Chapter Forty-three
Dylan Ross only concerned himself with one thing. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about people or justice or love. He cared about his reputation. It’s what he sold to the bigshots who hired him. What earned him the millions he’d come to expect.
All his life, a bi-racial male who’d been insulted and condemned for his color from both sides, he’d vowed to be rich, in control and respected. In the beginning, he’d tried doing things according to the rules, the way society says it must be done.
He’d gone to school, followed the rules, had even worked like a dog to go to college and get his law degree. There, he found he had more brains, more intelligence and a hell of a lot more balls than most of the white dudes in his class.
Those superior assholes who’d always condemned him for being poor orphan trash were lazier and dumber. Here, in the place of higher learning, they taught him his biggest lesson. His race didn’t matter near as much as his class, or lack of it. Power earned respect, and money gave one power. Life lessons 101… he passed with honors.
Once he had his license, he proudly went from door to door, applying for work, thinking he’d be a bonus for any law firm. What he found out was that they’d take him for low-paying, low-level positions. Swallowing his pride, he settled for one, gotten on the ladder, and would have begun his climb – except for one pivotal incident.
He’d been celebrating his first position with the most prestigious establishment in Chicago, and he’d been pulled over by cops who neither listened nor gave a shit that their rotten attitude and vicious abuse violated his rights.
The more he tried to quote the law and stick up for himself, the more they beat him and tased him. By the time they’d hauled his ass to jail, he’d suffered massive bruises, a broken ankle and fourteen stitches to his head where one of their boots had left an imprint.
Of course, after they charged him with a DUI, which registered one point over the legal limit, and assaulting a police officer, which he never did unless arguing was now a form of assault, he ended up for the first time in his careful life, busted.
With no money, no friends and a crooked system that only saw his blackness, he had eleven months to decide how he would overcome and carry on.
In the can, he’d met up with knowledgeable gangsters, one of whom knew of a guy, a cold-hearted killer who everyone feared and many had hired. He told stories about this dude, tales that resonated with Dylan, whose real name was Diggs.
He’d never known his last name, and so they’d made a joke at the orphanage and called him White – Diggs White. In college he’d changed his name to Dylan and after they released him from prison, because his hair had turned silver before he’d taken to dying it, they’d nicknamed him Silverado.
In prison, he’d pulled off his first kill, hired by a skinny gay man as his protector, and he never looked back. For years he’d performed only those hits he needed to keep him in the money he’d become accustomed to. His meticulous planning and numerous skills with technology had worked in his favor.
He’d never been caught because he made sure he was never seen, like a black shadow, in and out, job done.
Until Seattle. He’d been in a hurry that night, sloppy, not thinking about open windows. The light had been off when he’d first broken into the apartment, he’d been hidden. The bitch had turned it on just seconds before she’d stepped around the wall. He’d been there in full sight and had no option but to take the shot rather than to let her react, scream, warn the neighbors.
And look where that got him – up Shit Creek without a fucking canoe, a paddle or an excuse for his stupidity.
Because of one moment’s improbable odds, he now had a witness on the run. And since he hadn’t taken the time to disguise himself in any way, the bitch could ID him. Fuck, one stupid decision to just get it done, and look at the fucking mess.
He knew how to add makeup, change his hair coloring, choose accessories – hell, he’d used every variable when it came to camouflage. Look at him now, wearing a police uniform he’d stolen from the dead cop he’d left lying on the floor of his apartment after he’d followed him home.
When a person was willing to kill at random, nine out of ten times, he’d get away with it. So far, he’d been lucky. He’d killed the FBI bigshot; the old man he’d thought was Carolina’s grandfather and had turned out to be Crawly from the SPD, and the lady agent whose bad luck was to be in the house that Carolina Madison, Special Agent for the FBI, had rented. And now, this rookie schmuck, who just happened to be his size, had paid for that crime.
The uniform had gotten him into the high schools and allowed him to bullshit the information out of the Vice Principal about the list of new students. His phony story about a woman kidnapping her stepdaughter from the girl’s father had worked like a charm – that and his badge. He’d gotten the list of new female students from each of the schools he visited. Lucking out on his second try, he knew instantly which girl fit his Asian-American profile and the new name she had chosen, Kayla Steele.
Then he’d spent a few minutes hacking into that school’s database and he now possessed the street and house address where they were holed up.
He holstered the cop’s Glock 22 and made sure he also had the silver .45 Automatic tucked into his boot. His moto of being prepared had worked well in the past.
Now it was time to get this bit of foolishness over with and return to his regular routine. Next on his list – Kayla and her bodyguard, and that job would be a pleasure.
He’d shop the next morning and head back to his Air B&B with a new costume and make-up. He was thinking a nice old white dude out for a stroll while scoping out the joint wouldn’t draw any attention. All he needed to do now was get a dog, buy a cane, and gather info about the layout of the house.