Page 2 of Mine to Keep
Most people would find me unassuming. I’m about five ten—five eleven on a good day—one hundred and seventy pounds of lean muscle, and what most people would call a baby face when I don’t grow out my beard.
My mark is a burly, barrel chested man that stands close to six three, with large hands and massive thighs. Side by side, one would think he could take me down easily.
Unfortunately, we both underestimated each other.
Since he’s not a small man, my ability to lift him without effort is probably a mindfuck.
He fights against me, trying to dislodge my hand. He manages to briefly, and he tries to run into the room ahead of us.
I grab him by his stringy hair and yank him back so I can wrap my arm around his neck. Kicking the door in, I push him into the room and onto the floor.
Back on his knees.
He turns around to look at me with wide, watery eyes, breathing like he just ran a marathon. He looks like he wants to try me again, but my back-up pistol is aimed right between his eyes.
“What do you want?” he asks gruffly. “Money? I have money. We have a safe. Please.”
I raise an eyebrow. Half of my fee is already paid, the other half will be transferred after this hit is complete, but for the bullshit I just went through, I deserve a tip. My fingers trail over the split in my lip. Fuck, I’ll have to call the cleaners to come and wipe everything down so none of my DNA is left behind.
That’s a cost that won’t come out of my pocket if he’s offering money from his safe.
My target was supposed to go down after I injected him with a tranquilizer, but somehow he heard me and he slapped the syringe from my hand before I could depress the plunger. For a guy his size, he was quick and got the drop on me.
I lick my lip once more, dying to spit out the coppery fluid, but not wanting to add to the cost of the cleaners. “How much?”
He looks up at me, eyes lighting up with hope. Too bad for him it’ll be extinguished soon. “Eighty grand. You can have it all. Just…don’t kill me.”
That’s twenty grand less than what I was paid for this hit. I’m not a greedy man, but I hate being inconvenienced. I wastold this would be an easy hit, the easiest hundred grand I’d ever make. It’s turning out to be my biggest failure.
In the early years of being a hitman, I’d made plenty of mistakes, some targets harder to kill than others. But after ten years, I shouldn’t be making rookie mistakes. I’ll have to have a talk with the person that hired me. They assured me I would be in and out, able to administer the tranquilizer and make his death look like an accident. I did my own recon, but my reliance on their intel fucked me up and almost got me killed. If I were a greedy or vindictive man, I’d make them pay double for their shitty assurances.
“Show me,” I say, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
He nods and hustles over to his closet, still on his knees. I follow close behind, making sure he doesn’t try anything cute, like reaching for a gun or trying to run again.
“You’re doing the right thing,” he says as he opens the closet door—a closet bigger than most people’s apartments—and crawls to the far back corner. “You must know who I am. Cops will be all over you for killing a judge. You don’t want that.”
That’s what he thinks. Yeah, most judges are almost revered by cops when they’re let off for their police brutality, but the good judge here isn’t one that’s on their payroll. My mark, Judge Bowers, is too fair, too by the book for them to want to do more than the bare minimum they do for anyone else.
I don’t deflate his hope, though. I allow him to think that he’ll live, and if he doesn’t, the cops will come down on the bad man that broke into his house and took his life.
Judge Bowers pushes some blouses that look like they belong to a woman in her late eighties out of the way, and reveals a floor safe. He puts in the combination and it pops open. Inside, there are stacks of cash, as well as jewelry and paperwork that look like birth certificates and the like.
He pulls a bag from the bottom of the safe and stacks all the cash inside. “Here. That’s all I have. Now, leave. Let me go, and I’ll forget this ever happened.”
The way his eyes bounce around my face, I’m sure he’s cataloging my features so he can tell the authorities what I look like. Even if I let him live and he does a composite sketch, he wouldn’t get it right. Contoured makeup has my features looking smaller than they are, the contacts make my brown eyes brighten to hazel, and the bald cap I have on covers my waves. I also covered the freckles that dot my nose, the makeup blended perfectly to my brown skin.
I take the bag, not worried about counting the money. If it’s not eighty grand, I don’t really care. Most of it will go to cleaners anyway.
“I appreciate the tip,” I say. “But I have to finish the job. Nothing personal, though. You understand.”
He shakes his head, his bottom lip trembling. “No! I gave you money! You said?—”
Raising my hand, I silence what I’m sure will be a long-winded tirade. “I never said I’d let you live, you assumed. Come on, Judge. You know better than that.”
Before he can retort, my phone rings. I exhale in annoyance, but know I have to answer it. Only one person has this number and she hasn’t stopped calling since I gave it to her.
“Is it done?” she asks as soon as I answer the phone, sounding both eager and terrified.
