Page 3 of Paddy

“Because, baby, they're just words. Empty threats. Ain't nobody gonna try anything with you. They'd be stupid to try. What you need to be worried about is them deadlines, something you're never going to meet until you listen to me about hiring a damn nanny.”

It was hard for him to understand. Where my mother came from, we didn't hire nannies. We took care of our own damn kids, but the more money we took in, the more money he seemedto spend. With the few people wehadhired in for help, I wasn't comfortable with some strange woman being in charge of what my son learned or how he behaved. All I wanted was for Vernon to do his job as his father and step up more.

“Vern, I don't know why it's so difficult for you to just want to take care of your own son. That would solve the problem indefinitely. I'm willing to scale down just to make all this lifestyle work. To make our marriage work.” He sighed once again, not taking my feelings seriously about the subject at hand.

“Baby, what do you want from me? Managing people’s career is a lot of work. Like you, I don't have time to doeverything. We're not going to keep debating this, we're getting a nanny and I don't want to hear another word about it.” I rolled my eyes, not feeling fully defeated, but not in the mood to argue either. It would be time to pick up Elijah soon, and I didn't want any time he was home to be subjected to us arguing. If there was anything worse than no father in the home, it was a mother and father who argued all the time.

“Fine. Will you at least be home for dinner then? I was going to make macaroni pie and some fried fish.” He rubbed his belly, easing some of the tension, but then that tension came back around when he told me he wouldn't be staying.

“I actually have some things to handle, so just make me a little plate, and I'll eat it when I get home. Besides, the only thing I want you to focus on, is work. Think you could do that for me?” He asked, with a kiss to my forehead and a loveless hug. I nodded and with a quick goodbye, he raced out the door, leaving me yearning for the times where he rushed that fast to make it home back to me.

Two

Paddy

“Don't scream,” I warned, unlocking the safety of the gun, challenging the deafening quiet. Michael Thompson was an outstanding fabric of his community. Father of two, dutiful husband. Went to church every Sunday—hell—the man even volunteered at soup kitchens.

Unfortunately for him, having made some bad investments, he came to Tadhg looking for a way out of his fuck up. Two years later, that investment banker had made no effort to settle that debt. Now he sat staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Please—”

“Shh…Don't wake up your wife and kids,” I mercifully whispered.

“If this is about my debt, I can pay. I just need more time!”

“I hear you,” I entertained. “But for now, we're just going to take a little ride and we can settle it then.”

“I swear to you,” he lamented, silent tears running down his face. “If I just had six months, I could pay it back with interest.”

“Sadly, you alreadyoweinterest. Probably be better if we just take that ride.”

“I have a family. A six-year-old and a four-year-old. My wife might be expecting. Show a little mercy,” he begged once more.

“Mercy is doing the opposite of what I wassentto do here. Which by the way, was to blow your face off. But I’m being generous. Your wife and kids? They don’t need to find you like that. An image like that does something to people. Rather your kids’ last image of you being of you tucking them in at night. Your wife, that loving kiss on the forehead before you sent her off to bed. My way’s clean and easy. It may not count for much, but I'd make damn sure you don't suffer.”

This was the hard part of the job. Convincing a person this was their best option, when the truth was, therewereno options. Thompson's debt was two years old, one too big to settle without consequence.

Men like him cared more about their reputations and outward presentation than the secrets they kept in the dark. Instead of paying his debt down, in the course of two years, he'd gotten a new house, treated himself to a boat, and while it wasn't my business, treated his twenty-four-year-old mistress to weekend getaways under the guise of business trips.

Sooner or later, his wife was going to learn that he was up to his knees in debt. His best option now was a life insurance policy to make sure his wife and kids could walk away with something. To them, he was better off dead.

My role in the family couldn’t be clearer. I was the raven. The symbol of death. I did the things no one had the stomach for. After serving overseas, there wasn't much I didn't have the stomach for.

All the things that I survived. The things that I had to do. Those were the things that kept a man up at night. So, carrying out contract kills seemed like nothing to me. I was practically numb to it.

“You ready for that drive now?” I asked, relieved when he nodded, finally accepting his fate. Walking from his study to the plateless automobile waiting in the driveway, I bound his hands and gagged him, since no amount of pleading would change things. If I were being honest, even if it would have, I simply didn’t want to hear it.

The hour drive led us to a woodsy area sixty miles from the city, as Bellamy was already waiting for me, nursing a cigarette. Over the years, Bellamy became best at cleaning up messes, not making them. He could get his hands dirty like the rest of us, but he used his privilege as second in charge to do anything but have totakecareof problems. He used to be good at it, but…after what we did, he didn’t like killing as much as he used to.

“Time to get out of the car,” I calmly encouraged, as the smell I ignored halfway through the ride had confirmed that what I now knew to be true. The fucker shat on himself. I was usually prepared for that outcome, dressing the back seat with tarp or plastic, but it never took away from the pungent smell.

Holding him at gunpoint, once we reached the area I instructed him to stand, he instinctively went to his knees as I pulled the gag off of his mouth. “Please. If I could just get another chance, I'd sell my house. I'd give you one of my daughters. Whatever it took to get six more months to pay in full?—”

“See that’s why I’m feeling less and less sorry for you. What would a bunch of grown men do with a six-year-old? That's low, even for you. Didn’t think you’d want your last moment begging, offering up an innocent child. Jesus, have some dignity before you go.”

“I just don't want to go like this. I’m a good person,” he pleaded.

“Remember, this ain't personal. It's just a debt, is a debt.” As I lifted my gun, took one shot straight between his eyes, forcing his body to collapse on the tarp.

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