Chapter 42
forty-two
The colonial house is dark, its decay a slow, forty-year blight. A sagging gutter hangs like a broken jaw over an upstairs window.
A solitary, defiant light casts a yellow glow through a window to the backyard. No fence. Should be smooth sailing, except—
Except Hailey Twinston is sitting on the sofa near her dad. Watching a movie.
I never really looked into her, but does she not have a mom? Should be the two of them in the house, I think…
Either way, I need to get her out of there.
Removing my glove, I hurriedly type out a text.
Me
Invite Hailey Twinston out to the bar for a few hours.
Shockingly, the text is delivered, but Elowyn doesn’t answer. That’s unusual for her.
So I try Blaire…
Blaire
Sure, Daddy! I’m already out anyway. Want me to pick her up?
Me
yeah, asap
Blaire
On it
It’s another half an hour before she’s gone. By then, I’ve hidden my bike down the street behind some evergreens and pulled my mask down, sneaking to the back door like a prowler.
The lock is set, but it’s an old door. And this is a nice neighborhood. One they don’t expect to have burglaries in. Until I jimmy the doorknob and shove it open.
“Who’s there?” Dean Twinston calls out from the other room. He stands and wanders into the kitchen, and I hold up my Glock.
He flips on a light, and I pop out from the laundry room, aiming at his head.
“Bad news, old man. The president wants you dead for your stunt.”
Bare feet frozen on the linoleum, he watches me carefully, then crosses his arms. But stays silent.
I creep forward a few steps. “Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you, Aiden. So then shoot me.”
My jaw tightens. “Here’s the thing… You’re going to do it.”
He chuckles without mirth. “Not going to happen.”
Shuffling over to the island, I tug the vial from my jacket pocket and place it on the counter. It’s the same I’d bought for President Harvey. It works; I know it does. But I haven’t gotten to see it in practice. “Drink this. And it’ll be over.”
Unyielding, he stands firm and doesn’t say a word.
I sigh, the mask hot against my skin. How do people wear these things?
“Listen. If you don’t? This will turn out worse for you. I’m doing you a favor. Asa Donovan. Name ring a bell?”
He shakes his head slowly, almost annoyed that I’m even in his presence. Poor guy doesn’t understand how short my patience is.
“Donovan isn’t happy with the Morettis right now.” Mention of their family name finally paints a worried look on Twinston’s face for a fraction of a second.
“What does that have to—”
“They’ve been attempting to steal from the casino to fund your company. The merger between Power Puffz and whatever weird meat medical project you had going on. That means you’re stealing from several investors in White Wolf Lodge and Casino. And its shareholders.”
Waving the Glock around, I loosen my wrist and place my finger on the trigger.
“The largest of which…is me.”
His eyes dart to the poison resting across from him, next to me.
“So why not go after them?”
I snort a laugh. “We will. It’s as good as done. In fact, I believe Tony Moretti won’t last the night. And his son? Talon? Well…I have a special place picked out for him.”
Reality setting in, he shakes his head rapidly. “No. I’m not drinking that. You’ll… You’ll have to shoot me.”
“Is that the way you want Hailey to find you later? Shot through the head?”
That disrupts his cool exterior. Voice dropping to a whisper, he opens his arms, pleading with me. “Please, Aiden. Don’t do this. I-I’ll take the mark of a traitor. I’ll… Let me go.”
I glance at the clock. This is taking way too much time. All I wanted was to get to Gnarled Pine Hollow so I could steal my future wife back to our house. Now, he’s wasting my night away.
“You have a few more seconds to make a move.”
Instead of going for the vial, he drops to his knees, clasping his hands together like a pathetic piece of shit.
Frustrated and annoyed that I even have to get my hands dirty, I decide to take it out on him. One last time.
I stuff my Glock into my waistband and reach for a chef’s knife in the wood block near the stove. Wandering back over to him, I shove it under his nose and let him sniff the blade. A threat. A promise.
“You want pain? Or quick and easy?”
“No… I’ll drink. I will. Just…give me a minute to get some things straight.”
His head swivels toward his phone next to the recliner in the living room. When he gets up to go for it, I snag him back by the sweater.
Without a skip in my pulse, I slash the knife through his neck. It’s not enough to stop him, not by far, but it slows him down. Blood surges from the wound onto the tan carpet, footsteps dragging through it with every lunge forward.
A high animal sound tears and bubbles from his throat, words collapsing into a raw, unclothed noise. His fingers claw at the air and find nothing.
When he slumps to the floor, clutching at his chest, part of his windpipe hangs loosely from the gaping hole in the front. His mouth opens and closes like a dying fish as he flips onto his back, holding up his hands to ward me off.
He tries to speak, but the sound comes out ragged and small, then gone. The house fills with the smell of copper. Everything is loud—the thud of his body, the rasping, the way his eyes lose focus and go polished as glass—and then, with a final, terrible wet silence, he goes still.
“Let me help you with that gangly-looking organ of yours.”
Squatting over his rotund belly, I pierce the skin again, slicing and carving until his head lolls back so far, it’s almost severed. Surely, he’s bled out enough that he’s dead now. But his glassy eyes never leave mine. Barrel chest slowly descends one final time as I reach the spinal cord.
He really needed to sharpen these knives.
Too late now…
I make it to President Damon’s place before midnight and kick down her front door, not bothering to wait for the enforcers to let me in.
Heat tingles the tips of my ears as rage settles into every artery.
That errand could have easily been taken care of by an initiate.
It’s beneath me. But Asa Donovan insisted. And Damon backed him up…
Even when one of her guards draws on me, I hold up my present, climb the stairs, and fling open her bedroom door.
She sits up, flicks on her table lamp, and screams.
I must look ridiculous.
Black outfit. Mask.
Bleeding severed head of Dean Twinston hanging from his balding hair scraps in my right hand.
Glock in the left, pointed at her polished hardwood.
I aim for her cozy bed and toss the head onto the white comforter. It rolls slowly, obscenely, like a bowling ball across satin. She jumps up, and her scream cracks the room in half. I let it hang there, a punctuation.
“That task you wanted me to do? It’s done. Now…approve Ashlyn Donovan’s appointment to me. I’ve got places to be.”