Pacifier

🍀Sam🌹

"you should wash your hands, they're disgusting,"

She didn't know it but those were the truest words she'd said that night. They were the words which had left me uneasy as I made a joke and tried to get her to pipe down.

But no amount of water and soap could wash the dirt from under my nails. The blood of so many who had died at my hands dried in the lines of my palms. I would never be clean and to her, no matter how she joked, I would always be a part of the filth that tainted her streets.

Those were the thoughts heavy on my mind as we drove between the squats and the terraced houses which harboured half the Reids most faithful allies.

These were the people on my little hit list as she had so lacksadaisically put it.

It has struck me as strange that Della had picked up on it. Recognised the street to belong to her enemies because it didn't look like the kind of street that could be owned by anybody of our class.

These were old Georgian terraces, 3 story spacious townhouses turned luxury apartments and the kinds of people who lived behind these pearly black front doors were far wealthier than any of us could ever dream to be.

These were the kinds of people I was used to working with, and used to working for. The ones who more often than not, really called the shots.

The man who I was going to kill tonight had been on my list for a very long time. He'd been written down by Van and when I'd raised my brow, recognised the infamous name, he'd shrugged his shoulders, said simply:

"You can't take out the Reids without taking out Billy Reids boss," and he was right.

If Van killed Billy Reid then Michael Conway, who had made most of his money investing in Billy Reids backdoor dealings and businesses, would only replace him with another body. Whoever he could find who was morally void enough to fill his shoes.

Van hadn't explained anything else, hadn't really needed to. He'd only told me what I was to do.

I was to take Conway from his home in the middle of the night, take him to a hotel, one of the dodgy 1 night kinda stays set up by Billy, part of his back door businesses, and then I was to wait.

He wouldn't need to be missing long for the Reids to start looking for him. For his protection to come hunting him down. I wouldn't try to hide, I was to wait patiently. And when they arrived I was to kill them all.

And when Van had first told me this plan I'd grinned, thought it a smart little plan, an easy job for me because I'd hardly have to leave my hotel room.

But then he'd asked me to take Della and protect her and I'd grown a little too attached to the job.

So now that plan didn't seem simple, didn't even really seem good. It seemed reckless, dangerous. Needless.

And the closer the car crawled down that street, to Michael Conways front door, the more unsettled I became as it began to dawn on me what would happen next.

What it would mean for me and Della when she finally saw me at work. Doing the thing I do best.

Merciless killings, morally ambiguous murders which didn't mean a lot to me, safe in the knowledge that in our world good and bad blend together and curdle. That most men are bad and deserve the fates they carve for themselves.

All I really was was a man without feeling, without morals, who was paid to kill and who killed whoever he was paid to. I didn't know whether the people on my list deserved to be there, I didn't even often know how they'd earnt their place, I just acted upon the sums I was paid and I kept my promises to those I made them.