool in the spreading pool beneath his head.

Someone will find him eventually, but I'll be miles from here.

Still, I lock up on my way out because it's the sane thing to do.

There are killers out here, you know.

Then I head to my truck, where I climb behind the wheel and sit there for a moment with the engine off, staring at Dempsey's dark house through the windshield while my ribs ache and my knuckles throb.

He really got me good. I may need to wait a few days before I move on to number six on the list—Sabine Hart.

As I drive off, I think about that photo and how very not coincidental it is that the people on it are connected. I have no clue who put this hit on their lives, nor am I supposed to ask. But it appears to me that someone is cleaning up a mess they don't want anyone to hear about.

That's the case most times, but most times, the people on my lists are criminals or their loved ones. Every now and then, it's a victim who knows too much but got away—like that witness in the State vs. Barone case three years ago. He'd have taken us all down, so he had to go.

But something about this feels just as wrong as having to look a little girl in the eye and say I'm sorry for murdering Mommy and Daddy, but they were bad people.

Don Vittorio took this job from someone the broker brought to him, someone who has connections and power, and probably a lot of money too, or they wouldn't be able to afford us. And here I am, murdering men and women who fought for our country. It just doesn’t sit right.

But if I question the method, I'll end up joining the five I've brought down already, and the two very unlucky parents whose child will be raised an orphan.

I have no wish for a death warrant to be signed in my name.

Because if the boss hasn't put out the order to have me offed at the end of this list already, that certainly would do it.