by B. B. Hamel
They saved my life. I was on a dark path, one strike away from going into the juvenile detention system. From there, I could just imagine what my life would have been like: petty crime, drugs, senseless violence, and ceaseless poverty.
But the mafia gave me purpose. And money, lots of fucking money, so long as I was good at my job and followed orders.
I did what I was told, and I was rewarded for it. I killed who they needed killed and I never asked questions. I trusted them, trusted my superiors, and it never occurred to me that they might not know what they were talking about.
We stopped outside the rundown row home and Abram gestured for me to go around back. I nodded and slipped past the building, silent as a shadow, keeping low and close to the building. I jumped the back fence and landed on my feet, light and easy.
There was no light, which suited me just fine. For whatever reason, I could see great in the dark and had no trouble navigating around where other people were just blindly stumbling.
The yard was a shithole. It was full of trash, literal bags of garbage, and it stank to all fucking hell. I couldn’t believe a man lived with this, but apparently he did. I moved along the concrete back porch and stood next to the back door.
I checked the windows but couldn’t see past the blinds. I listened for a moment before getting out my lock pick tools. I made quick work of that lock and gently turned the knob.
The door fell open. Inside was a grungy kitchen, plates piled up in the sink, table covered in half-full ashtrays and newspapers. The smell outside followed me in as I softly shut the door behind me.
I didn’t hear a fucking peep. I stayed silent in the kitchen for a minute, listening, but there was nothing. I moved down the hall toward the front door, passing photographs hanging on the walls. I unlocked the front door and pulled it open. Abram slipped inside, shutting the door behind him.
“Well?” he whispered.
I shook my head and gestured at the stairs. He nodded.
I climbed the steps, Abram at my back. There were magazines piled up against the wall, a sure sign of a hoarder. I got to the top of the steps and looked down the hall.
Nothing. Total silence. The doors were all shut, but I knew these row homes like the back of my hand. They were all the same in Chicago, more or less. The master bedroom would be the first door on the right, and that Russian scumbag would be in there.
I pressed my ear up against the door and listened. Inside I could faintly make out the rumbling sound of a drunk-as-fuck man snoring like a chainsaw.
Abram nudged me and pulled out his gun. I nodded, taking mine out, and then kicked open the door.
We rushed into the bedroom. The place was dingy and small, or at least it seemed small because of all the boxes stacked all over. I wasn’t looking too closely at them, but they were all full of junk as far as I could tell. In the center of the room was a single bed, a bare mattress suspended on four metal legs and plywood. A fat man was lying there, snoring like a beached whale.
Abram walked over to the man and kicked him. He grumbled and rolled over but didn’t wake up. Abram grinned at me and then kicked the guy again, much harder. He jolted awake, confused and disoriented.
“Rise and shine, mother fucker,” Abram said.
We held our guns out to him.
“Oh shit,” he said. “Shit shit shit. Please, no. You don’t have to do this.”
“Do you know why we’re here?” I asked him.
“I can get you the money. Look, under this mattress. I can get you more later. Please, you don’t have to kill me. I’m not worth anything dead.”
“Fucking asshole,” Abram muttered.
“Listen to me, Karsov,” I said to him. “We’re not your fucking bookies. We’re here from the Barone family.”
Comprehension slowly dawned on his face, followed by an even deeper fear. He was realizing that he wasn’t going to be able to talk or buy himself out of this.
We were angels of death, hit men for the mob. You didn’t meet us and live to talk about it.
“I have more,” he said softly. “I can give you more.”
“And what, turn around and give some secrets back to the Russians?” I asked him. “Gian knows you’ve been playing both sides, and he is very, very fucking pissed.”
“I haven’t,” he said. “I swear it. Please.”
“Gian says this is the price of your own greed. Good night, Mister Karsov.”
Abram and I pulled our triggers at the same time, putting bullets through Karsov’s skull.
He collapsed back onto the dirty mattress, blood spreading out around him.
Abram looked at me, slipping his gun back into his pants. “Easy,” he said.
“We’re not done,” I said. “Check downstairs. You know the drill.”
He made a face. “The guy doesn’t have family. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I gave him a look. “Go, Abram.”
“Fuck. Fine.” He left the room and headed back downstairs.
I moved back out into the hallway, keeping my gun out. I didn’t think I’d need it, but it was our job to make sure that there were no witnesses. Hit men couldn’t be seen, couldn’t be known. If our identities got out, we’d be under attack almost immediately. Too many people wanted me dead for killings I’d been ordered on to ever be able to give my true identity. That was part of why we worked in pairs; we were meant to watch each other’s backs, but also to split the killings between us. It was harder to get revenge if two men were equally at fault for the death of your family. But we rarely worked with the same partner twice in a row, since the bosses didn’t want us to get too familiar with each other.
I knew Abram, but not well. We’d worked together on a hit a year earlier, another in-and-out job. I didn’t know much about him, though I’d seen him hanging around. We kept a distance from each other out of mutual respect for the most part.
I looked through the first two rooms and found nothing. They were about as dirty as I was expecting, and full of junk as well. The guy was clearly a hoarder on top of his gambling and drinking problems.
I had only one more room to check. I went to the last door in the hallway and tried the knob.
It was locked.
Gritting my teeth, I got out my lock pick set and quickly worked it open. I pushed the door slowly in and stepped inside silently.
It was the cleanest room in the house. The bed was neatly made, though the covers were thrown back on one side. There were pictures on the walls and a clock on the side table, plus a little desk and a laptop against another wall.
I looked around and sighed. I walked over to the closet and threw it open.
She looked up at me defiantly, her lips hanging slightly open. I took a step back and felt like someone had kicked me in the chest.
She was beautiful, absolutely fucking gorgeous. Big green eyes, long, full hair, and a body like nothing I’d ever seen. She took a step out of the closet toward me, her body covered only by a thin white T-shirt and black panties. Her legs were long and muscular, and I could feel my cock stirring in my pants.
But what really drew me to her was the hideous bruise around her otherwise beautiful eye. It looked a couple of days old, and most of the swelling had gone down, but I was familiar enough with bruises on women to know exactly what it meant.
“Who did that to you?” I asked her.
She stared at me silently for a second. “The man you just murdered,” she said.
I nodded slowly and raised my gun. She didn’t flinch or move, just stared back at me.
“Well?” she asked after a moment. “Are you going to do it or not?”
I took a sharp breath. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to pull the trigger. I didn’t understand it, but I kept staring at that bruise and thinking about the state of the house.
This poor fucking girl. She was probably about my age, maybe a couple years younger, and she clearly had been stuck in a fucking hellhole living with her horr
ible father for a long time. And to top it all off, that dead bastard in the other room was beating her.
None of that should matter. My job was to kill her and leave. I wasn’t supposed to leave any witnesses.
“Get back in the closet,” I ordered her as I lowered the gun, “and don’t make a fucking noise.”
“What?” She stared at me, surprised. I could see the fear slowly creeping back into her face.
“Hurry. Get in.”
As she stepped back, I heard a creak in the hallway.
“Brooks? The fuck you doing?”
Abram stepped into the room and stared at us.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked again, raising his weapon.
“No,” I said, stepping toward him.
“What do you mean? We can’t leave any fucking witnesses. You know that.”
I didn’t know what I was doing. If Abram hadn’t come upstairs, we could have just left and I never would have had to hurt the girl. She could have gone on living, finally able to escape from her piece-of-shit father.
Instead, I was digging myself further and further into a hole, all for this girl I didn’t know. All because of her defiant look, her black eye, her beautiful body and lips.
“Abram,” I said, putting my hand on his gun, “this one is mine. I’m taking her with me.”
“Shit, Brooks,” he said. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“I said I was fucking taking her with me. The bitch is mine.”
He looked at me and slowly lowered his weapon. It wasn’t completely unheard of for one of us to take a little prize home, but only the sickest, most sadistic bastards ever did.
Because once you were done using your prize, you had to get rid of it.
“Shit, man,” he said. “I didn’t know you were like that.”
“Guess you thought wrong,” I said.
“You know you have to ice her eventually, right?”
“I fucking know that.”
“Well then.” He grinned at me. “You have some fun with her.”
I turned back toward the girl and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her out. “Come on,” I said to her.
“Where are you taking me?”
Abram was staring at me. I shoved her down onto the bed and loomed over her, pinning her down. She stared back at me, fear fresh in her eyes again. I fucking hated doing this, but I had to play my role. Otherwise Abram would get suspicious.
“Listen to me,” I said softly. “You’re fucking mine now. You understand? You want to keep breathing for however long you have left, you’ll do exactly as I say. Understand?”
She stared at me, anger in her eyes, mixing with the fear. “I understand.”
“I’m taking you with me,” I said, pressing my lips against her ear. “Unless you want to die here.”
“Okay,” she answered.
“Good.” I moved back and dragged her off the bed. “Come on.”
Abram grinned at me as I marched her back down the hall. I practically dragged her down the steps, Abram following close behind. I didn’t know what he was thinking or how he felt about this sort of thing, but I couldn’t bother asking. We got to the bottom and I shoved her at the door.
“Walk,” I said.
She didn’t even glance back at me. She just stepped out the front door.
Abram came up behind me. “Damn, man,” he said. “If I had gotten a better look, I might have taken this one myself.”
I glared at him. “Careful.”
He grinned, holding his hands up. “She’s all yours, my man.”
I walked out and grabbed her by the arm. We moved down the street quickly, and I shoved her into the backseat. Abram got into the driver’s seat and I sat shotgun.
We drove in silence, heading back toward the club. The city streets flashed by, and I felt a lump of uncertainty in my chest.
What the fuck was I doing?
I couldn’t take this girl and kill her. I’d already decided that back in her bedroom. But the longer I let this go on, the worse it was going to be.
“Drop me at my place,” I said.
“You sure? Boss said to come back when we were done.”
“I know,” I said, “but the girl has no fucking pants on. I’ll secure her and then meet you there.”
“Damn. Brutal.” He laughed. “I like your style, man.”
“Just fucking do it.”
“You got it.”
We drove for a few minutes longer. I glanced back at the girl and she was staring at me, fire in her eyes, all defiance and anger and fear. She looked like a beautiful caged animal, ready to lash out at any moment.
Finally Abram pulled up outside my place. “See you in a few,” he said.
“Yeah. See you.”
I climbed out of the car and then opened the back door. I reached in and dragged the girl out. She wasn’t cooperating, but she wasn’t exactly fighting me either. She simply moved, deadened, a sullen look on her face.
As I pushed her up the stoop, quickly hustling her into my apartment before anyone could see her, I realized that I had no game plan.
I’d never taken a woman like this before. Frankly, I hated killing women and avoided it when at all possible. I might have been a killer, but I had a fucking conscience at least.
There was no way this was going to end well. I cursed at myself, angry that I hadn’t killed Abram back in that car when I’d had the chance.
It was too late for that now, though. The girl was mine, and I was going to have to figure out what to do with her before it was too late.
As I opened my apartment door, she just stared at me wordlessly, angry and gorgeous.
2
Emma
If I said that was the first time I’d been shoved into a closet and locked in there against my will, I’d be a liar.
My father wasn’t always such a bad man. When I was younger, he taught me some Russian and would take me to the park to play softball. He’d say to me, “Look, little Emma doll, you must catch this ball or else it will break you in two.” And even though I was afraid of the ball at first, I was even more afraid of being broken, and so I put my glove out there and caught every ball he lobbed at me.
My father was a gangster, not a very important one, and he wasn’t really very good at it, but he was still a part of the Russian mob. He used to be proud of that fact, though later on it became more and more of a burden.
As for my mother, I could still remember her. Barely, but I could. She was always smiling in my memories, her long brown hair dipping down along her shoulders. She’d pick me up way above her head and I’d laugh along with her.
She died when I was very young. It was cancer, but at the time I didn’t understand it. She’d been a heavy smoker most of her life, and that did her in far too young. I wish I didn’t remember the hospital beds, the gaunt look in her eyes, the fear and the sadness, but I did.
It was a slow thing, and when my mom finally went, my father went with her, or at least the part of him that I loved. He turned back to drinking, back to gambling, and slowly he morphed into the piece of shit that got murdered in his own bedroom.
I hated living in his house, but I had nowhere else to go. After my mom died, he’d tell me that I could never leave him. I remember vividly one night when I was eleven years old, he came into my room, reeking of vodka.
“Little Emma doll,” he said to me. “Little Emma, you’d never leave your father, would you?”
“Of course not, Papa,” I said. “I’d never leave you.”
“Your mother left me, Emma. She left me here alone to take care of your spoiled ass, and now you want to leave me too.”
I could see the anger and the grief in his eyes, even at eleven years old. I knew that night that my papa was gone, and he was never coming back.
He didn’t start hitting me until a few years later. I was in high school and was starting to get my own life. I had a job as a waitress at a bar and I had friends. He didn’t li
ke that, didn’t like my freedom, and sometimes he’d come home and take that anger out on me.
He’d always accuse me of wanting to leave him. The irony was, as much as I really hated him and wanted to get away, I never did. He was still my father, as pathetic as he was, and I still had to try to take care of him.
All through high school I took his beatings, his angry words, his drunken mess. I watched as the house got dirtier, more cluttered, and I watched as he became less and less the man I once knew.
I got good at makeup to cover the bruises. I got good at lying, at protecting myself. For the most part, I could read his moods, and I knew when to stay in the house and when to get out for a few hours until he eventually passed out from drink.
Life went like that all through high school, but eventually I’d had enough of it.
I wasn’t going to college. There was no way I could afford it, even if I could get in. The only dream I had was escape. Day in and day out, I cared less and less about taking care of my disgusting drunk father and more about getting out.
So I saved every dime I had. I hid it all over the house so that he wouldn’t find it, but inevitably he’d find it and steal it from me.
Once, he was so enraged that I was hiding three thousand dollars from him that he threw me in a closet and left me there for a full day.
That was the first time I was locked in a closet.
It went like that and the years passed. I didn’t have many close friends, because I couldn’t open myself up to them. My father stole every dime I saved, and so I saved more, dreaming of escape.
And then one night they came for him.
I heard them on the stairs, and I knew. There had been whispers in the neighborhood that my father was doing something stupid, but I didn’t believe them.
When I heard him pleading for his life, I believed, and so I ran into the closet and hid myself.
Soon, the begging stopped, but the men didn’t go away. I heard them moving through the house, and finally I heard my door swing open.