Chapter Eight
Vik
Two Days Later
“The fuck’s the matter with you?” my coach, Duke, shouts from the sidelines. “Keep your hands up, motherfucker. This kid’s gonna rock your shit.”
I almost laugh at the absurdity of the statement.
But Duke isn’t wrong.
My head’s not in the fight, and I’m getting the piss beaten out of me. The worst part is that, even though we’re training for MMA, neither of us has attempted a grapple yet. I’m nothing more than a walking punching bag and my opponent is a wannabe boxer throwing vicious hooks.
I can’t blame myself for this. I haven’t had a clear thought since I felt Hannah’s wetness. Smelled it on my fingers after I walked out of the bathroom. I’d have tasted her too if I didn’t know I’d be drinking straight from the source soon enough.
Denying my baser urges is torture, but it’ll make finally getting what I want all the more satisfying.
Thump.
A right jab cracks against my jaw.
Bang.
Another catches me above the brow, followed by a sharp left hook that leaves the taste of blood in my mouth.
Duke bellows obscenities from the sidelines about my pathetic performance.
Poor guy’s just doing his job, and I’m making it impossible for him.
He’s not furious because I’m out of practice.
He’s furious because I haven’t knocked this young punk’s teeth down his throat.
He knows I could do it easily, so he also knows my head isn’t in the zone.
I started training in mixed martial arts as a teenager and haven’t stopped.
I’ve reached a level where I could easily do Duke’s job with my eyes closed.
But I don’t train others because I love to practice the sport myself.
I train to become a master of close-quarters combat.
Someone who is capable of far more than merely winning sparring matches in Duke’s dusty old gym.
Peak physical conditioning is only one weapon in my arsenal. My marksmanship is another. I’ll need both if I ever hope to find the men who murdered my mother. I have to be ready to kill from any distance.
Another punch comes at me, but this time I duck beneath it. I still don’t raise my hands, though. I don’t need to. My opponent hits hard, but not hard enough.
As I circle the octagon, one thought keeps forcing its way to the front of my mind. If Hannah can distract me this much when nothing’s at stake, then what could happen when I’m standing in front of someone who’s genuinely trying to kill me?
I shouldn’t have followed her into the bathroom.
And I definitely shouldn’t have touched her.
But I wanted to.
We both know her protests are bullshit.
Stepbrother.
Stepsister.
Those words are just labels for a relationship that our parents forced on us. They don’t have to stop us from taking what we both want.
And it’s not as though we’re likely to get caught.
I understand her hesitation, of course. We grew up under the same roof, and our parents are happily married. But I barely speak to my father anymore.
Actually, that’s not entirely true.
I haven’t really spoken to him since the night my own mother was killed. I wonder about how he might have changed things by being present. Maybe the outcome would’ve been the same if he’d been home. If he’d spent more time with his family, she might still be alive.
Maybe not. Maybe they’d both be dead.
Then I’d be avenging two people instead of one.
I put his failures as a father aside. I don’t really care what Hannah’s mother might say either. It’s not high on my list of priorities. There’s very little chance anyone will hear about what we’re doing from me.
That means Hannah would have to tell them. Something tells me she’ll carry this secret to her grave.
The rookie boxer edges closer. He hasn’t thrown another punch since I slipped his last one. He is understandably wary of how quickly I move. Most people see my size and expect brute strength. They never expect speed.
“Hey, dickhead,” Duke yells.
He only calls me that when I’ve really pissed him off.
“Your phone’s ringing. Better wrap this up if you want to answer it.”
I’d laugh if I didn’t have two hundred and forty pounds of muscle charging straight at me.
He throws another punch.
This time I slip underneath it and fire a cross of my own. It lands flush on his chin. To my surprise, he stays upright for a second, staring at me as though I’d barely touched him.
I count to three. If he’s still standing by then, I’ll finish the job.
On three, his legs give way and he crumples like a sack of potatoes.
I’ll give him credit. He’s the first man who’s ever stayed on his feet after taking that punch.
“Was that so fucking hard?” Duke shouts, spraying spittle with every word.
I ignore him and retrieve my phone from the wire-mesh wall.
“Vik speaking.”
“Frank Coleman.”
It isn’t Frank Coleman on the other end of the line. I actually have no idea who Frank really is. He’s a shadow, both in the field and in business. In all the years I’ve used his services, I’ve always respected his anonymity and never asked any questions.
“Fifty-six years old,” Shadow continues. “Linked to a network of insurance fraud scams. Not a major player, but he has influence in that world.”
“Do you think he’s one of them?”
“No. Frank isn’t the boots-on-the-ground type. He hires other people to do his dirty work.”
There’s a brief pause, then a smoker’s cough.
“He pays thieves to collect high-value targets.”
His answer displeases me. There’s always another hurdle and never any real progress.
“How are they linked?” I keep the question vague for the benefit of the other MMA students who have entered the ring to help their friend to his feet.
“Frank likes to give shit away. Secret messages disguised as high-value items,” Shadow says.
This is why I like using Shadow. In forty-eight hours, he’s uncovered more information about my target than I could have found in years.
“Once the item reaches its new owner, Frank sends in a crew to retrieve it. He delivers his message, pockets the insurance money, and then keeps the item himself.”
“What about the secrets?” If I understand this correctly, my father must have received one of these items for Shadow’s theory to make sense. Could whatever it contained have been worth my mother’s life?
“Can’t say. Until I see one for myself, that part of the puzzle remains a mystery.”
“Send me his address. I’ll pay him a visit after work.”
I end the call and hand my phone back to Duke.
“Who’s next?” I ask the brave men standing around the ring.
I am invigorated by the knowledge that I’m finally inching closer to the truth.
***
Although I have a team who assist with my business dealings, I work alone when it comes to my more unholy acts. That isn’t because I don’t trust them. If we were working together in the field, I’d trust the men and women I employ with my life.
The problem is that I don’t like having to use them in the first place.
They’re the best at what they do, but so am I.
What I don’t want is conflicting opinions about how my revenge should unfold.
I want to savor every moment of it and claim what’s mine in whatever manner I see fit.
Besides, having anyone else present would dilute the experience.
I’ve grown to enjoy these quiet, private encounters with my victims. Discovering what makes them tick. Watching them squirm once they realize it’s over.
And so, I arrive at Frank Coleman’s home alone. With an almost clear mind.
Frank Coleman lives alone, divorced from his wife and estranged from his children. It’s close to midnight, and there’s no moon in the sky. Apart from a row of streetlights, the neighborhood is cloaked in darkness. The perfect cover for a covert operation.
The blueprints Shadow sent, alongside the address, mean I could find my way through Frank’s house blindfolded.
It’s a modest home in the middle of suburbia. Downstairs, an open-plan living room and kitchen extend from the entryway and staircase, while a separate reception room occupies the opposite side of the house. Three bedrooms, a gym, and a home office make up the upper floor.
A network of cameras surrounds the property. Fortunately for me, every one of them was manufactured by my home-security division. Given enough time, I could have breached another system, but it’s considerably easier when I already know which weaknesses to exploit in my own software.
Even so, I don’t approach the house from the front.
The doorbell camera may be disabled, but no walls separate his property from the other houses along the street.
The last thing I need is a nosy neighbor peering through the blinds while I break in.
So, I stick to the shadows as I circle the house, careful to avoid bushes and flower beds so I leave as little evidence of my presence as possible.
A white picket fence separates the front garden from the back. It must be a rule of the homeowners’ association guidelines because every neighboring property has the same design. The fence barely reaches my waist, and I clear it with ease.
I test each window and door as I move around the property, checking whether any are unlocked or offer enough give for me to slide in my pry bar.
When I find no easy point of entry, I return to a window overlooking the living room. It’s the largest one I inspected and should give me enough space to climb through.
My size has its advantages. I’m tall, broad, and intimidating. However, when a job requires finesse, it becomes a disadvantage.
I force the pry bar as far as it will go into the wooden frame and wrench it backward until the metal bolts securing the window snap. The frame gives with a dull thud, but the sound shouldn’t travel far enough to wake the neighbors.
Alerting Frank is a risk, but I have no other way inside. Lock-picking has never been a skill I cared to learn. It belongs to thieves and conmen. The same kind of men who broke into our home all those years ago.
I draw my pistol and clear the ground floor, listening for any movement above me.