KYOLINE DIEGO opened her mouth but shut it again. She couldn't believe that he had put her through that. Scaring the living daylights out of her and asking her all those questions. Intrusive questions.
She wondered what TENZ JER'SEY would do if he realized ISAAC had informed her that she could do better than him as a boyfriend. Although the sane part of her told her not to stir up trouble. Made men were volatile, moody, and violent. And she didn't want to cause any trouble between TENZ JER'SEY and his other made men.
And she wasn't going to see ISAAC again, either. Christ, it'd nearly been as hard to get her out of his car as it'd been to get her in the first place.
ISAAC watched as KYOLINE ran into the casino and straight into the arms of TENZ JER'SEY. And through the still-open door, he watched her boyfriend hug her close and kiss her long and hard.
When he saw that, a knot gripped in his chest, hard and sudden. But he shoved it aside, and with his eyes closed, his white-knuckled hold on the steering wheel clamped tighter.
Eighteen. Jesus, she's a kid. Too young to be caught up in all this garbage. But he shouldn't be surprised based on how most of them started with all of this.
He was born to the VENETI FAMILY, and being born to them meant he was born to the KASH MANCHESTER mafia. And being their hitter was the only thing that kept him fucking sane.
But KYOLINE DIEGO. She had a delectably defiant angle to her chin, and he couldn't help it, it had gotten to him. And watching her mutter in silence in the seat beside him on the ride home had given a whole new kind of high.
And he couldn't help but let his mind wander back to why he had picked up a girl in a swiped gold dress today…
TWO DAYS EARLIER
A painful memory flashed in his mind, but he shoved the thought into that dark box in his head. Shoving it as deep and as far as he could.
A sigh exhaled from his nostrils as he sat down on the rooftop.
No distractions. No relationships. No feelings.
Those were his three principles. Distractions were the tactics of weak men. Relationships softened you up. And emotions made you a fucking idiot.
He did not do any of those. How many men had he lost to killing because they get involved with the wrong woman? Or worse, because they let their feelings get in the way so that they do stupid stuff like MIRO did here? Not him. That stupidity was just seeking trouble.
His eyes returned to the photograph with his binoculars, observing his prey in his house from the empty property next door. Empty because he'd killed the owner a few hours earlier.
He glanced briefly at his watch. Five minutes and forty-two seconds until he'd taken his last breath. And he couldn't fucking wait.
A smile toyed on his lips as he watched him stuff another couple thousand into the black duffle bag. Not his, but theirs.
His grin grew only stronger as he counted the hands around slowly on his watch.
He had it down to the second. Every move and interruption choreographed for and measured.
Like a game of chess—where every move had been planned and replied.
Because that was the sole way of emerging victorious in a game such as this.
As his watch ticked past 10 p.m., he activated his countdown timer to measure out the last three hundred seconds of his miserable existence. Five minutes—that were all that remained for him.
He hacked into his security system and disabled it. And a game of chess was had.
The target lifted his phone as it flashed with the warning that his security system had been breached. His eyes opened wide as he dialed a number into his cell's speed dial.
ISAAC jammed the signal. The target reached for his landline to call for help.
ISAAC cut the juice.
The target grabbed his radio.
ISAAC scrambled the waves into a shitty pattern of static.
The target seized his panic button.
ISAAC cut in line to the battery.
The victim bellowed for his best dollar bodyguards.
ISAAC pulled out his sniper and fired. One guard dropped like a pupryped marionette with its strings cut. The other didn't have time to turn before a bullet hole showed up in his forehead. The last three scurried for cover—but he was faster. Three shots. Three dead bodies.
He sprinted out of the building and across to the target's villa. Boots scraped against the spotless limestone wall, and he vaulted over it and dropped silently on his feet.
Showtime.
A flick of a neck. And the guard crumpled.
He took a risk to look at the windows where MIRO strode back and forth in his study. His lip curled as he took out the other two guards in the same swift motion.
He strained his neck until it cracked, easing the tension. His shoulders hunched into the upright position ready to begin piling the bodies together. Neater to clean if they were all in a neat little pile. The cleaning boys would thank him for being so fucking considerate. They wouldn't, but a man could hope.
He entered MIRO's mansion villa.
It had taken him six days to prepare everything for this evening. Precise. Leave nothing to chance.
MIRO believed himself to be clever. But ISAAC was fucking more clever.
He arrived at the study, and the door just burst open, and the blustering idiot cursed him in Italian. Praying God and him to get him out of there.
But God wasn't listening—and the devil didn't care.
MIRO crept back to his hiding spot for the pearl-handled pistol he had hidden there to protect himself.
A pistol ISAAC already had lodged in his combats' waistband.
He shook his head, tugging his shirt to expose him his pistol—the sole hope he thought he had of staying alive.
Check.
There were sixty seconds remaining. MIRO tried to make a run.
And bullets in his kneecaps prevented him from moving even an inch.
"Please…." he croaked in fractured English.".
This was the bit that ISAAC hated. The grovelling and snivelling. As if that would fucking make him change his mind. It never did. He didn't fucking care.
"I—I didn't know…"
"Not my problem," he spat with a bored tone.
"I can pay you."
"Nah. Not interested."
"My knees are fucking killing me… Oh Jesus, why did you have to shoot me? What can I give you…"
He shook his head. It did work, though, but they always did attempt it. It was as predictable as it was dull. And he did miss the challenge of it all. Though no two shots were ever different, men were just quite willing to be unimaginative when put to gunpoint.
"Send Saint Peter my greetings, son of a puta."
The muzzle flash filled the air. "".
The strangle of his yell was choked off abruptly.
And the impact of his body resounded in the study as he collapsed back.
Briefly looking at his watch, it had all gone perfectly right down to the last single second. Like fucking clockwork.
Check and fucking mate.
Silence descended. Thank fucking God he didn't have to listen to any more of his fucking pitiful requests. Maybe he needed to send these men a handbook: One Hundred Creative Things To Say In Case An Assassin Ever Invites Himself Into Your House.
He liked the quiet. His eyes shut, and he let it out.
Pathetic fucker. He kicked his foot out from under him, shaking his head when he opened his eyes. His mouth twisted into a cold smile of pleasure. It should disturb him how well he did this. How effortlessly it came. A better man would be wracked by how many times he had schemed a man's murder to his last gasp of a strangled breath, the sheer number of men he'd sent along on their way to Saint Peter—though more accurately it could be said he'd sent them along on their merry way to meet with Hades.
He wasn't a better man. And it didn't fucking bother him.
He was a VENETI. A hitman for the KASH MANCHESTER. The greatest hitman, damn it. Feelings and guilt didn't have any place in his life. Least of all over this fucker. He should have been more careful about who he tried to roll.
The smooth of his tongue was pushed against his teeth as he shoved his gun into the back of his waistband, resting MIRO'S fucking joke of a gun across his back.
He took another little sigh and headed toward the door, reaching for his phone just as it started to ring.
Shit. VINCENT DANZA.
He chided himself mentally. Things had been moving so fast here that he never had the chance to properly catch up with him in a while, and he was certain he was probably wondering why he had not called. For apart from being his cousin, he was now also the Capo of the KASH MANCHESTER.
He stuck his phone between shoulder and ear as he sprinted down the stairs. "What's happening?" he demanded as he belted into his car, not deigning to waste breath on pleasantries. This was a crisis. One that he would have to clean up.
"You need to come back."
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. "Come back? To New York?"
"Yes."
New York. He was going somewhere with his thoughts, so he shook his head. His history was a walk-in closet of pain that he was not prepared to enter. "An assignment?" "Can't tell you over the phone."
Well, fuck, that was bad.
His lip curled at the thought of even stepping foot in fucking New York. He clenched his teeth and shook his head. There was a reason he had gotten out of New York and based himself out of SUDAN. He had needed as much distance as possible from the guilt. From the memories.
The ghostly presence that haunted the city caused bile to creep up at the back of his throat. He suppressed the feeling. Concealing the feeling that gnawed at his chest inside that dark box that rested in the recesses of his mind where it belonged.
Calm. Cool. Indifferent.
That was what he had become. A monster who saw the world outside, who didn't let his emotions get in the way of his job. This was no fucking different.
"I'm working on the MIRO problem now."