I fall into a bar chair at the kitchen island and set the shotgun on top of the counter, trying to figure out who the fuck might’ve done this. Considering I keep my business far away from campus, never selling to a single prick attending Hadley U, I know it couldn’t have been any of those douchebags. Going into this shit, I was all too aware that was the last problem I needed—some sophomore cokehead getting picked up for some stupid shit, only to turn around and pin me to a wall with the pigs.
Yeah, no thanks.
Other than Ryder and Lee, not even my teammates know it’s my blow they’re most likely getting hemmed up on the night of a huge win. I took the safe route, limiting my clientele to a few street dealers and the uppity elite of Annapolis and DC, who have something to lose, those whom I could turn around and easily fuck if need be. Leverage: that’s all you have in this business, the one thing that can keep you afloat. Your local congressman jacked up in a hotel, wired on the best nose-candy around, partying it out with not one, not two, but three of Washington’s finest call girls, can make for some interesting evening news.
Especially to his wife and family.
After eliminating the young couple with a baby to my right and some one-foot-in-the-grave retired Marine neighbor to my left as possibilities, I’m at a loss for who it could’ve been. However, that only lasts a second. As my gaze skids across the kitchen I spot a CD leaning against the coffeemaker, chicken-scratch writing scribbled in black marker on the front of the plastic case. Alert, I yank up the shotgun and cross the room to approach the foreign object. The foreign object that wasn’t here when I left for the weekend. Before picking it up I look around, making sure some psychopath isn’t aiming his gun at the back of my skull. All clear, I bring my attention back to the CD, catching the name written on the case.
Cindy Lewis
483 Culvert Road, Apartment B
Matoaka, West Virginia
24736
Face, name, and address burned into my memory like acid on flesh, I know exactly who’s broken into my condo. Who’s attempting to blackmail the fuck outta me for the shit she knows. The shit she was a witness to. The whore from the warehouse the night I killed Dom. The whore Ryder talked me into letting go unscathed. The whore who’s about to flip my whole world upside down, taking me for everything I’ve got. Everything I’ve worked my ass off for.
“Goddamnit!” I bellow, nausea roiling my stomach as I slam a fist into a column that separates the kitchen from the open dining area. Pissed, a migraine sawing through my skull, I stomp over to the entertainment center. With blood dripping from my knuckles, I shove the CD into the player, scoop up the remote from the coffee table, and stab the play button, my nerves mounting as I sink onto the couch, preparing myself for the demands the cunt’s gonna make.
As the video begins, it takes me a second to recognize my own voice calling out, “Cindy Lewis, Four eighty-three Culvert Road, apartment B, Matoaka, West Virginia, two four seven three six.”
I blink, confused as shit, as both Ryder and I come into focus. “Repeat what he said,” Ryder chimes in, clenching the whore’s hair. “Now.”
“Cin-Cindy Lewis,” she cries, her body shaking, “Fo . . . four eighty-three Culvert Road, apartment B, Matoaka, West Virginia, two four seven three six.”
“Very good, Cindy. You wanna live?” Ryder questions. “Wanna wake up to your kid tomorrow? See him grow up?”
Continuing to cry, the chick nods but doesn’t say a word.
“Answer me!” Ryder spits, his voice going hoarse as the back of his hand connects with her cheek. She stumbles into the wall, but Ryder catches her before she hits the ground, pulling her to his chest. “Don’t just fucking nod! This is serious! Do. You. Want. To. Live?”
“Yes!” she sobs, her unclothed body falling against his. “I want to live!”
This is a video from Dom’s warehouse. But how did the whore, who left before us, get it? More so, how the fuck is it even in her possession when Ryder swore he cleared everything from Dom’s office?
Before I can dwell on my unanswered questions, the video transitions to a darkened hallway, the claustrophobically narrow space strewn with boxes, clothing, books, and empty Chinese takeout containers, I’m convinced I’m watching the worst-ever episode of Hoarders. A deep, annoyed whisper breaks me from my reverie, my eyes landing on a hooded figure leading the cameraman through the less-than-stellar living conditions. The silence is deafening, my whole world reduced to what’s happening on the video as the pair makes it down the hall to their final destination, stopping in front of a partially closed door. Seconds decrease to milliseconds, my heartbeat lasts a lifetime as they slip into a dimly lit bedroom. Save for an aged dresser, the space is relatively empty—a twin mattress centered dead in the middle of the room, additional heaps of dirty laundry haphazardly tossed across a multistained brown carpet.
I direct my attention to the bed where the hooded figure is standing above it, a sleeping body blissfully unaware of the evil presence. Without a word, the hooded intruder lifts his hand, displaying for the first time a pistol and—lacking even a second’s hesitation—fires three shots into the huddled mass on the bed. I shoot to standing, adrenaline causing my fists to clench of their own accord as my focus remains locked on the screen. Soon after the gunshots, a child’s scream reverberates in the near distance, his fear palpable. The gunman methodically moves toward the sound of the child’s crying, his ogre-like stature barely fitting through the doorway. As the monster disappears into the hallway, the cameraman pans in on the bloody, unmoving mass on the bed, revealing an all-too-familiar face: Cindy Lewis, 483 Culvert Road, Apartment B, Matoaka, West Virginia, 24736.