Seven+Four (Angels of Wrath Book 6)

I toe the corpse with the tip of my leather boot as I wait for Rami to pick up my call.

“Bro, fuck, it’s too early to bother me again with your Sari obsession. Don’t you have even a smidge of common sense?”

“Common sense is the most uncommon thing ever,” I counter.

He lets out a low growl. “Uri, I’ve been looking for Phoenix all fucking night, don’t you⁠—”

Hearing that fucking name makes bile rush up my throat. That fucker needs to die, after poisoning Meg and sending her into a coma. I don’t like feeling like I’m on the losing side, because I never lose…ever.

My eyes are caught by the dead body at my feet once again. I cut Rami’s morning-raspy blabbing off. “Got another little gift on my doorstep.”

I hear the rustling of sheets just before he says, “Are they alive and stabbed with an arrow this time as well?”

He’s referring to a few weeks ago when I found a tied-up and wounded donor near my front door.

“We are all corpses who haven’t yet begun to decay,” I taunt him.

“I’m too exhausted for this shit, Ariel!” I fucking hate that nickname, and he knows it.

“Unless he can grow his head back, he’s fucking dead,” I grumble. “No arrows in sight, but there’s a red stain on his shirt and two small tears in the fabric, heart level caused by a sharp point.” Probably an arrowhead.

“Headless?” I hear Hunter’s voice, my conversation with Rami must have woken his boyfriend up. “Is the head missing or just detached?”

I give another quick look around. “Missing. The gaping wound has no ragged edges; it looks clean and neat, well-executed by a sharp blade. The blood still fresh.” It turned the pure white snow crimson red and ruined—well and truly—the front wooden steps of my deck. I curl my lips. “This is becoming irksome.”

“Serena is checking the area now. No sign of him, but it has to be your fucking bio bro again. He’s the only one who can slip through Serena’s security alarm without any problem.”

If that’s the case, he’s like a wild cat leaving gifts on my front steps. The fresh blood means he couldn’t have gotten too far. How the fuck did he disappear so fast? The metal gates at the end of the long driveway are closed, the high electrical fence still working. So where did he come from? I need to do a perimeter assessment. If this was my biological brother again he must have found a way inside my lake house somehow.

The driveway is clear since I had someone plow it yesterday, and it didn’t snow during the night, so no footprints in sight.

“It was him,” Rami declares. “Sent you the video feed.”

I move the phone down and watch as a hooded man wearing a fucking white mask suddenly appears from the path around the back of my house, pushing a man—the soon to be corpse—with a machete, poking his back toward my front porch.. He makes the man turn around before abruptly cutting off his head, which flies over the porch rail as the body drops on the wooden steps.

He then looks straight at the camera. I can’t see his face, but I know he’s smiling behind that plain white mask. Why is he here, and why now?

“That’s rather bold and brutal,” I hear Hunter. “Are we sure it was your biological brother?”

Ty. That’s his birth name. But I have no ties left to my old life, not even my name—Meg changed it after she found me— and I don’t want any, so bio bro it is.

“Serena calculated his height, weight, and compared his gait with Uri’s…he’s definitely related to him.”

I knew it was him already. I just can’t explain how, but I do.

“Focus on the corpse and find the head while I’ll try to find out where the fuck he came from. I’ll send one of the bros your way to collect the corpse.”

I hum and end the call.

Dealing with these gifts gives life to a blazing fury inside my gut. It enrages me how easily my biological brother trespassed on my property once again, even more the thought that he’s always a few steps ahead of me.

I grit my teeth as I look down at the dead body again. There’s nothing to determine his identity. Average size, on the hairy side, covered in a fancy suit and a gray shirt, no shoes—his bare feet are covered with blood and dirt like he was forced to walk quite a while. All I can tell is that he’s male and headless. My bio bro couldn’t have killed him somewhere else and waited until he finished bleeding out before dumping him on my deck?

I don’t feel sufficiently caffeinated for this, but as I turn to go back inside the house, I see a tuft of blond hair peeking between the white lavender bushes at the edge of the porch.

“Got the head,” I mutter. It might be strange, but this isn’t the first time I’ve uttered those words. A smirk forms on my lips as I lean against the wooden rail and bend down until my fingers grab the damp locks. I pull the severed head up as I straighten and study its features. Definitely male, probably in his thirties—I shift the head closer—brown eyes, a crooked nose sporting some caked blood and a bruise on his cheek. I have no previous memory of his face.

A mystery to be solved. I’d enjoy this type of situation—since I like detective stories—if my bio bro wasn’t involved. I don’t like to be fucked with, and I’ve got the feeling that this is precisely what he’s doing.

I take a picture and send it to Rami so he can search for the dead man’s identity in one of his databases. I also forward it to Raph. If the corpse had any contact with our family, my brother will remember it, thanks to his eidetic memory.

I place the head near the body and then crouch down to pat his fancy suit and pants pockets, finding an opened soft pack of Marlboro, a magnetic Ritz hotel card, and an expensive wallet—there’s a thousand dollars inside—all hundred-dollar bills—and a valet ticket. I look at the tips of some of the fingers on his left hand, they’re yellow with nicotine. The pretentious diamond ring on his middle finger seems real, with the letters JP engraved on one side. I take a picture of it as well and send it to Rami. No ID or credit cards. They must have been removed for some reason.

Everything about this man screams wealth and tackiness—my usual type of target. I kill people who are above the law thanks to their status or riches. Not that I really care about what they have done or how they hid it. I am a sociopath—the proper diagnostic name is Antisocial Personality Disorder or ASPD. This disorder has quite a lot of negative stigmas around it. No conscience, no empathy, no regard for right and wrong, no remorse, a tendency to act impulsively and erratically. Smiling, smirking, or laughing out loud while witnessing another’s pain. Not giving a flying fuck about anyone else—unless they screw with something of mine. Like my family.

My foster family. I became part of it after my foster mothers, Meg and Linda, saved me and the others from being tortured and experimented on when we were kids. I was five when I was taken from our shitty trailer park in the middle of the night to be the subject of an unauthorized government project. It allowed coldblooded scientists to experiment on me with the excuse of turning me into an emotionless assassin. Those motherfuckers didn’t turn me into a sociopath, they actually chose me and the others for our psychopathic traits, which eventually disappeared in almost all the others—except me, Raph, and my bio bro—because they believed criminality and violent behavior were predispositions.

The unsanctioned project was eventually discovered and stopped, and any evidence of it buried under a pile of political bullshit while most of us—six subjects ended up with Meg and Linda, an eminent psychologist and the secret agent who’d busted us out.

The people involved in the project were eliminated, but the damage was done and those torturous years made us crave blood and death. Still, going on a killing spree while venting our anger was not morally correct or legal—blah, blah, blah. So, Meg taught us to direct that darkness toward people who actually didn’t deserve to breathe. We built a base for our bloody family business. It’s there that we take the evil donors—donors because before they die they unwillingly donate their DNA and organs for research or to save others.

Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” I do more than is expected of me, but I’m no good man and never fucking will be.

I sort of follow the “an eye for an eye” principle—the law of equal punishment. Even though is not really about the killing or the justice. It’s all about causing pain and enjoying their screams, their suffering, witnessing all hope leaving their eyes while desperation and anguish replace it. I live for this shit. Torture is…a compulsive act for me—much like arson for Rague or being a psycho asshole horny for blood is for Raph.

A sadist sociopath is not rare, and I’m not talking about situational sadism. I don’t gain pleasure or satisfaction out of hurting those who are deserving. I don’t have any sense or desire for revenge, I don’t actively seek it against those that have wronged others—that’s nonsense. I merely derive pleasure from seeing and inflicting pain on others.

Pure and refined sadism. Ah, yes.

This part of my life is obviously all a secret. I don’t want to be persecuted and end up inside a cage again. With my brothers, I’ve been carrying on the bloody family business for ten years now. It’s like a perfectly working machine. Each of us has a particular, useful skill to contribute. We will never stop—for each of us his own reason. The world needs us just as much as I need to cause pain.

Nevertheless, when I leave the base—and I’m back out in the world—wearing a fake mask is necessary. I’m Uriel Mahoe, billionaire, business man, investor and owner of a chain of restaurants. It’s not hard to conceal the real side of me; all of the smartest people in this world aren’t so careless as to show others their true selves. With high-functioning sociopaths like me, it’s all about appearances. I don’t usually conform to norms unless I can take advantage of them. I’m extremely skilled at faking a range of different emotions—which is essential when reaching a certain status among Chicago’s crème de la crème. Depending on the party and attendees, I can effortlessly manipulate every single one of them when invited to one of those lavish charity events. It’s all a show, and I’m the main protagonist in the storyline—just how I fucking like it.

Even though there’s an absence of certain emotions in my sociopathic brain, I can sometimes be happy…when others simply can’t, because I don’t have a conscience or feelings of remorse or guilt. The complete lack of these emotions can result in more happiness for me since I can’t really imagine or feel the emotional worlds of other people. It’s foreign to me.

I am capable of feeling euphoria, joy, and excitement, anger and sadness, but in a more blunted way than what is considered the norm—I can even cry on command. I can also form attachments to other individuals and, in general, enjoy being around other people, although that’s kind of rare. Sometimes that makes me wish I could be free from mind-numbing social niceties—it can be grating since I’m completely detached from most people’s source of happiness. All humanity could burn to ashes, and I wouldn’t give a fuck.

There’s only one person I’d run to save. My Baby Blue. I crave the hint of softness in his pale aquamarine eyes when I utter the nickname, the slight trembling of his lower lip. I like the thought of Sari all soft for me, too damn fucking much.

The first time I laid eyes on him was in a field of periwinkle flowers. They were surrounding him like an endless, silky blanket. He raised his gaze to mine—the same periwinkle shade reflected in his eyes—and the agonizing, profound desolation filling those pools bound him to me.

He actually became mine two years before that. During the first year of my imprisonment, I thought I was the only subject the scientists were experimenting on until one day I heard a cry. It was so soft and low I wasn’t sure it was real. But the profound desperation, the hurt in those hushed sobs couldn’t be a figment of my imagination.

I was only six, inside my cell in the secret facility where we were kept. I was huffing and growling with anger. Bloodthirst was running through my veins while I was shivering with cold, beaten up and aching like most nights, but that faint cry made me smile for the first time in a very long time. The quiet whimpering stopped when one of the assholes on staff had snarled, “Four, shut up!”

A slapping sound followed and then another sob before silence reigned again. Four had to be another subject like me. I was Seven. Was there a One? A Two? More? Was my brother one of them? At that time, I wasn’t sure if they had taken him as well.

Subject Four sounded pathetic. Judging by their sobs, I didn’t know how they endured and were still alive after all the torture they must have undergone. They sounded too defenseless, whimpering like a weak puppy—I liked the sound of that, though.

Over the following three years, I never heard them again. I reckoned they were dead. But I remembered Four and their murmured pain every single night. Those hushed cries became my companion in those long silent hours, my brief escape, my only pleasure. So when I saw that same level of despair in the skinny, battered kid surrounded by Baby Blue Eyes I’d known those sobs belonged to him. Four wasn’t fucking dead. He’d survived, and it all became very simple to me. He was alive because he was mine.

I walked up to him and told him exactly that. He didn’t react at all. But that was okay, I had all the time in the world to make him understand who he belongs to.

After all these years, he still smells like fucking apples and honey—that sweet scent is lodged in my brain. He let his hair grow, the thick mane cascades down his back when loose. He likes to braid all that dark silk. Some spirited wisps always get loose to frame his delicate face, heart-shaped lips, and big, expressive eyes. His cheeks turn apple red so easily from embarrassment or nervousness.

At first I didn’t care about the little changes he has undergone in the last months—caused principally by Lori—like using contact lenses, taking yoga classes, and wearing different clothes, still comfy, but higher quality, classy styles, and delicate tones. However, the way he’s interacted with me has altered as well, pushing me away while not listening to me anymore. Then Meg got poisoned, and I discovered my bio bro is still alive. And I’ve been too busy looking for him since I learned of his reappearance, creating an even bigger distance between Sari and me.

Too much fucking space.

His newfound elegant appearance, his graceful moves, and tempting purity turn him into sex on a stick, as Michael called it. It fills me with the urge to devour him. I see him, and I burn. The harder I contain myself, the wilder my obsession with him grows. Fuck being foster brothers and fuck society’s teachings of what’s acceptable. I just can’t fucking help it. I don’t want to. I want him under me, submitting to me in the most carnal way possible. We aren’t blood related, not brothers. We are connected in a way that exceeds family; it goes beyond fleeting emotions and useless feelings.

I don’t know when it happened, but at some point I started wanting to turn his ordinary day-to-day, placid expression into a disheveled passionate one, filled with cries and sweat. And pain. Fuck yes! I want to fuck his hole loose and stir up his insides until I break him, until I make a mess of him.

But I fucking can’t. Not if I want to see his eyes sparkle and crinkle, those little wrinkles forming at the corners when he smiles at me. I find respite from everything surrounding me only when he’s with me. And I prefer to feel excruciating pain than not being around him at all.

I can’t have him because I can’t hurt him, no matter how much I want to. But he’s still mine.

He makes a habit of dripping innocence and unspoiled naivety, that’s why a number of bastards keep gravitating to him. But they don’t know he was caught a long time ago by the worst of the worst. Me. All I can do is get rid of all those fuckers, using any means necessary. From threatening texts, to finding them new job opportunities in different cities, to getting them charged for wrongdoing—with a hacker and a lawyer in the family, finding and using dirt on people is very easy. I’ll go even further if I have to. Predators kill prey. It’s natural, understandable, there’s no need to justify it. And the world is a fun park full of oblivious prey. My hands never have enough blood on them, and I hate every motherfucker who takes Sari’s attention away from me. I call it…serendipity.

I let the rope loosen around Sari’s neck the last few months, just a little, enough to give him the illusion of being free to move away. When in reality, he’s not, because I’m always there in the shadows pulling the strings. He does a job he enjoys while helping people—which satisfies him—and he has a family who cares for him. And me. This rebellious phase he’s going through will end soon, but in the meantime, I need to change a few things.

First, this house needs to be secure, otherwise my plan for Sari won’t work. Phoenix is close, and with them danger lurks around us. Sari is part of this family even though he doesn’t enjoy the bloody side business like the rest of us do. I will keep him closer. I let him wander for far too long, and now a damn stalker is fucking with him. I’ll end up killing them if they try to take him from me—not even my brothers or Linda will be able to stop me. Fuck that!

I look down at my phone when a gentle ring informs me of a notification. Rami created a monitoring program and uploaded it on my phone so that I can check on Sari’s location. Through the tracker inside his neck and another inside his phone, Serena lets me know every time he moves. He just arrived at work. I tap on his red dot on the map and a live video from the CCTVs inside Bear-Stone Labs pops open on the screen. He’s talking with Michael, getting ready for work; a sad song is playing in the background—he only listens to country music. He’s smiling, braiding his long hair with deft, precise moves as Michael jabbers about something scientific.

He’s so fucking delectable, and I’m starving.

I close the app and check my texts. Raph will be here in twenty minutes to help me with the body. There’s also one from Rague letting me know he’ll come tomorrow to work on the new rooms I’m building inside the house. He owns a construction and demolition company; it was only logical to hire him for the job.

I leave the body behind and descend the last steps to walk around the house. My bio bro must have come from somewhere. He used one of the camera’s blind spots to disappear, but maybe he left a trace. And if he did, I’ll find it.

Two days later, I’m inside the base leaning against a glass wall. The knife I’m tossing flies up before I swiftly snatch it out of the air, repeating the action again and again. My eyes are firmly on the donor in front of me, passed out and tied to a metal chair; blood keeps dripping at his feet, creating a large crimson puddle. I’m giving my ears a well-deserved break from all the jackass’s begging.

We are inside the FUNS room—the Fucked-Up Nasty Shitheads room. Here is where the torture and killing happen. Tools are hanging from the ceiling—axes, bats, a couple of clubs with spikes, nunchaku—that must be Lori’s. More lie on the long table near me where I left Leslie, my Smith and Wesson 9mm gun. The grip is all bloody—I jabbed the donor in the head with it, repeatedly hence him being unconscious—I need to give it a thorough cleaning when I’m done.

I usually don’t use firearms when I take care of a donor, but any kind of torture I deem fit is welcome. How to know what’s the best one? I read their files first, keeping in mind what their preferences are. A doctor who harvests organs and sells them for money will be disemboweled without anesthesia; a serial rapist will be impaled on a cactus then castrated using a rusty saw, his dick flattened with a sledgehammer; a physically abusive motherfucker will get his hands chopped off and then forced to choke on his fingers one after the other. I’m not the Da Vinci of torture for nothing. Number one in our torture record book—doesn’t matter that Raph yammers to the contrary.

After many years in the torture business, I’ve learned a few things—as I forced them out of these shitheads. For most evil scum, the killing per se isn’t the source of pleasure. It’s the feeling of pure dominance, the omnipotent ability to take a life, to produce a fear so great in their victims, it fills them with power and ecstasy.

Pain is not only physical. Mental torture can be equally excruciating—even worse for some people. So I usually start with the latter. Doubt. I look and wait for them to wake up all disoriented—after being kidnapped and drugged—restrained, tied naked to a chair in the FUNS room where the walls are covered in weird plastic sheets and torture tools are displayed all around. I check their reaction, and I play with them, ignoring their anxious questions, smirking or sighing, playing with my switchblade.

When asked the donors have described the unclear circumstances and scary environment as the cause of profound fear, and a sense of deep apprehension. Fucking A.

Then the part where I start working on their body comes. Everything becomes clear when I tell them they got caught. Watching the realization in their eyes is quite entertaining. The physical pain makes them plead their innocence, usually threats are made, often there’re attempts at bribery—like this fucker here tonight. That’s the boring part, like I would ever let them go. Preposterous.

This donor here is a particularly nasty fella. He lures people into his car—usually those living on the streets like homeless beggars, teens running from home, the mentally disabled—enticing them with the promise of money or a hot meal, of protection. He drugs them and then dumps them in the middle of a forest where he hunts them like animals. He uses different weapons, but always goes for the kill; the list of his victims is long. Don’t know why he turned out this way. Don’t care. I just want to make him suffer. The dirty police officer and the corrupt lawyer friend who in the past covered for him and accompanied him on the hunts are being picked up by Rague at the moment.

I take a long, deep breath. Blood and fear, that tangy new plastic smell from the flowery sheets covering the walls and floor—courtesy of Rami who likes to give the place a hint of creepy cuteness—sweat and salty tears. It’s refreshing.

One man’s hell is another man’s paradise. My paradise.

I look at him. I already chopped off each one of his fingers, carved the word PREY into his chest—which had been particularly satisfying—and stabbed him in the legs, arms, and shoulders. All things he did to his victims.

I could cut off every other appendage on his body until he turns into an unidentifiable lump of writhing meat. A little slice and dice is always enjoyable. Could use a rake to disfigure him, give him a Freddy Krueger mask. Skin him alive in front of a full-length mirror, starting from the ankles up to his neck.—a show is always entertaining. Fillet him from head to toe with no mercy. So many choices. We are all flesh and breath. So easy to break.

There’s no time, no space when I’m torturing, only me and the screaming fuckers.

I feel particularly gruesome right now—more than usual. My thoughts move to my bio bro and the headless corpse he left at my lake house, Jasper Pendelton. It turns out he was one of the shitheads on my donor list, a pimp with a tendency to rape hotel maids and busboys—hence the Ritz key card I found in his suit—and then blackmail them to work for him and sell their bodies. He had some plastic surgery done, that’s why I couldn’t recognize him—a new name, a cover job while still doing the same shit.

I am extremely pissed at Rami for not realizing what was going on and for being incapable of stopping my bio bro from bypassing Serena at every turn. But I’m downright furious at my bio bro for stealing one of my fucking donors. Nobody takes from me and lives to see another day. If you cross me, I’m gonna enjoy your slow suffering before ending you. But…I’m also curious.

The few memories I have of my family aren’t pleasant ones. My father was an abusive drunk truck driver, who killed my mother out of jealousy and ended up in jail. We were dropped at my uncle’s, who took us on only to pocket the monthly childcare checks. He sold us to those scientists not long after to cover his debt with loan sharks.

When I turned eighteen, I wanted him to be my first kill, but both him and my father were dead already, and my bio bro was in the wind. I’ve been searching for him, though. I can’t feel any kind of affection or longing, just as he can’t toward me—being a psychopath. So why is my elusive bio bro leaving these corpses? What’s his end game?

I’m still furious about him stealing my donor, and I want to repay him in kind…and stabs! I grab the knife’s handle and swing it in the air, imagining that stupid white mask in front of me.

The donor suddenly jolts in his chair, his eyes are still closed. That’s too bad since it’s time to off him. My gaze falls on the bucket near the sink across the room, some cold water will definitely jazz him up. I move away from the glass wall but quickly change my mind as I toss the knife one last time in the air. When the wooden handle falls back in my palm, I tighten my hold around it and swing. The blade slices the donor’s face, opening a long wound on his cheek.

“Ahhh!” he screams, his eyes frantically flickering around until they fix on my face. The pain filling them is rapturous. I need more.

“Please. Don’t kill me,” he gurgles. He’s lost a lot of blood; his complexion is turning pale, and he’s shivering like a baby deer.

After he murdered more than thirty people in cold blood, he’s afraid to die. Go figure.

“Death is too easy, shithead. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. Hurting you is what I’m here for. As simple as that.”

“I am not who you think I am. You got the wrong…person.” Still going on with this crap?

I use the tip of the blade to scoop up a drop of blood rolling down his cheek. He gasps into the silence.

“Are you saying I’m so stupid I got the wrong scumbag?”

He opens and closes his mouth, for lack of words, I presume. Moron.

“Human life equals shit to me just like it does to you. We can both kill with no problem. I don’t give a fuck who you are, just like you didn’t about your victims. The fact that you think you’re immune, it’s baffling.” I’ll never really understand people’s mindsets.

“Victims? I didn’t… Ahhhh!”

Another deep cut on the left cheek this time makes him cry out.

I know he’s lying. I would even if I hadn’t read his file. I’m a very good lie detector. Most people signal dishonesty with a twitch of their eye, gritted teeth, a balled-up fist, parted lips. He shows nothing because there’s no conflict inside him. Usually that’s the mark of what shrinks like to call a psychopath or a sociopath.

His eyes are closing once again, so I smack him with renewed force, leaving him grinding his teeth.

“How does it feel to be the victim? To simply have to take the pain?” I whisper darkly, while cleaning the blade with alcohol before pocketing it.

His chest heaves as he coughs up blood. It froths at the corners of his mouth with every breath. Then he smiles at me, gums painted bright red. The pretense is off finally. It took him a while—I check the time on my phone—one hour and seven minutes, hardly a record.

“What pain?” His laugh is interrupted by more coughing.

I quickly grab one of Gabe’s throwing knives from the table and pierce his neck on the right side. The squishy sound when it spears the skin gives me goose bumps.

“Don’t struggle,” I tell him as he finds the last of his fighting spirit while uselessly twisting on the chair. “Your trachea is severed; blood is filling your lungs. You’re drowning in it. Your brain is being deprived of oxygen and your nervous system’s quickly shutting down. Your sight has turned blurry, but you can still hear me.” I study him for a moment as he registers my words. “I’ll let you go with a pearl of wisdom. People don’t understand pain. They have no concept beyond their worst experience.” While I have been to hell and back. There’s no pain I cannot endure.

“I stubbed my toe the other day, does that count?” Raph’s idiotic statement reaches my ears through the intercom on the door. When I turn around, he’s standing behind the glass wall near his husband.

“Your donor is convulsing.”

“It happens when the show is over.” I remove the throwing knife from the donor’s neck, and after a couple of seconds, he stops moving.

“Did you use one of Gabe’s knives? He’s not going to like that,” Michael says.

I shrug, like I’m afraid of that fucker or his barking alter.

“I brought you a treat.” Michael has a plate and a container in each hand holding some kind of food that looks like inedible eggs and DOA pancakes. I look at Raph, but he’s staring at his phone. Michael is the worst cook in the universe, and my brother—one of the most gruesome killers in Chicago—can’t stop him from continuing to try.

“What’s that?” I point at the blob-looking thing inside the container.

“It’s bread made from scratch. I shaped it like a heart.” He’s smiling with excitement. A shattered heart?

“It’s green; is that mold?” I frown at it. “Is it a mangled iguana carcass? Or maybe something that once was food. I’m a restaurant owner; I can’t be in the same room with that thing.”

“Why do you all have to insult me like this while I pour all my love into baking?” He drops the plates on the floor, scattering pieces of…food and ceramic everywhere.

“Babe, c’mere.” Raph yanks him against his chest and then glares at me. I glare back. Fucking drama queens.

“I have a three-Michelin-star chef waiting to teach him how to cook, but he refused,” I remind him—actually the rest of the family begged me to do it.

“No, I didn’t. I told you I will if you have lunch with me once a week like we used to,” Michael replies with a glower. He’s asking me a favor in exchange for another favor?

When Raph got together with Michael, I went to see what all the fuss was about. I discovered we both like detective stories and food, so I started bringing him lunch during his work breaks. I did it mainly to fuck with Raph, but I kind of found him not so annoying after a while. But he started bringing those repellant dishes he cooked.. Plus, Raph doesn’t leave him alone for long.

“I’m busy,” I deadpan. “Tell me about that bird legend.” Michael’s knowledge of torture methods is quite ample.

“You mean the blood eagle?” He turns his head toward me, his cheek still on Raph’s chest. “It comes from Nordic legends of Viking executions. The condemned’s back was slashed to give access to the ribs, which were then broken and twisted upward to look like wings.”

“Not bad,” I comment, imagining doing it to my next donor. I’m going to need a sturdy table to lay the shithead down on and longer chains to restrain them.

“There’s more, salt was poured into the wound. And as a final blow, the lungs were pulled out and draped over the rib-wings for effect. There’s debate about whether or not this practice actually existed, or if it’s just poppycock.”

“Either way someone took the time to think this up.” Raph smirks with wicked pleasure. I can clearly see what’s going on in that lizard brain of his.

“By the way, the way you carve words into donors is subpar at best.” Michael glances at the dead fucker behind me before sticking his tongue out at me.

I grit my teeth at his goading, then spin around and stab the throwing knife into the donor’s lifeless eye. It twitches. Must be an involuntary muscle contraction. I sink the blade further inside the skull. Just to make sure he’s fucking dead.

“Trying to steal the impaler nickname from me?” Raph keeps annoying me.

“Hearing your voice is like dragging my balls across shattered glass,” I mutter.

“That’s an idea. Should take it for a spin in the FUNS room,” Michael states.

“Done that.” Raph kisses his husband’s head.

“Why the fuck are you here? You’re disturbing me,” I bark.

Raph looks to my left at a chair where a piece of paper lies. I must have been so taken by the torture, I didn’t hear him come inside the room. I clean the blood off my hands as best as I can using a wet cloth and then grab the folded paper.

It looks like a threatening note…a ridiculous one.

ONE WEEK LEFT.

OWNERSHIP OF YOUR MOCCASINS WILL PASS ON TO ME.

BE SOLD ON ETSY FOR FIVE CENTS.

There’s a little doodle of a middle finger at the end.

Those are my genuine Italian ostrich leather moccasins, which he stole from me. It’s a battle that has been going on since we were kids. We take something from one another and hide it, calling each other names while we go crazy looking for it. The truth is, it keeps our relentless personalities busy so we don’t fall into darker patterns. Lately though, I’ve been too taken by all the rest to play the game.

“There’s no time limit, you fucker. And why use cut-out letters if there’s nothing anonymous about it?” I deadpan, sending a you moron look at Raph as I turn the note to show it to him. “You brought it to me.”

Michael gasps. “Oh my God. You mauled my Scientific American for that? How dare you, you-you psycho!”

“Piglet, I was bored. You’re working all the time.”

And here is the restless side I was talking about before. I get bored too, but a threatening note? Really?

“Like you don’t. Use your own damn magazines!” Michael punches his husband’s chest too weakly for my liking.

“I don’t read paperbacks.” Raph sounds unbothered by it all, but his arms tighten around Michael.

“I’m going to kill you!” Michael growls like an annoyed little kitty.

“How are you going to do it?” I’m the one goading this time.

“Not sure.” He huffs flailing his arms.

“He’ll suffocate me…with kisses. He loves me to death,” Raph states with a smirk.

Michael sniffs at him. “You can’t use the love card every time you drive me mad!”

“I’ll do it then.” I grab Leslie, my gun, from the table and release the safety. Am I teasing? I’m not sure. I’ve thought about ending him many times, in multiple different ways. It’s kind of a hobby.

Michael turns to me. “Can’t you see that he did this for you, Uri?”

“No, I didn’t!” Raph frowns at him.

“He even used a lame TV drama stunt to draw you away from your messy thoughts.”

“No, he didn’t!” I look at Raph’s unfazed expression, empty eyes, and mouth in a straight line.

“Moccasins bye bye,” he mouths with a wave of his hand. Motherfucker! I point Leslie’s muzzle at his face through the glass wall. He smirks smugly. A round between his eyes will erase that stupid expression off his mug.

“The code, Uri,” Michael exclaims.

Fuuuck! How can Raph be with such a goodie-two-shoes? Yes, we follow the code Linda put down for us, to remind us where the morally gray line we shouldn’t step over, stands. Which means I can’t kill Raph only because he’s a shithead. He needs to turn into an evil shithead for me to do so.

“You’ve become so tedious, professor,” I taunt Michael with a tsk as I lower my gun.

Raph flips me off, and I’m about to repay him in kind when Lori appears, followed by Gabe and Rague, who has a donor hanging from his massive shoulder.

“You know what’s really tedious?” Lori asks; he must have eavesdropped on our conversation. “Your controlling attitude toward Sari. Make up your mind, you stuck-up socio!”

“Go back to hell, Satan’s pet!” I rub a hand over my tired eyes.

“Why would I do that when I can fuck with you lot?” Lori intones in a snarky voice.

Rague enters the FUNS room and lets the donor fall unceremoniously on the floor. It’s the dirty cop who helped cover up my donor’s hunting hobby. “Is he dead?”

Rague replies by pushing his shoe into the donor’s face until I hear a crack.

I set Leslie on the table again and crouch down to check the corpse. It’s still warm, but his chest is curved inward, the black fabric on the torso wet with blood.

“The lawyer? Dead too?”

“Yes,” Lori replies for him, since all Rague is doing is growling and glaring. “What’s left of him is in the kidnapping van.”

Fucking hell.

Another growl. Rague’s face is flushed, veins almost popping on his forehead and arms. He keeps gritting his teeth, his body trembling with uncontrollable anger. Is he having a light red haze episode? It’s happened in the past when he lost his marbles and destroyed everything in his path. Almost killed Rami one time, tried with me as well. Those scientists experimented on his brain when he was imprisoned, fucking him up. These days he can control it…mostly. Better if his husband is near him.

“Where’s Ollie?” I ask, turning toward the glass wall. If he isn’t coming, maybe I can have some more fun.

“Coming,” Michael replies.

Shots suddenly resound inside the room as Rague sinks four bullets inside my donor’s torso. Then he yanks the throwing knife out of the fucker’s eye and starts stabbing the top of his head, creating an even bigger mess. The sound is gag inducing, but I’m blasé about the highest level of gruesome.

“It’s like he’s trying to make a jack-o’-lantern following a Michael Myers tutorial,” I hear Lori whisper.noveldrama

Nobody says anything else until Rague is done. He needs to vent his inner monster’s fury and although the thought of poking at it comes back, I decide against it. I have stuff to do.

“I think he’s eternally-returned-to-dust dead, amen and all that holy stuff, KKJ,” Lori hazards. I guess Super Model is a better nickname than King Kong Junior.

But fuck, I just came here to have some alone time with my donor. To clear my head and have some fun, not attend one of my family’s annoying shows.

“Is that my throwing knife?” I hear Gabe asking stiffly, his expression flat and blank as he taps away on his phone.

“Fuck off, Gabriz!” Rague finally speaks, addressing Gabe, Bez, and Lori.

“Another ship name?” Michael groans.

“Fine!” Lori grabs Gabe’s forearm. “Gabriz is leaving the third circle of hell, the one for crazy psychos!”

“I’m a sociopath!” Fucking loathe when they lump me together with psychos.

“Whatever. Like there’s a difference at the moment,” Bez taunts me. I hear a small laugh, and it’s like a switch turning on inside my head. I grab Rague’s bloody hand still wrapped around Leslie and spin us toward the glass wall, lifting the gun and pulling the trigger five times, muzzle pointed right at Bez.

Lori screams, while Raph grabs Michael and moves his body behind him. Bez/Gabe remains still, cool as a cucumber. Not a twitch. They know the glass is bullet proof; they were here when Rague changed it two months ago—Raph as well, don’t know why he’s shielding his husband.

“You bloody, shitty arsehole!” Lori yells at me, his watery eyes fixed on the bullets stuck in the glass. He then frantically pats Gabe’s body before climbing him like a tree and wrapping himself around him.

He should know by now about my spontaneous outbursts. I do dream of hurting every single one of my bros, but I’ve never actually done it.

“I’m. A fucking. Sociopath,” I snap as I lower the gun and glare at all of them.

Then I move toward the door that leads to the bathroom. Need a fucking shower. Rague can dispose of the bodies since he enjoys acid’s effectiveness so fucking much.

My Hummer is gliding smoothly through the snowy streets of Chicago, a marvel of design and engineering. Warm air blows out of the vents drying the damp ends of my dreads. My black duster coat is lying on the leather passenger seat, hiding Leslie underneath. I had to change my dirty clothes, and now I’m wearing kickass ankle boots, black jeans, and a burgundy cable knit—blood is less visible on dark colors. And with Sari’s stalker lurking around, I never know when I’ll need to shed some.

Five more minutes and I’ll be at my lake house in Winnetka, a suburban area of Chicago. I have just enough time.

“Serena, show me Sari’s position.”

“Sure thing, Uri,” she replies straight away.

A map with a red dot appears on the dash screen. Sari is having a top-rated gastronomic experience with Michael, Raph, and Sandy—their PA—in my upscale bistro downtown. I usually go along for their monthly office dinner, but I need to check on the work Rague’s men did at the house. It needs to be ready by tomorrow night.

“Serena, access the cameras in the bistro,” I order.

I’m the owner, no need for Serena to hack into them. She finds their table straight away—the best in the place.

“Zoom on Sari.”

And there he is. His new red-rimmed glasses should make him look like a nerd, but instead turn him into a tsunami of innocence and dirty thoughts. His long, elegant fingers with neatly filed, milky-white nails wrap gracefully around the glass stem. His relaxed smile gleams under the restaurant fluorescent lights.

After a moment, he leaves the table, moving toward the toilets. He’s wearing a pair of soft-looking velvet pants that envelop his legs like a second skin. Those plump cheeks are begging for my hands’ attention with each step he takes. The thought of them jiggling under my eyes with every hard, punishing thrust of my hips as I ruin his hole makes me want to turn my fucking car around and go to him.

“Fuck!” I rub my hand over my mouth, not sure what to do with myself. One long look at him, and I’m on fire. I start biting the barbell in my tongue impatiently. I’m hotly aware of the way my sweater rubs against my nipples, the pinch of the metal hoop in my eyebrow, the sweat covering the ink along my chest, and the urge to pull Sari onto my lap to punish him for displaying his uncontainable beauty for other men’s leery looks.

I need to move up my plan. That reminds me. “Call Clover.”

“Did you do it?” I ask as soon as he picks up.

“Learn proper etiquette before calling someone on the phone.” Why is he whispering?

I wouldn’t have given him the job, but Clover is the only one who could get inside Sari’s building without detection. He’s a thief we use when we need some extra help with the donors. We pay him abundantly for his facilitation. But, as the rest of humanity, he is annoying as fuck.

“Just answer the fucking question!”

“I didn’t want to let them go. They were so cute!”

Really? Maybe I should have turned to the triplets; they seem to like animals as well as unleashing chaos.

“Clover.”

“Wait a second. I’m upside down and sweating like a horse here,” he pants.

“Like a pig, sweating like a pig.”

“It makes no sense. Pigs don’t sweat. Horse on the other hand,” he whisper-yells. Then I hear a thud, a curse, and the abrupt beeping sound of an alarm going off.

“You’re on a job,” I state, unimpressed as I halt the Hummer in front of my house gates.

“No, I’m just…passing time between jobs,” he replies, out of breath.

I type in the security code. “What are you stealing?” I ask, as I go through the retinal scanner before the gates open. This conversation is also me passing time.

“I didn’t steal anything. I just studied…closely a couple of paintings and a few sculptures.”

“Where?” I wait for the garage door to open, staring out over the magnolia trees, the path beyond, and the lake past that.

“The Art Institute. Those Water Lilies… Didn’t know paint strokes could feel so rough under the fingertips.”

I’m not surprised he could enter and walk around a place in Chicago with the most advanced security system in the world. Rami bumped into Clover when working on a case, they were both somewhere they shouldn’t have been, so they mutually decided to ignore each other. Rami was impressed by Clover’s Lupin the III thieving skills, so he decided to hire him for the next case. Five years have passed since then.

“Anyway the job is done,” he lets me know. I keep hearing clanking noises through the line. What the fuck is he doing? “I don’t question my clients when given a job…”

I could be charming, smooth-talking, and likable with disingenuous intentions. Sociopathic individuals are better at influencing others, at manipulating them. We probably invented it. Nevertheless, today has been a fucking long day, and it’s not over yet.

“So don’t,” I forcibly state, grabbing the phone from the dash.

He huffs, but doesn’t say more about it. “I kept one of the rodents.”

“Why?” I exit my car and stop near it, while opening the bank app on my phone.

“As a pet,” he replies.

I’ve never understood the need to own a pet. I see it more as a burden than a companion. The need to feed it, clean up after it, even cuddle it. Sari got one last month. Dare, one of the triplets, took him to their pet shelter, and when he came back, he had adopted a hairless guinea pig. The animal is all pink with a large black spot on his tailless butt and white, frizzy hair only on its muzzle, feet, and legs. He named him Albert E., since he thinks there’s a resemblance with the German theoretical physicist. I only see a squishy, ugly, biting thing, who’s screaming to be squeezed to death—like a stress ball.

“Need to give him a name, any suggestions?”

“No. I transferred the money with a little extra. Not a word to Rami.”

“Why not? Oh crap, gotta go!” He ends the call, and I pocket my phone and walk out of the garage and into the house. The front wall is all made of glass to enjoy the quiet courtyard. A wooden bench, a small table, and the old pomegranate tree standing in the middle, with its twisted bark and long branches covered in snow.

I have a penthouse in a newly constructed high-rise, and a condo in downtown Chicago, but that tree is one of the main reasons I decided to buy this lake house last year.

I turn left and stride down the corridor, passing the living room and the kitchen to stop at the lab’s threshold. It smells like fresh paint and chemicals. Tomorrow morning, all the equipment and tools I ordered will arrive. I move next door. The soundproofing in the room is almost done, by tomorrow afternoon everything will be ready.

In the meantime, I need to fucking find my moccasins before Raph forces me to kill him. What should I take from him next? One of the blood paintings inside his penthouse? His Ducati? His teeth?

I climb the stairs to the second floor and go check the walk-in-closet they finished today. A soft, red carpet covers the floor, and cabinets and shelves fill the walls. The blue flowers painted along the door panels look as good as the painter showed me on his portfolio. I look at the delicate design, lost in old memories for a moment. The settee in the corner, still wrapped in plastic, needs to be set in front of the shoe shelves, the cream chaise lounge moved near the chest of drawers, all the clothes hung and the accessories placed inside the drawers. I didn’t know renovating a house could be this time-consuming.

The thought of going to Madame Claudette’s crosses my mind for a moment, but I’m not that pent up. Not yet.

I descend the stairs and tread down the hallway which leads back to the garage and the gun room next to it. I let the facial recognition do its job as I stand still. The door opens with a click, and I let it close behind me.

This is the only room in the house that deserves my time. The acrid, smoky scent of the propellants and burned metal hits me first, the scent of the paper targets slowly gets into the mix with the wooden one from the floor.

I slide Leslie out the back of my pants and place it on the long counter in front of the target lines— there are three firing lines, one for each target. I push a button and a large section on the wall flips putting on display a number of heavy firearms: a Swedish K, RPGs, MP5Ks, SIGs—which I love because they don’t have external safety—some hunting rifles, and my Old Betsy, a Browning X Bolt. It helped me hunt and engage targets with precise accuracy at extended ranges on many occasions. I usually keep it in the trunk of my car, but it needs some cleaning.

I ponder for a moment if I should unload one of the rifles before moving toward the multiple drawers filling the other side of the wall. They contain smaller guns—a 45, a HK VP9, and a FN 509 Compact. I let my eyes slide over the six calibers, they don’t have much power, but will do the job. Then the revolvers and the semi-autos, like the CZ75B.

My guns are an extension of myself, like an arm or a leg. They follow my lead wherever I take them. They are also receptacles of memories. I give each a name after it fulfills its purpose. And my new customized Staccato 9mm is waiting for one, whether it is Phoenix or the stalker or my biological brother.

The image of ending Phoenix once and for all with a bullet between their eyes turns my dick stiff. Maybe I do need to go to Madame Claudette’s and release some of this restless energy. But the only ass I want to turn apple red and pound over and over is Sari’s sweet, virgin one.

I grit my teeth against the wild desire, needing something else to focus on, something familiar that doesn’t incite my impulsive nature or my tendency to tear everything apart. I reach into the drawer; my fingers wrap around the cool metal of the Staccato. I eject the clip, check it, and pop it back in smoothly.

I take the safety off and point the gun at the silhouette target on the opposite side of the wall. The moonlight glints from the skylights off the top of it as I pull the trigger once, twice, five times—the bullets embed into the beams behind with a thud. The booming sound echoes in my ears even after I’m done. I take in measured breaths, my fingers twitch along the gun. I feel more in control by the second, until a warning shiver rushes down my spine. I spin around and point the muzzle at the figure leaning against the wall in a relaxed position.

His eyes—the exact shape and shade as mine—are looking back at me, studying, scrutinizing. Same plump lips, caramel skin, wide nose, and arched eyebrows. Same face.

I find it fucking annoying to have an identical twin. It means there’s someone with my face out there in the world, doing shit. Even Serena can’t distinguish between us, letting him stroll around everywhere he fucking pleases—unless he decides to wear that damn mask.

He’s observing me the same intense way I’m regarding him. It’s uncanny how alike we look.

We must have unique features, though, we aren’t clones. For starters, he has no piercings on his face. And when he pushes down the hood of his sweater, a green bandana is wrapped around his forehead and a thick lock of hair falls on top of it. Light brown strands like mine, but wavy and short. He has a mole on his neck and no taste in clothes whatsoever—unless trashy style is in vogue.

I keep my expression blank while a sense of irritation starts burning inside of me.

How the fuck didn’t I notice him getting in? Was he already inside the house when I arrived? He’s holding Annie, my Glock 40, as he pushes against the wall and takes a couple of steps toward me, gun down by his side. Same height, but he seems brawnier than me, can’t tell with all those layers of cheap clothes on him.

I need to tell Rami about these differences, so that Serena can tell us apart next time and stop my bio bro from breaking and entering into my house. I should call him right now, but that’s exactly what he wants me to do. He let me see his face on purpose. It’s a way to show me his good faith. Or maybe a trick to gain my trust before pouncing.

Mm. My interest is piqued. I want to see where this is going.

“What makes you think you can just invade my space?”

“Isn’t that what family members do, Uriel?” His voice is gruff and deep, with a little rasp to it.

“Are we family? A psychopath and a sociopath, father would be so proud,” I state sarcastically.

“Ha. He didn’t even recognize me when I slit his throat,” he confesses to the killing nonchalantly. I was told father was killed in prison by another inmate. Did he sneak inside just to murder him? Or end up inside on purpose? I had my own plan for how to end father’s miserable life; he beat me to it.

I lower my gun, still remaining alert. “Uncle, was his death an accident?” A car accident four months before father. I never thought about the possibility of my biological brother being the perpetuator.

He takes his time to answer, looking around. “I ran him over with a truck. Held him under the heavy tires for a few extra seconds as his bones cracked. Old sins have long shadows, you know?”

“Do you expect a thank you? You took my revenge away from me,” I hiss, remembering how unsatisfied and enraged I felt when I’d discovered both men were dead.

“You started killing late…at eighteen.” He makes a taunting whistling sound. “I started way younger. Was mostly forced to do it, but I enjoyed it. I don’t prolong their end, though…unlike you.”

“You did some deep research.” I sniff. “Do you also happen to know the color of my damn underwear?”

He smirks, starting to walk around the room, glancing around. “No, because you don’t wear any.”

Deep research it is.

“We both didn’t when we were kids; hated it,” he adds. I don’t remember not wearing it when I was a kid. I don’t now because it makes me feel itchy and restrained.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. I’m not expecting a direct reply from a psychopath, but I can discern a few things from the way he avoids questions.

“Azrael. My name is Azrael.”

Azrael. “The Angel of Death.” Meg was always interested in religious narratives, that’s why she gave us, her foster kids, the seven names of the angels of wrath.

He nods. “Ezra, if you prefer. You all got angel names, I thought I should get one as well.”

“Why?” His candidness, the willingness to answer my questions must be part of a conniving plan. He can easily manipulate the conversation and seems to have a grandiose sense of self-worth. He’s also giving me his back while studying the room, as if he’s not afraid of me.

“I was experimented on as well. Longer than you guys. Don’t I deserve an angel name, too?”

A week before Linda and Meg came to rescue us, he was moved to another facility. They only discovered about…Ezra’s existence six months after I was released, when one of the men responsible for the experiment confessed it. But by the time Linda got there, they had already left once again with Ezra.

“I have a feeling you are not here to be part of the family.”

In his gaze, I can see the same deviousness that I find in my eyes every time I look in the mirror. “So that’s what you call it? Family.” He seems to ponder on the word for a moment. “I’m here mainly because we have an enemy in common.”

“Phoenix.”

“Father shot our mother dead; is that why you like guns?” he changes subject.

“No. Why do you like arrows? Do you have Robin Hood syndrome or something?”

“I see,” he mutters cryptically.

“You took a nice piece. It shoots underwater,” I remind him he’s still gripping Annie.

He looks down at the firearm in his hand before turning a wicked look my way. “A pity the lake is cold as shit, then.”

Would he have used me as a target? “Why the dead body on my front step?”

I see a hint of excitement in his eyes. “That was a happy coincidence. I was working.”

Rami found out Ezra is an assassin for hire on the dark web. “White Death. Did you choose that handler name because of your mask or vice versa?”

“I wasn’t the only one researching deeply.” A small smirk appears on his lips.

“After you dumped the first body, I felt compelled to do so,” I counter.

His open smile reminds me of a coldblooded reptile. He knows I’m lying, since I’ve been looking for him for years. The only information I have, though, is the journal the scientist kept while training him, which Linda found in the facility where he was held, and some scattered facts Rami was able to discover. Very little compared to what he seems to know about me. Not that I care about his life, but the fact that he knows more puts me at a disadvantage. And that, I don’t fucking like.

“The first body was a gift to show you I’m open to sharing information on Phoenix. The second and most recent one was, as I said, a coincidence. He saw my face while I was taking care of a client, and he called me by your name. I found out he was one of your…what do you call them? Donors. That AI, Serena, is a great time saver.”

When Raph saw the headless guy’s picture, he told me we’d met him at a gala six months ago. He remembered me talking to him. I have a vague memory of an obnoxious fucker hitting on everything that moved that night, even me. I told Rami to check him out that night, and I found out that Jasper Pendelton was an eligible donor. My list is long, though, and there are last-minute additions as well, that’s why his execution kept getting postponed.

Ezra points Annie toward the wall with the targets. His stance is steady and balanced; he must have experience with guns, not only arrows and beheading people.

“So why did you cut his head off?”

“I wanted to try my new machete.” He shrugs, then shakes Annie in the air. “Where do you keep the ammo for this?”

I stare at him while I lift my gun toward the targets. I fire two shots without taking my eyes off him. I don’t need to look, because I know those bullets hit right between the silhouette’s eyes. “Third drawer on the left,” I tell him, confident he got the message. This is my reign. If he tries something, I’ll end him. No hesitation.

He moves to the line of drawers, and after finding the right one, he starts loading the gun.

“I know you have questions. I’ll answer three.”

It seems like a let’s-cut-the-bullshit act, but it feels more like a calculated step. He didn’t have Meg and Linda growing up. He’s probably not a high-functioning psychopath like Raph, who possesses core psychopathic characteristics and leverages them for success in specific contexts, while following—more or less—societal norms.

Apathetic, narcissistic, charming, secretive, sexually deviant—all terms that describe me perfectly, but I, too, am a good sociopath. I wear my mask of sanity, presenting a facade of normalcy, making it hard for others to identify my true nature. We have the ability to control and apply our psychopathic/sociopathic traits. But Ezra is a dangerous enigma. One that we will probably need to eliminate. I don’t have any problem with that. I didn’t search for him out of brotherly concern—I don’t understand the purpose of that emotion—I did it out of arrogance. I was sure I’d be able to find him easily; he is my twin brother. And when that didn’t happen, it was my frustration and stubbornness that kept me going. Maybe that’s why I like detective stories so much, the thrill of the chase, the obscurity and ambiguity. But like my revenge, Ezra took that from me when he appeared out of the blue. He didn’t come to me, though. He went to see Linda first—three times—who didn’t share the fact until recently.

“Why are you here in my house? And don’t give me the same enemy crap, you’ve been stalking me and my brothers.” Wearing that stupid white mask like a sicko serial killer.

I hear the soft click of the closing drawer, then Ezra turns around, gun aimed at me, eyes void of any emotion. He shoots. The bullet flies, cutting the air near my ear before piercing the target behind me.

I don’t move. My heart keeps beating at its usual rhythm as I give him a hard stare. I’m not afraid of dying. Death isn’t the worst phenomenon; it’s just the final act of life. I’ve been shot at more times than I can count, and I have quite a few scars to prove it—a repercussion of the bloody business I’m part of. I accepted it, and I’m used to it.

“I’m on vacation,” he then says. A very long vacation. He’s been lurking around for three months.

“You said you were working when you met headless guy,” I growl, sick of this half malarkey. I’m still looking down Annie’s barrel, and I feel an overwhelming urge to reciprocate.

“That was just a little extra on the side. I got slightly bored…stalking you. Your double life is not as enjoyable to observe as I thought.”

Fucker! “My family would enjoy observing you, though. You don’t mind if I invite them here, right?” I grab my phone from my pants pocket. It’s time to contact Rami.

He tilts his head to the side, giving me another empty stare. “I’m afraid I can’t tonight. Two questions left.”

“You didn’t answer my first yet.” He’s a crafty asshole, but growing up with Raph I learned how to recognize all the half-truths hidden among the horseshit.

“I was doing a recon to see what you were all up to. Don’t you do the same with your donors?”

“To kidnap and kill them without repercussions,” I clip.

“It’s too early to tell what will happen.” His retort reflects my thoughts exactly.

“How did you get inside my house?”

“You should have asked me how I move undetected around Chicago city. Because getting inside this lake house was child’s play. I think I overestimated you.” I growl in reply to his insult. He smiles. “You’re still irascible, so easy to fuck with.”

“And you’re still an asshole.”

He finally lowers the pistol, sniffing at my words. “That’s a word I hear often.”

From whom? Rami didn’t find any trace of a family or a partner. Does he attend an assassin annual reunion? Even if there were one, he wouldn’t go. No, Ezra gives out crazy loner vibes, but again, we didn’t find much about his life. We don’t even know how he escaped from the facility. Unless…he didn’t. He is an assassin, which was the goal of the experiment—to turn us into emotionless, killer puppets. But Ezra doesn’t work for the government. He’s…self-employed.

“It’s more fun to find that answer by yourself, isn’t it?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Why is Phoenix targeting you as well?”

He hums. “We share a past.”

Finally we are getting somewhere. “What past, Ezra?” Did he work for him? With him? Was Phoenix a client?

“Unfortunately time’s up.”

“No, it isn’t.” I lift my semi-auto at him.

“If you wanted to kill me, you’d have done it by now,” he states without showing a smidge of fear.

“I can still shoot you in both legs and prevent you from leaving.”

He hums again. I’m starting to hate that fucking noncommittal sound.

“You could, but that wouldn’t be wise. Phoenix is getting closer, and you need all help you can get.”

“What I need is answers,” I snarl.

“And I’ll give them to you in time.”

“Time,” I echo, putting my gun down, still keeping the safety off.

He’s studying my face again with acute concentration. “We are inextricably linked, Uriel,” he finally utters in a stern tone. “Our faces. Our lives. Maybe even our deaths.”

“Funny, since you’re the one who stayed away all this time,” I retort.

His eyes darken just a split second before he shifts to the left, making me move to the right, my gun pointing at his knee. He unloads Annie…at the silhouette target with his eyes on me—mimicking my intimidation act from earlier. In the corner of my eye, I see the holes he left on the face of the target forming a downcast mouth. I’m not that impressed. Good aim must simply be in our genes.

“Don’t you have any questions for me?” I ask him, as he leaves the gun on the counter and turns toward the door.

He stops for a moment. “That’s for next time.” When he passes the threshold, he adds, “Don’t follow me.” And disappears.

Nobody tells me what to do. I lift my phone. “Serena, show me the man who’s exiting my house.”

“Here is the live video, Uri,” she promptly answers.

Ezra appears on my phone screen. He’s walking purposefully to the back door, through the garage. When he’s out, he follows the path to the lake. I have fewer cameras out there, but I added motion sensors. I need to see how he gets in and out so quickly to disappear completely. He shifts behind a tall bush; there’s no CCTV there. The motion sensors still catch his movements as he keeps advancing until he reaches the lake and vanishes.

I quickly find my way out of the house after I grab a flashlight, retracing his steps. It’s damn cold. As I’m making my way to the lake I see it. A jet boat cutting through the water. Fuck! Ezra is at the wheel, I could chase him with the cruiser tied on the deck, but it would take to much time to prep it.

I let out a loud growl, when the light coming from the flashlight shows the utility hole half covered by snow. My mind goes back to Ezra’s previous words. Damn it!

“Serena, call Rami.”

“Yes, Uri.”

I turn around, heading back to the house, phone near my ear. I feel both irritated at myself and excited by the new discovery. When my bro picks up, I don’t give him time to talk. “He was here.”

“Who?” Rami asks, sounding alert.

“Ezra. My bio bro. I know how he appears out of thin air to disappear just as fast in the city.”

“Ezra? Okay, you need to tell me everything.”

I don’t know everything…yet. Next time, though, he will tell me his true intentions through his own volition or my gun’s. Either way, he’ll talk.