Sold to the Hitman(54)

To think that Cassie was so close to being bought by this monster fills me with enough rage to step outside my profession and murder him with my own bare hands. I need to kill this man to keep Cassie safe from him. If he’s that bitter about being outbid, it’s only going to be a matter of time before he goes after what’s mine. It is enough to make me think my dear wife’s God does indeed watch out for her.

Even if he must use foul men such as me.

The contract from one of the relatives of the murdered girls calling for Kasym’s death could not have been more timely. Nor is it a surprise. I’ve garnered something of a reputation for such hits since completing the contract that ended Boris’s life. I may be the Shadow, but witnesses spread rumors, and the woman I saved could not be expected not to talk. I knew it was a liability, but I can no longer turn a blind eye to plights like hers. I have to take action, and I will do so the only way I know how.

And my time making friends in low places has been more of a help than I could ever have imagined. As I gathered information on Kasym, I realized how many of the men are quietly disgruntled with the change in tone he’s brought with him to the Bratva. Many of them don’t care for his fast and loose lifestyle, nor for the brutality that inevitably comes with such displays of wealth. He’s bringing risk to all our Brotherhood with his brutality, and they all know it’s only a matter of time before his carelessness brings us all down. He has no concern with greasing cops, or setting up a fall guy.

More than a few of those connections helped me get here tonight.

I hear the door to the bedroom swing open, muffled through the bathroom door, Kasym’s loud laughter roaring and boisterous. There are two other sets of footsteps that accompany his, just as expected.

“...and that dog won me more money than all the other pups that night combined! Ha! To think it was the runt of the litter! Didn’t seem so runtish with all that blood on its jaws!” Kasym’s voice makes a bizarre barking noise, and the feminine voices with him give a forced laugh at his disgusting antics.

“Now you,” he says to one of them, “get to start with me early. You,” he says presumably to the other, “go get yourself cleaned up before the fun. Don’t want you stinking up the new sheets.”

“I won’t keep you waiting too long,” the voice of the second woman teases, but I can hear the fear behind her voice.

The bathroom door opens, and I remain deathly still. She knows I’m behind the curtain, but whether she can pretend she doesn’t may jeopardize the entire hit. She closes the door and runs the water in the sink, and the moment she thinks she’s out of earshot of Kasym, I hear her suppress a sob. I want desperately to tap the side of the tub to remind her this is all part of the game, but I know I have to resist.

I hear her freshen up a bit before stripping some of the clothes from her body and stepping back outside.

“All yours, baby,” she says, and she’s soon answered by a dark chuckle from Kasym. I can already hear the first woman grinding on him, her breathy gasps loud and forced — that much is obvious to someone who’s heard the real thing.

I wait only a minute. I hear Kasym’s voice whispering to the girls as they begin their work on him, and I know we have a time limit to work with.

Stealthy as a wolf, I rise from my position in the bath and very slowly pull the curtain back.

The sex worker who had been in the bathroom had left the door open but nearly shut, and something on the mirror caught my eye. She’d used the lipstick she was applying to write a message on the corner of the mirror:

First moan

I cock my gun and put my shoulder against the door gingerly, waiting, listening. Contact like this is dangerous, because there’s so much room for error or miscommunication. Every small gasp I hear faked from the girls in the room could make me twitch, but I wait, a bead of sweat rolling down my forehead as I prepare for the most dangerous hit of my life.

Then, an unmistakable cry of feigned ecstasy.

I shove the door open, and as I do, like clockwork, the two naked women on either side of Kasym in his satin-sheeted bed seize one of his arms and pin him down. Kasym, his eyes wide as baseballs and his body naked and exposed, hardly has time to react before I step forward, my face stony as a statue of a saint, and I unload three rounds into him: two to the chest, then one to the head.

In all of two seconds, it’s over.

The women had held their heads down the moment I pushed the door open, bracing for what would happen. It was such a risk, having them so close like that, but it was one they had volunteered for when I contacted them for information about the hit.