Besides, Sonya will be meeting up with us there to see her mother for the first time in many, many years, and I cannot wait to see that reunion !
“Do you think we have enough winter clothes for Max?” I ask, biting my lip.
Andrei shrugs and lifts an eyebrow, a mischievous look crossing his face.
“We could always take him shopping in Europe.”
I beam at him. “Europe,” I breathe dreamily. “I never thought I would leave my hometown, much less travel the world!”
“And I never thought I would have a wife or a baby,” Andrei says. “I never thought I could possibly have this kind of life.”
“Then that makes two of us,” I add, reaching over to take his hand.
He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses it, causing Max to make a delighted gurgling noise.
All three of us laugh, snuggled together under the sunny skies, a colorful life full of love and adventure ahead. I can’t wait.
Owned by the Hitman
Prologue – Ivan
Just one more hit, and the night is mine.
Of course, that’s easily said. But a hit is not always easy. It takes calm and composure when the world is chaos, when any one little thing can go wrong and send the whole mess spiralling out of control. It takes control over your actions, a steady hand, the death of anxiety, because worry does you in every time.
For those reasons, and more, amateurs tend to do a hit from far away. Or if they don’t have the equipment to snipe someone from a distance, they haul out a gun, fire like crazy, then run in a mad dash to get away.
I’ve never done a sloppy hit like that, not about to start now.
This guy I’m after is too good for that to work anyhow. He’s either always flanked by bodyguards, or in the middle of a crowd. I know this because I’ve been following him for weeks. Planning my move. He’s good, shakes things up, not much of a fixed schedule, but like all men with power, this guy has his vices. Vices he doesn’t even trust his own bodyguards to keep quiet.
For the third time this week, I walk behind him as he makes his way through a busy crowd down the street. This guy -- a trumped up millionaire from Florida who made his fortune selling coke to college kids, who enforced his reign by brutally beating punks who couldn’t pay, and is now here in my city, offing people left and right -- he deserves to die.
He’s balding, even though he’s only in his thirties. A life of constant paranoia will do that to you, stress you out. But at this point I’m just annoyed he’s dragged my ass around New York for weeks, doing my best to look inconspicuous, to blend in and not seem like I was watching. I’m sick of this shit stain, and ready to wipe him clean from the city.
So as he slipped out the back of the Italian mob owned deli and heads through the crowds down a side alley, I’m grateful.
I can finally end this.
But the alleyway is barely five car lengths long, a gun won’t do here. No, I have to go in personal.
My black shoes are shiny, fancy looking. But they’re quiet. And for a moment, we’re just two well-dressed men taking a shortcut to any passerby. But my window of opportunity is narrow.
My heart skips a beat, and it’s like time slows.
I’m gonna kill you, you son of a bitch.
But I can’t hurry. Smooth steps, my hand reaching into my charcoal grey coat. And out comes the knife. It doesn’t gleam, doesn’t glisten. This one is a dull colour, but sharp. So sharp.
I close in on my prey, but he’s a canny guy, and he detects me, his head twisting about.
But I’m better than him. And it’s too damn late anyhow.
His turn only helps me, and I grab him about the mouth, his cries silenced. Now I gotta end this fast, before some person on either side of the alleyway walks by and notices us.
My knife slices through the air, and while I know it’ll make a mess of my coat, that’s the price to pay. The other options are too risky. I could stab him in the chest, but then he could block me, and though he’s stocky and overweight, he might have hidden strength that could mess up my blade’s arc.
The throat? Fuck, that’s for amateurs. A killer like me knows when you slice a man’s throat open, it’s a noisy affair. Blood gurgling sounds would fill the alleyway, his dying cries drawing all sorts of attention.
So instead, I go for the heart. Right between two of his ribs I plunge that blade, and I sink into his left ventricle. I know it, because I’ve done it before. Because I can feel the way the blade moves through that muscular flesh of a man’s heart.
This thug tries to cry out, tries to struggle away, but my blade slices clear through the center of his heart and into the right atrium.
He’s done.