Chapter 7 Jace
JACE
Ethan Caldwell's house sits three down from where I've parked my truck, a narrow two-story with peeling paint and a sagging porch that speaks to decades of deferred maintenance and poverty that never quite lets go.
Gary, Indiana looks worse in person than it did on the map, blocks of abandoned buildings and empty lots where houses used to stand before the city's economy collapsed and took half the population with it.
Three hours from Chicago, far enough that the drive gave my leg time to stiffen and ache despite the antibiotics working through my system.
Sabine sits in the passenger seat with her arms crossed and her eyes fixed on the house where Caldwell lives with his mother, and the tension radiating from her body is palpable even in the confined space of the truck cab.
We've been parked here for forty minutes waiting for movement, and the silence between us has shifted from comfortable to oppressive somewhere around the thirty-minute mark.
"I heard he was an alcoholic now…" Sabine sits with her arms crossed, staring up the street with a glower on her face.
"Serves him right. He left right after that shit went down overseas and moved back in with his mom…
I think there wasn't a single one of us who handled that well.
" The puffer coat she wears hardly flatters her figure, but she's beautiful when she's mad.
This bloke probably pissed her off good. I don't figure he's going to be the type to cave easily or want to help us if he's drowning his sorrows with drink. Those types are more like steel traps that hold everything in until one day, they implode.
My eyes stay fixed on the house because I don't want to miss it if he leaves.
We could end up doing this for a few days if he's a home body.
I won't take the risk of going in and being forced to kill an elderly woman for no good reason.
When I was in my twenties I wouldn't have cared, but as I age the value of life seems to rise.
I understand how life is like a vapor and extinguishing it feels irreverent unless it's necessary.
"Do you know much about his mom?" I pick up my binoculars and try to focus them in on the house, hoping I can see through the window to get a peak, but the shades are drawn.
"No, but I heard she's sick or something…
He volunteers at the VA now and then, though.
He's not a total piece of trash." I hear the words she's saying, but her tone of voice doesn't match them.
I get the feeling this one might've had something more to do with what she went through than she's letting on.
It's easier to terminate someone when I know less about them, and finding out these details will challenge my resolve.
But a job is a job. I know my fate if I screw up another mission.
I don't have to check in with the boss to know he's not happy about that girl being alive.
By now, he may have even sent someone else to finish her, which I don't want to know about if it happened.
I just have to keep my head down and focus on what I'm doing here.
I have to dig in deeper, remind myself why I do what I do.
And this time it honestly isn’t about the list. The tension on Sabine's forehead tells me she's upset by just the proximity to this man.
I can tap into that because just thinking of what that sick bastard, Captain Jason Bryan, did to her is enough to make me want to murder anyone involved.
"And he's one of them who covered all that stuff up?
" I can't look at her when she responds or I may just jump out of this truck right now and go slit his throat right there in his living room.
The idea of his knowing what happened to her and not reporting it or defending her makes rage boil to the surface.
And I don't even know this woman at all.
"Worse," Sabine says, and I can tell she's getting choked up. "He's one of the men I was supposed to report this stuff to, and he never escalated it. He went to Bryan instead of his superiors."
When I spot movement at the house, I bring the binoculars back to my face and watch.
Caldwell is a gaunt man, spindly and willowy like a tree as he sways down the steps toward the sidewalk and ambles toward a 1998 Ford Ranger.
The jacket he wears is too thin for how cold it is, and it appears that it's a bit too small, too.
He's gained weight since he last wore it, which may actually have been years ago, before he enlisted.
And from what I can tell, he looks slightly drunk.
"That's him." Sabine's voice is tight and her hand moves to lock her seatbelt into place.
"Let's do this away from his mom's house.
" I can hear the reluctance in her tone.
She knows my job is to kill the man, and I agreed to her terms, but I won't hesitate to renege on that deal if she gets cold feet.
My list is still my list. I can't fathom returning to the boss without completing the mission to the best of my ability.
The sad part is, I've already gotten too attached to Sabine.
I'm not sure how to reconcile that except that the deadline of Christmas isn't up yet and I still have time to figure it out.
For now, she wants folks to help her take down this Bryan character, and the people on my list can help her with that.
From what I can tell, she's gonna let me turn them for her to help her cause, or I'll follow my orders. The rest I'll figure out as I go along.
The sedan pulls out of the driveway and turns left at the corner, and I give it a few seconds before starting my truck and following at a distance that keeps us invisible in his rearview mirror.
The neighborhood seems to get rougher before it gets better, and when Caldwell pulls into the parking lot of a dive bar three blocks from his house, I'm not surprised.
Sabine wasn't kidding when she said he's an alcoholic.
The bar is exactly what I expect—neon signs in the windows advertising cheap beer, a gravel parking lot with more potholes than pavement, and a door that looks barely attached to its hinges.
Caldwell parks near the entrance and disappears inside without looking around, and I pull my truck into a spot at the far end of the lot where we can watch and wait.
"How long?" Sabine's question is directed at the bar rather than at me, and her hands are fidgety, toying with her coat's zipper pull and the frayed string on the knee of her jeans where a small hole lets her knee peek through the fabric.
"However long it takes." My eyes scan the lot for cameras or witnesses, finding neither. "We need him outside and alone. Going in there puts too many variables in play."
She nods but doesn't relax, and the silence that settles over us feels heavier now that our target is inside drinking away whatever demons he carries. Minutes stretch into an hour, and somewhere in that time, Sabine's voice cuts through the quiet.
"How did you end up with the Barone organization?" The question is casual on the surface, and the undercurrent suggests she's looking for understanding rather than just information. I'm not sure anyone has ever tried to understand me before, and I'm not sure whether I like it yet.
My eyes stay on the bar entrance while I consider how much truth to give her.
Men who talk about the family don't live to enjoy the connection that information might establish.
I swore an oath when I became a Barone to protect the family and honor their secrets.
So I'm not really keen to let this woman from my hitlist in on those family secrets.
When I finally speak, the answer comes out more sanitized than honest.
"It was the only path forward when I was a teenager." I've never told anyone anything about my past. The only people who needed to know already knew. "My Pop died. They adopted me into the fold."
The explanation is true as far as it goes, but it leaves out the parts that actually drove me to what I had to do.
Leaves out my mother working two jobs and still falling behind on rent every month—the utility shut-off notices and the empty refrigerator and the desperation that made running drugs for the Barone organization feel like my only option.
I'll never forget the first time I took a life and Don Vittorio told me my hands would eventually stop shaking.
They did, and somewhere in the years between that first kill and now, I became a cold-blooded monster.
Except lately, I'm not so proud of what I've been doing.
And I'm not so fond of the men I'm doing it with.
"You're not proud of it." Sabine is watching me squirm, because that's what I'm doing.
"No." How could anyone be proud of what I am? "But pride doesn't pay bills and regret doesn't change history. I made choices, and now I live with them."
She returns her attention to the bar, and I'm grateful she doesn't push further because explaining the full truth would require admitting things I've spent years avoiding.
I'm expendable, just like every other job known to mankind.
If I fuck up, they'll replace me in a heartbeat.
Except in my world, I don't get a severance package. I get a bullet.
And stains don't wash out. They set deeper with time, and the girl I let run is proof that my conscience isn't as dead as I thought it was. Don Vittorio knows it too, which is why this contract came with an unspoken condition—finish it perfectly or don't come home at all.