A Portrait of the Killer as a Young Man

Chapter Two

"Please, Jake, please let me go," Piper gasped, straining against my grasp on his throat. I wasn't holding tight enough to kill, but he didn't need to know that.
"Yeah, no. Sorry," I laughed, the joyless laugh of a killer. "One, I've got a job. Two, there's money on the line. And three, I kinda like seeing you so helpless."
"Please," he whimpered, veins bulging underneath my long fingers.
"No. Unless you tell me what I need to know, that is. Then, my sweet, sweet brother, you can go run home to Mommy and tell her what a bad boy I've been. I'm sure they'd be just so shocked, wouldn't they? That yet another one of their sons has followed in Grandpa's footsteps? Go on, little boy. I dare you."
Piper's breathing quickened as I loosened my grip just a little, teasing.
"Okay, I'll tell you, I'll tell you everything."
I smiled, releasing my brother's neck and leaning back in my chair.
"Start talking, little boy."
Two days after the incident with Piper, I found myself at the tiny table in my apartment, my stepbrother Vince, who was my elder by ten years, seated across from me. He reeked of whiskey and cigarettes, and I made a mental note to pick up some Febreze. When he spoke, his rich Brooklyn accent filled the room.
"Listen, Jake, you gotta come home, kid," Vince said, sounding tired.
"I'm not a kid. And no, I'm not going home, are you crazy?"
Vince sighed again. "Not me, your mother. She's trying to bring you all home, you and Ben and Ash, and I think she's sending a guy to talk to Matt too. I don't know what's going on, man, I just know that word got out that you boys were on the streets again, and she got it into her head that she could bring you all home."
"Even Matt? Is she stupid and crazy?" I shook my head. "No, I'm not coming, unless she gets all the other boys in. I'll stay close," I added when Vince started to open his mouth again, "But don't think for a second that you'll find me again."
I ushered him out the door, and sagged against the wall the second I shut the door. I was going to need a new place, and I'd have to take another job to pay for it all. Pushing off the wall, I began adding up expenses.
Damn. This place had just started to feel like a home.
In my head, the girl fell to the ground over and over again, until Ringo's face had been soaked with blood a hundred times. I tossed back and forth in the new bed in the new room in the new safehouse, holding a pillow to my face to silence my screams. My body shook as I rid my lungs of air again and again, until I felt so hollow and empty that the guilt and pain were just shadows of memory in the back of my mind.
It was only then that I stood up, stepping into a pair of ripped jeans and pulling my leather jacket on over my sweatshirt. I tucked my gun into the holster at my waist, knowing that no one in this part of town would look twice at it. Sliding my knives into the sheathes on the inside of each of my boots, I pulled my hood up and stepped out the door into the stairwell. A half mile away, a car would be waiting for me, waiting to drive the killer to the victim's doorstep.
Tonight would be an easy job. One target, placed perfectly in an isolated country house. It didn't get too much simpler than that. It was more who I was working for that concerned me.
When I opened the door of the black sedan, a familiar face greeted me.
"Jake, buddy, how've ya been?" my brother Matt drawled. He wasn't a big guy, no taller than I was and sporting a much slighter frame, but he was dripping with danger. This was the man who had single-handedly killed off over half of the Senate before his 20th birthday, this was the man who had then been brought in by the CIA not because they suspected him of countless killings but because they wanted to recruit him. This was the man who had dragged me into this mess in the first place.
"Matt." I nodded calmly. "I should've guessed it was you. Did Mom's messenger get through to you alive?"
"Yeah, and as it happens, I'm going home, and I want you there." Matt said, and I could've sworn I detected a trace of uncertainty in his eyes, but then it was gone and I was looking into cold steel again.
I had to laugh. "You? You are going home? Oh, Matt, what have they been drugging you with? You know that Mom's going to spend the whole time praying for our redemption, and if Dad even shows his face it'll be to threaten to turn us all in. Why would you even want-- Oh, I get it. Poor little Matty-watty is homesick," I said in a mock-condescending voice.
Matt glared, eyes hard enough to cut diamonds. "Shut your mouth, kid. You might be Grandpa's little prodigy, but let's remember who's in charge."
"Touch that scar on your side without flinching and maybe I'll believe you when you say you could take me. I'm sorry, Matt, but I'm not with you on this one. I've made up my mind."
"That's a lovely show of bravado, dear brother, but save your breath. You're coming home, and that's that. I'd say I'm sorry," he sneered, "but I'm really not." As he spoke, my gaze caught on a flash by his side.
"Isn't that cheating?" I asked of the gun in his hand, my gun in his hand. If nothing else, Matt was a master pickpocket.
And to be honest, I really did want to go home, even if it meant seeing my family.