Gamble

by Nicholas Bella

  “Let me out, I’ll get in and open the door,” Bishop said, and I did.

  It didn’t take long for him to break in and open the garage door for me. I pulled the car inside and killed the engine. He went around closing all the drapes, which was smart. I figured we should set up shop in the garage. No windows, thick walls, it’d be hard for people to hear him scream. I didn’t want to take any chances, it didn’t matter that the closest neighbor was half a mile away. We worked together to find a chair to strap the guy to. The house had some furnishings, which was good. I guessed they were doing their best to make it appealing, but as far as I was concerned, that was a lost cause.

  The place was a fucking eyesore. Bright ass colorful mosaic artwork from ceiling to floor, enough to make you think you were looking through a kaleidoscope. Curse the people who did this to this poor abode. Shit, the only thing that might make this motherfucker talk would be to sit him in the living room and have him stare at the walls. He’d break down eventually or go insane. Well, at least the lights and water worked and I enjoyed guzzling it down as I drank from the faucet.

  “Are you ready to deal with this guy?” Bishop asked as he leaned against the kitchen doorframe.

  I swallowed one last time and licked my lips before turning to face him. “Sure.”

  He nodded, then pushed himself off the frame and I followed him to the garage. We didn’t go inside right away. I had to wait for Bishop to strip, then go invisible and once he did, then we entered. I made my way over to where the guy was waiting and wide awake. He’d been awake when we first pulled him out of the trunk and I would bet he’d heard quite the earful. His mouth was tied with a handkerchief that I had pulled out of my jacket pocket.

  I could sense Bishop near me, it was something I was getting used to, his “presence”.

  I stood over the assassin, getting a good look at him. He was an older man, balding in the middle, graying at the sides. A scruffy beard and mustache, pudgy around the waist. Blue eyes that were big and round, making him look very unassuming. The way he took Richard out proved that he was no amateur. He wasn’t someone the Killing Game hired off the streets. This guy was a pro and I wondered just how many people he’d killed. Perhaps, I’d ask him.

  I removed the binding on his mouth and he spat at me. I backhanded him, knocking his head to the side, and I was sure it was enough to make him a little dizzy. He spit blood on the floor and I smiled, because he got the message. I placed my hand on his shoulder the way I had with Richard and felt Bishop’s fingers slide between mine.

  “I don’t know how much you know about us, but I’m sure you know that I’m not fucking around,” I said.

  He said something to me in Russia and Alexi was on it.

  “He told you to go suck your momma’s pussy,” Alexi said.

  “Now, that was rude,” I told the man.

  “Tell him this, it will hopefully stop him from talking in Russian if he thinks you can speak it. Try not to fuck up the pronunciation,” Alexi said, then he spoke slowly so I could catch it all. Problem was, I didn’t catch it all. I had short comings and linguistics was one of them. When I didn’t repeat him, I could hear Alexi’s impatient sigh. “Oh, for fuck’s sake… is this easier?” he asked, then rattled off another line in Russian, which was a little easier.

  I repeated it to the best of my ability and hoped that was good enough.

  “Not bad,” Alexi said.

  And by the snarl on the assassin’s face, he got the message just fine. “I have nothing to say to you,” he said with a heavy, thick Russian accent.

  “Today wasn’t your first job, how many people have you killed?” I asked, now that the ball was rolling.

  “More than you have fingers and toes,” he bragged. “Where is your partner?”

  “Taking a shit on your mamma, I heard she’s into that kind of thing. Now, who hired you to kill Richard Tate?”

  He laughed, then spit on the floor again. “You’re going to kill me anyway, why should I talk?”

  “I could kill you slowly and painfully or mercifully. And let’s not get it twisted, motherfucker, you’re an assassin who would have killed me had my partner not stopped you. So, let’s stop pretending that I’m being mean to you,” I said.

  Again, he laughed. “Ah, fuck it. They paid me shit all these years anyway. Fuck em,” he said, which caught me off guard.

  “So, I don’t have to pull off your fingernails?” I asked, one eyebrow cocked.

  “Like you said, I’m dead either way. I’d prefer not to suffer. I’ve never made my targets suffer; always, I was quick, bullet to the head. Car bomb, poison… dead in seconds, not minutes, not hours,” he said.

  I nodded. “Fair enough. Start with your name.”

  “Igor Gregov,” he said.

  “I’m looking him up now,” I heard Jordan say through the comm.

  “Who hired you?”

  “Don’t know, everything is confidential. I get text of place and time, photos of who, and wired half the money, the other half due upon completion. Everything compartmentalized, that way nothing can be traced,” Igor said.

  “What is the wire account number and text number?”

  “You won’t be able to trace the phone number, burners only.”

  “Money?”

  “Well, if you have skills…” he shrugged. “Maybe, but I don’t have it with me.”

  “Is it at your home?”

  He nodded.

  “And where is that?”

  “I tell you if you promise not to kill my wife and daughter. They… they don’t know what I do,” he said.

  “Then they are innocent, and I don’t kill innocent people,” I said. “You have my word.”

  He nodded, which was surprisingly trusting of him. Made me wonder just how much he had heard and pieced together from the trunk. “I have room under garage, my space. You’ll find what you’re looking for there.”

  “Key to open or code?”

  “Both in case power goes out, but code is 5340,” he said.

  Damn, this was probably the easiest interrogation I’d ever conducted.

  “What can you tell me about the people who run the Killing Game?”

  “I… I know nothing about the Killing Game. I get target, I eliminate target. I’m on retainer. Now, just make it quick,” he said, then looked at me straight in the eyes as if daring me to follow through with my threat.

  I felt Bishop’s hand leave mine and knew he was probably turning away from what I was about to do. I looked at Igor. “Do you know Zia Ivanov?”

  “Who?”

  “Zia Ivanov Romanski,” I repeated, this time adding her married name to the picture.

  “Mrs. Romanski… yes, all of St. Petersburg knows her and her famous politician husband. Do you think she hired me?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “But why? No, no, never mind, it doesn’t matter. The ‘why’ never does.” He shook his head, then looked back up at me. “I was to kill Richard Tate and his two bodyguards, I failed. I’m dead anyway. Give the money, please, to my wife and daughter, tell them to leave Russia. Give them the package you find with the money, please. That is all I ask.”

  I nodded. “I will,” I said, then pulled my gun from its holster.

  “You will do it quickly?” he asked.

  I aimed my barrel right between his big, round, blue eyes and fired. The back of his head exploded in a splash of blood and bone fragments and it decorated the white wall behind him. He slumped forward and more blood poured from the wound in his skull onto his lap. I slipped my gun back into my holster and turned to see a naked Bishop with his back turned from me.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him.

  He held his hand up at me, but nodded. “I just need a minute,” he said.

  “Cobra,” Alexi’s voice came over the comm.

  “Yes, Silver Fox?”

  “How do you feel right now, having just killed a man?”

  “Glad that it’s h
im and not me. Glad that I put a killer down. I don’t feel remorse, Silver Fox, not when I kill people who would hurt innocent people. I feel justified. Does this bother you?” I asked. He saw it all if he hadn’t turned away. The question was, would he have been able to do what I’d just done if he were in my shoes.

  “I’m still processing,” Alexi said.

  “Well, I’m hungry,” I said, then removed my sunglasses because I just wanted to see in a brighter room. Plus, they needed charging. I also removed the comm. I could call them on the phone, which was the plan after I got Bishop and me something to eat. I walked over to him. “I’ll take care of the body. What do you want to eat?”

  He looked up at me, frowning. “You really aren’t all there, are you?”

  “Meaning?”

  “I mean, you just killed a man and you’re talking about eating food. How can you even eat after that?”

  “I’m hungry and I don’t see why I should starve because another asshole is dead,” I pointed out.

  “By your hands.”

  “And there will be others to follow. Look, didn’t we just have this fucking conversation?”

  He held up his hand. “You’re right… you’re right. It’s just… it’s different talking about the possibility and actually witnessing it. I’ll be fine. Just don’t have an appetite at the moment.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll grab us some beef stroganoff. You like that, right? Your appetite might come back.”

  He nodded. “That’s fine. I’m going to get dressed,” he said, then walked out of the garage. I was sure he just wanted to be out of the same room as a corpse.

  I stopped him before he could close the door. “Hey, was he telling the truth?”

  Bishop nodded. “Every word.” Then he closed the door.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said, then open the garage door. Once we ate, we could discuss our next move. Of course, now that I knew who Zia was, I was about to make her life a living hell. Her and her husband. And now that we knew who just one of the board members were, he was my next stop after Russia. Through him, I was going to find the names of the other two and possibly work my way down the tree, killing every branch on the way to the top.

  Game on, motherfuckers.

  Cobra: The Vigilante will continue in: Targets