Page 9 of Her Dark Mafia Protector
“How many times, Nico?” my trainer scolds as I wipe the blood from my chin. “I’ve taught you this move twice already. You should memorize it with onlyonedemonstration required. You’ll never be as agile as you are right now; seventeen is the age of ripening. You must try harder and bebetter. You are almost aman.”
“Most men require dozens of demonstrations to do what I can do,” I spit back at him. “I required only two. That still makes my combat skills the best of anyone my age in the Bratva.”
“It might make you the best of the other young men in training,” my trainer says as his eyes narrow in on me. “But it does not make you the bestthere is. You must be flawless, Nico. You must master hand-to-hand combat until you know the moves so well that you don’t even feel your hands making them. Learn how to wield your weaponry as if each piece extends from your very own body. Excel at tactical warfare beyond the abilities that your enemies may possess. You must be like your brother—The Ghost.”
No one calls my brother by his real name anymore. That name is now dead. It’s been replaced by his identity as The Ghost, only. Atitle that was earned through two additional years on this planet than I have, and countless hours of learning how to move with both silence and brutal perfection. At nineteen, my brother has already made several kills. His reputation already strikes fear in the hearts of our adversaries when they whisper his name. He will one day be the best assassin that the Bratva haseverknown. It will assure our rise in Moscow and carve out a place for both of us in Russia’s history books—the books that no one on the outside knows about. First, my brother will ascend to the top, and then I will follow in his footsteps. But for now, I keep training until I can master the skills that my trainer scolds me for. I argued with him about it, but I know that he’s right. I don’t want to win arguments; I want tokillwithout my targets seeing me coming, just like my older brother can do. I admire him more than anyone else in the world, and someday, I’ll earn a nickname too.
When the time comes, and I’m invited to go on my first kill with my brother, I eagerly accept the chance to watch him in action.
“Now remember, Nico, only the Ghost kills tonight,” Bratva leadership reminds us before we set out for what is supposed to be a fairly easy, straightforward kill. “There is only one mark tonight. He will be armed but unsuspecting. Your brother will take the shot, and you will do nothing more than watch from the shadows to see how it’s done. Do you understand?”
I nod my head obediently. This is a rare opportunity, one that I wouldn’t get if my brother weren’t such a skilled assassin worth emulating. It’s about more than just the skills my brother possesses. I have those skills too, maybe just a hair shy of his, but in time, they’ll be an equal match. Perhaps I’ll even be a better assassin than my brother one day. It’showthe Ghost behaves, how he thinks, and lives that makes him such a formidable forceto be reckoned with. It’s hisruthlessness.That part, I’m still learning. I still hesitate and question things. I still want to knowwhyI’m going to be making a kill before I’m assigned to one. And no matter how many times my brother, whom I look up to as being a good person and my best friend, tells menotto get personally invested in any assignment—I still have a hard time detaching from it.
When we get to the location where our mark will be, I follow the plan. I hide out of sight and watch as my brother inches closer to the man with the target on his back. Neither of us knows who he is or why the Bratva wants him dead. The only thing we know, and the only thing that weneedto know, is that the man dies tonight.
I watch with silent, expectant eyes as the Ghost inches closer and aims his gun. There’s a silencer on it, preferred for this mission since this isn’t meant to be a direct confrontation. It’s meant only to be a fast, silent kill, followed by a quick exit from the scene—the kind of work that my brother does best.
But as I sit there hiding in the shadows and waiting to see how this hit unfolds as flawlessly as expected, I notice something else. In the corner of my vision,anothershape emerges. There’s a second man here, and there should not be.
My brother doesn’t see him as the other man creeps up behind the Ghost’s position. I watch in horror as he pulls his gun and aims it at my brother’s back. Without thinking, I jump out of my hiding place and shout.
“Behind you!” I scream recklessly.
My brother turns and looks at me in horror. He sees the other man now, and the look in his eyes as he smiles at me gives awaythat he knows I was trying to protect him and doesn’t blame me for what’s about to happen next.
The mark joins the other man, who already has the barrel of his gun up against the back of my brother’s head.
“Drop your weapon,” the mark says as he walks straight up to my brother without fear of being shot.
But instead of doing what he says, or even acknowledging him at all, my brother stares only at me. “Do you remember what I always tell you, Nico?”
I don’t answer him because I’m frozen in place.
“Don’t get invested in any mission or any target,” he says as if he’s imparting his last words of advice to me. “That’s the key. Stay silent, andfeelnothing.”
What happens next happens so fast that it blurs in my head. My brother, the exceptionally skilledGhost,lifts and fires his weapon at the mark before either man can do anything to stop him. His aim is perfect, and the target dies from a bullet to the brain instantly. He completed the job and eliminated the target. The Bratva will be pleased that he achieved the mission.
But as soon as the shot is fired, the other man fires too. He shoots my brother first in the foot, and then the other, making it impossible for the Ghost to get away. Even in response to such pain, the Ghost doesn’t make a sound.
The other man looks at me with a sick smile on his face.
“You should have heeded your brother’s words of wisdom, young assassin,” he sneers. “He is right. I would have killed him quickly, mercifully, with a clean shot to the skull. But now I cansee that a lesson needs to be learned here today. Consider it the last lesson that this life will impart onto you.”
After my rash action, I’m now terrorized into inaction as I can do nothing but watch the man shoot my brother in one body part at a time. He chooses the most painful places first and laughs each time he fires his weapon. There’s nothing I can do. I have no weapon on me, and no way to stop this. I can’t run for help because my brother will be dead before I return. All I can do is stand here and watch as the man violently murders my older brother, one piece at a time, right before my eyes.
Finally, I practically beg for his death, just to relieve him of all the pain. It’s the most traumatic moment I will ever experience in my life, and it ends with a final shot to the heart.
“Your turn,” the man says as he comes for me next.
Instead of turning to run, I straighten and face him. I feel something I’ve never felt before. Thedesireto kill. It’s so overwhelming that as soon as he reaches me, I lunge forward and surprise him by grabbing the still-warm gun out of his hand.
He laughs again and taunts that I'm too afraid to use it. “You’ve never killed before,boy,” he chides. “Tonight won’t be your first kill either. You need to keep me alive so that you have a vengeance quest to give you purpose now. Otherwise, you’ll only wallow in the guilt of having caused the death of your brother.”
But he’s wrong. In this horrific moment tonight, I'vealreadyfound my purpose. He’s also wrong about tonight not being my first kill.
I aim the gun at his chest, knowing how to aim perfectly to ensure a fatal hit, and pull the trigger. Blood splatters back up at me, and Ifinallyfeel the lesson my brother had been tryingto teach me all this time sink in. It sinks into my very flesh and bones, and as I stand there covered in the warm blood of the man I just killed, I know I will no longer have a hard time detaching.
I drop the gun and go to my brother’s side. He is mangled andgone. Beside him on the floor is his gun. Carefully, I close his eyelids with my thumb before picking up his gun and sliding it into my pocket. For a moment, I stand over him.
