“Pardon my intrusion. It seems my manners slipped,” I say when my foot hits the basement floor. Orken stands behind a table loaded with cash and blow, a knife in his hand shaking vigorously in his hold. I tilt my head, walking slowly around the table, observing his collection.
“I knew he’d send you,” Orken spits.
I chuckle. “Funny. He doesn’t even know that I’m here, not yet, at least.” My finger slides across the stacks of cash, and my eyes dart up to meet his. “You can say that I’m here of my own volition. You created a problem for me, Orken, and you need a little punishing.”
Orken keeps his distance as we stalk each other around the table. I switch directions, not allowing him a clean getaway to the stairs.
“We Olins, we don’t tolerate this…” I wave to the drugs in front of me, stopping when I have him backed into a corner. I watch his heart rate pick up in his neck when he realizes he fucked up. There is no out for him. Leaning my elbow against one of the stacks on the table, I pierce a brick of cocaine with my knife. “I’d say it’s a means to an end, wouldn’t you?”
Flipping the handle of my knife in the air, I catch it by the tip of the blade and send it through Orken’s eyeball. His body stays upright, the knife in his hand hitting the ground before he does. He falls forward, the impact driving the knife deeper until it exits the back of his head.
“Sorry about the mess, my guy,” I say, kicking his body onto his back and pulling my knife from his skull. I wipe the blood on my dress before sheathing it.
When I get to the top of the stairs, I’m stopped by the sound of sniffling. I recount the people in the house, cursing myself for believing the woman would be honest with me. The sniffling turns into whimpering, and I realize the sounds are coming from a child.
I burst into the entryway and see a small girl, no older than three or four, standing over the body of the woman I had killed. Sensing my presence, the girl turns and looks at me, holding tight to a dirty teddy bear that’s losing its stuffing.
I’ve felt a lot of fucked-up feelings in the last few hours, but seeing this child crying over the dead woman’s body brings a sense of remorse I didn’t know I could feel.
Did I kill this kid’s mom for her to find, alone and scared?
My body is frozen. I can’t will myself to move or call Oren to help me with this. Blue eyes hold me captive, filled with pain and fear, and I nearly shatter to pieces where I stand.
I have never felt like a villain so much as I do now.