“What?” The driver grimaced, still applying pressure to his knee. “What orders?”
Ex stopped a couple of feet from him and squatted close to where he lay on the ground. He took the tip of his gun and pressed it to the driver’s other kneecap.
“No! No! Don’t, please. Okay!” The driver yelled.
“Were your orders to kill a defenseless, grieving woman in her home? Hmm? Is that what the two of you were about to do?” Ex asked.
“Who the fuck are you guys? You must not know who you’re messing with,” the man said, glaring hard. “Do you know who I am?”
Ex shook his head as if he didn’t care. “Your name is not important. In my line of work, you’re simply called ‘next’.”
The passenger was lying on his side watching them through drug-laced eyes. Meridian could only imagine the headache he had.
“If you ask me another question, I’m gonna shoot you in the stomach. It’s a very painful way to die,” Ex explained. “I ask. You answer. Now. Who do you work for?”
The passenger groaned and started to shakily work his way to his knees.
“I was only supposed to make the old broad shut up. I don’t fucking know who the order came from. I do freelance. I heard about this job, thought it was easy, so I took it. I don’t have a goddamn boss. There, you satisfied?”
Meridian saw fire ignite in Ex’s gray eyes and he didn’t flinch, knowing what was about to happen next.
“An easy job.” Ex bolted up to his full height and shot the man once in the kneecap, then in the stomach, his accuracy ensuring the maximum amount of pain. “And I said, don’t ask me any more questions.”
Moving on, Meridian shoved his boot into the passenger’s back. He started to cry like a bitch as he stared at his friend who lay bleeding out beside him. The sounds a dying man made were hard to un-hear and resulted in years of therapy, but Meridian relished it. It was the sound of justice. He thought of what Ex’s mother would’ve been going through right now—as those gangsters silenced her—if he and Ex hadn’t shown up. He was kind of hoping Ex would draw this out even more.
“Was he telling the truth? If you have no information then I have no use for you,” Ex said.
On cue, Meridian grabbed the man in a chokehold from behind and pressed his gun to his temple. He pulsated on the inside for Ex to tell him to pull the trigger. Just one slight nod was all Meridian needed.
“Wait! Wait. I know the woman was that kid’s mom that was hit in the drive-by a while back. That was between the Warlords and the 14th Street crew. Both are big-time in Atlanta and they’ve been battling for street territory for months. The kid getting caught in the crossfire was an accident but the mom keeps stirring up trouble and ended up getting the attention of some narcs. So the Warlords wanted the heat off.”
“Warlords?”
“Yeah, goddamnit. What my boy said was true, man. We do freelance. Easy shit. We’re not in with those guys, I swear,” the man pleaded uselessly.
“We need to go,” Meridian told Ex.
Ex met his eyes and tilted his head upwards.
“No. No. Come on, man. I gave you everything I know.”
“I know you did. That’s why your death will be quick,” Ex said.
Meridian stepped back and cocked his gun, drawing the man’s attention behind him.
“Don’t, plea—”
When the thug turned his head Ex shot him in the right temple. A distraction then extraction. An elimination from the world.
A merciful killing from a ruthless man.
The entire ride back to his cabin was made in silence. Slade appeared to be all right after he and Meridian had gotten inside the SUV, leaving behind two burning bodies in an S-class Mercedes. When they were pulling into the long driveway, Slade finally broke the quiet.
“I got the information on the detectives in the task force,” he said. Slade put the vehicle in park then turned to look at them through the lowered partition. “I think you’re going to find some of this stuff pretty interesting.”
Ex was hungry and still feeling the effects from his lack of sleep, therefore all he wanted to do was eat a proper dinner and try to turn in at a decent hour, ready to get some more bad guys tomorrow. But he knew they didn’t have a lot of time; they weren’t exactly on a leisurely vacation.
“All right,” Meridian said for them.
Once inside, he went to the kitchen and got three bottles of water out of the refrigerator. He tossed one to Meridian first, then to Slade. He drank his down in three swallows while he watched his partner remove his coat and hang it over the recliner in the living room.