Page 1 of Stealing His Cupcake
Chapter 1
Wyatt
Wideeyesstareupthe barrel of my gun. “I-I have money,” the man in front of me stammers. “Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it. Triple it! Quan-qui-quarter it?”
“I believe the word you’re looking for is quadruple,” I correct him. Not that he gets to keep the knowledge for long. The word he struggled with exits his skull through the hole in his head, along with a good portion of his brain. I love the .44 Magnum. It’s messy, but it sends a message, which is what my client asked for.
Normally, I keep my kills under wraps. Quick and tidy, with easy to clean crime scenes and convenient ways to dispose of bodies. This time I leave the body of the linguistically challenged man where it is, tied to his leather-upholstered, four thousand-dollar office chair. The ropes I used hold the body up even as the muscles lose tension, but the hole in his head no longer aligns with the stain on the wall behind him.
I shrug. That part of the scene arrangement wasn’t part of my contract and I’m not some sick psycho who goes around playing with corpses like they’re dolls. The hole can stay unaligned with the gory display splatteredover a diploma from an Ivy League university. It’s not like anyone is going to notice and my client is only interested in getting the job done.
The “job”. I’m good at it and it pays well, but I’m not passionate about the killing the way some of my “colleagues” are. It’s like with most people, I guess. They don’t love their boring, nine-to-five office jobs. Yet, they still go every day, because it puts food on the table. I have enough money that I don’t have to worry about not having food on the table, but I keep working, anyway. What else would I do? Sit alone in my empty house? As much as I enjoy silence and solitude, I’d go crazy with no goal in mind, and goals, sadly, are something I’m short on.
The office already stinks of piss and blood as I leave, and I pity the underpaid, elderly cleaning lady who will be the first one to discover the body in the morning. She’s well past the age where she should have retired but works hard to support her two grandkids through school. I don’t want to cause her a heart attack.
Perhaps I should tip off someone about hearing odd noises from the office. The night guard is young and spends his shifts listening to true crime podcasts. Perhaps he’d be thrilled to be a part of an actual crime investigation. Or he’ll puke his guts out upon seeing the mess I left in the office. Either way, better him than the sweet grandma.
This is not a part of the contract, either, but like I said, I’m not a psycho. I kill whoever my clients pay me to kill but I try to limit the impact on the uninvolved bystanders. Less drama surrounding a murder means less heat from the police. Also, I’m not an asshole, and I’m partial to sweet grandmas, mainly because my own is a bitch. I’m talking drown-the-kittens-in-the-toilet kind of bitch.
I look up at the camera before entering the elevator. It should be offline—a “random” malfunction—but even if it wasn’t, I’m confident no one would recognize me in my current disguise. A bit of gelatine to change the shape of my nose and chin is sufficient to confuse the facial recognition software, and the fake facial tattoos add a flare to distract human observers.
The police sketch artist can ask a dozen times about the color and shape of the suspect’s eyes, but a normal person will always come back to “he had a tattoo of a rose on one cheek and tears on the other”. The funny thing is I can buy the fake tattoos from party supply stores completely legally and without an ounce of suspicion. Everyone wants to look like someone else from time to time. Normal people just don’t use their “other looks” to get away with murders.
As I get into the car I rented with a fake ID, I check my phone. I’ve had it set to silent, because there’s nothing more annoying than getting a call from some random car insurance company while pulling a trigger. Now it displays a new message in my business email.
My brows rise as I read it. I usually wait longer between jobs, but this offer is tempting. Not because of the bonus for prompt delivery, even though it’s significant, but because the client seems desperate. Like the nosy bastard I am, I’m always curious about what makes people desperate. Sometimes I help them remove the source of their desperation, sometimes I use it against them. It really depends on the client.
I’m more likely to turn down entitled mobsters than abused spouses, though I have taken contracts from both, and many others. Like I said, I’m good at what I do, and people in the right circles know it. In this part of the world, if people want someone dead, they come to me.
I don’t do Europe or South America or anywhere I’d have to go by plane. Not because I’m afraid of flying, because that would be utterly illogical and ridiculous, especially for someone in my profession. It’s just that the reward for killing someone in Berlin isn’t worth the effort and risk of working with unfamiliar contractors to acquire weapons or dispose of bodies. It’s too much of a hassle, which is why I never accept overseas jobs. And if it means that I never have to set foot on one of those flying coffins? Well, that’s just a bonus of the non-financial variety.
Theclient,aplumpman in his sixties, doesn’t look happy. Most people don’t look happy when they see me, so I’ve learned to ignore it.
After I refused to accept his contract without additional information, the man first threw a tantrum which, to be honest, lost much of its effect since it was conveyed through a long-winded email with too many capital letters and exclamation marks. When I didn’t react to his whining and pathetic threats to ruin my reputation, he invited me to a personal meeting. In an empty warehouse.
I suppress the urge to roll my eyes. The man owns buildings and offices all over the world, but we have to meet in a dingy warehouse like the lowest-level drug smugglers. If ridiculous had a name, it would be Albert Washington. I mean, even his name is ridiculous, let alone this mobster posturing. The man’s supposedly “a businessman”. Certainly not a saint, but not a ruthless criminal, either.
I lean against an empty cargo container, sighing when a few flakes of rust drift to the floor. That’s going to leave a stain on my jacket for sure. Relaxed, I watch Washington’s bodyguard nervously glance at the dark corners of the building. I bet he told his boss that meeting here was a terrible idea, and the pompous prick ignored him.
Washington glares at me but I don’t react. I’m not one of his underlings and he can’t glare me into submission. Having just finished a contract, I would have taken a few weeks off had Washington not contacted me, so I can stand here for hours not doing shit and the only thing hurting will be my feet. My time means nothing. Washington is the one whose time is money. He’s meeting an important business partner in an expensive restaurant in two hours. He might think he’s putting me in place by making me come here, but he’s really playing himself.
Eventually, he grumbles something unintelligible, then scowls at me. “This meeting was unnecessary.”
“It was,” I agree. “You could have just emailed me the information I asked for.”
Washington bristles. “I gave you all the information you need to identify and locate the target. Anything else is unnecessary.” He seems to be fond of that word.
“I decide what’s necessary and what isn’t.”
He makes a valiant attempt at meeting my eyes but looks away almost immediately. “I just don’t get why you need to know my reasons for wanting the man dead,” he complains. Now he just sounds like a pouty toddler. “I give you a name and money and you take care of the rest. Is that not how it works?”
Laughing would be unprofessional, so I keep a straight face. Barely. “It’s not,” I reply curtly. Maybe it’s that way for other hitmen but I always want to know my client’s reasons. It helps me stay out of mafia wars and other deep shit I want no part of.
“So what, you’re one of those killers with a conscience?” Washington scoffs. “Ones who won’t kill innocents and women and children and kittens? Those who see themselves as good guys instead of cold-blooded murderers?”
No doubt worried about my reaction to Washington’s dumb insults, his bodyguard tenses and not-so-subtly reaches for his gun. He’s not bad. I’d still kill him before he could pull that gun out, but he’s better than the goons my clients usually surround themselves with. Lucky for him, I’m not easily offended.
“I don’t kill children, that’s true,” I say calmly. That’s one line I won’t cross. I’m not an asshole, remember? “But I don’t discriminate based on gender. I’ve killed plenty of women and a few non-binary people, too. No one has ever paid me to kill a kitten before, but I’d have no problem with completing such a contract.” Probably. I’d more likely take the kitten home with me, but no one needs to know that. “However, I’d still ask why the client wants the kitten dead. As for the innocents?” I shrug. “No one is truly innocent, are they?” The man in front of me might not be a member of organized crime but he hasn’t earned his billions by being a philanthropist.
