What my target didn’t know was that I’d herded him this way on purpose. After these stairs, he’d end up on the fourth floor—where there was no other way down but to jump.
I arrived at the top of the stairs just as that fact sank in for him.
Fabio spun around as I clapped in a loud, slow way that sent his shoulders inching up.
“Well done, Fabi, you found a quiet place for us to talk,” I said.
“What is it you want?” Fabio called urgently, backing up as far as he could before he got too close to the roughly hewn building edge, hovering over the drop to the gravel below.
“Well,you,silly... Why do you think I’ve been searching for you for so long?”
“I-I didn’t hurt her,” he spat out, his voice wavering.
I nodded, pulled black leather gloves from my back pocket, and slid them on. I usually only used sterile gloves, given they were more flexible and I could forget they were there, but tonight was cold. A harsh wind blew across the open sides of the building, and frost lay on the ground. It was only a few days after the holidays, and winter crouched over us. Even in the South, we couldn’t escape the cold.
“Didn’t you?” I asked him, and drew closer.
He shook his head. His face was a mess. I might have gone overboard. It had been a while since I’d killed for anything other than a contract. My nine-to-five might be careful and meticulous assassination, but it was a job like any other. I didn’t torture or maim, or get carried away. No, letting the beast inside play with its food was always a mistake. I couldn’t let the lines blur.
Tonight, however, was personal. Tonight I’d let it eat its fill.
“I-I loved her.”
He’d barely gotten the lie out before I grabbed him, hauling him to me and smashing my fist into his face, once, twice, three times, before I let him sag to the floor.
I exhaled my fury into the cold air and flexed my fists.
“You knocked her up and then had her sent away in case it looked bad for you to be screwing your employees. I already know all of that, Fabi, you can’t change our past.”
“Ourpast?” Fabi rolled over on the floor. His white hair was dark red now. It suited him. The man had lived far too long on borrowed time.
“Why do you even care about some random employee I fucked around with and knocked up anyway? I can pay you to stop this. I’m well-off. You need money? I can get it for you,” he babbled away.
I sighed heavily and crouched before him. “Fabi, Fabi, I’m richer than you can imagine. Your money is no good here. I just want your confession before I send you to the next life. Think of me as the reaper come to collect your soul, and repent before it’s too late.”
Grim humor filled me as Fabi shuddered and crossed his chest. There was nothing quite like dirty sinners who had lived a lawless life fearing divine retribution, as if their blood-soaked old soulsstill had a shot at heaven. I was a sinner too, but I didn’t expect anything other than the inferno at the end of my days. I’d always been a realist.
The sight of Fabio crossing himself called to mind my next target. A priest, no less. My job as a contract killer had taken me to all kinds of places, from palaces to gambling dens; diplomatic summits to boardrooms to holding cells; but never church. How exciting to have something new to look forward to.
“You sent her to a hospital to have your bastard, and she never left. Your sentence is already written—that’s not up for discussion,” I told him, taking a knife from my belt. It was thin and delicate. The kind that chefs used to separate flesh from bone.
I twirled it expertly between my fingers, and Fabio stared at it, petrified.
“The only thing you’re dictating now with your silence is how long your end will take and how much it’ll hurt.”
Fabio wet his shiny, bloodstained lips. “She went crazy, you know. In the end, she was a danger to that baby. She thought she was talking to angels.”
“And who are you to say she wasn’t?” My anger kindled, and I lowered my knife to his hand. A few cuts later, I raised a flap of skin in the air on the tip of the knife and waved it. “Call her crazy again, and I’ll do your ball sack next.”
Fabio went white. He clutched his hand to his chest. “I don’t remember, I swear. It was so long ago.”
The anger growing in my chest went quiet for a moment.
“I need the name,” I insisted.
He nodded. “Fuck! You think if I knew I wouldn’t tell you?” He glanced around. “Santa something.. .”
“Where is it?” I demanded next.