Текст книги "Monster"

"This book is a work of fiction. the names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.”

Dedication:

To Crystalyn who doesn't see me

for weeks on end when I am on a

writing bender and somehow doesn't hate me for it.

I don't deserve her, but am so glad she has stuck around.

One

Breaker

I'm not a fuckin' monster.

Though I am pretty sure you could find at least three dozen people who would disagree with me on that.

You see... my name is Breaker. Partly because it's my last name. And partly because that's that I do. I break people. People who need to be taught a lesson. People who need to be bent to someone's will. People who pissed off the wrong men.

I break them.

And then I get paid for it. Well.

I'd like to say it bothered me. That I had a moral compass that fought against always pointing south. Fact of the matter is, I couldn't give a fuck. You don't want your kneecaps broken or your teeth knocked out, then don't stick your nose in the kind of business where that's a possibility.

I guess that makes me a heartless son of a bitch.

But, coming where I came from, yeah there really wasn't much of a chance of being anything else.

I charged back up the stairs and paced around the warehouse. Long abandoned by the the railway back in the eighties. Three stories of red brick, mostly broken windows with the train doors long sealed shut.

“Fuck,” I growled, wearing out the leaf-covered cement floor, kicking a green beer bottle and watching it crash against the far wall.

You see... I had rules.

I'd fuck up any man who crossed my path. Any man I got paid well enough to rip open. To beat down. To silence forever when the occasion called for it.

I didn't mess with families.

I'd bust your face in, but no way I'd take your kids to scare you into doing what someone wants. That wasn't how I operated. There were plenty of sick fucks out there who'd do that. For half what I charge. But that was somewhere I drew a line.

And I did not, under any circumstances, deal in women.

I didn't kidnap them.

I didn't hold them hostage.

I damn sure never put my hands on them.

See, the problem was, I had a woman one flight below me locked inside an old gutted train car.

A woman I kidnapped.

A woman I was holding hostage.

A woman I could be commanded to put my hands on at any time.

And I didn't have much of a fuckin' option either.

God damn mother fucking Lex, man.

Shoulda turned and ran the other way when I saw it was him who had summoned me. I knew better than to get involved with that evil bastard. Made a name for himself by spilling as much blood as necessary to ensure no one dared to think of him as the skinny, sniveling gutter rat he had always been. Unfortunately for all of his enemies, he was a smart fuck. It took him under five years to completely take over the streets. If there was illegal activity going on, your organization best be cutting him in or he'd be sending men after you.

Men like me.

I had successfully avoided dealing with Lex from the day I went into business. Mostly because I was always moving around, taking whatever job came at me no matter how far away it was. But also because I tried to stay under his radar. Stay anonymous. Stay out from underneath his thumb.

But that all came crashing down when I walked into that damn alley a week before and saw him leaning against a building, lighting a cigarette, looking like some nineteen-thirties wise guy in a trench coat and shiny black dress shoes.

I should have run.

But, in the end, I couldn't.

“Breaker, Breaker,” he started, his voice oily, “we meet at last.”

“Yeah, this ain't gonna work,” I said, shaking my head, moving back toward the mouth of the alley.

“Oh, but I have something of yours.”

I felt my spine straighten, my body frozen.

No.

There was only one thing in the world that meant anything to me.

And if he had him...

“You fuckin' serious?” I asked, my voice ice as I turned back to him, my hands curled into fists, every inch of my body tight. I wasn't hot. My anger never ran toward red. It was cold. It was frigid. Lethal.

“I'll give him back to you without a scratch,” he said, blowing smoke around himself, “if you take this job.”

There really was no choice.

“What's the job?”

“I need you to find, pick up, and hold onto someone for me.”

As far as jobs went, it was tame.

“Who?” I asked, mentally figuring it was one of the heads of the families or some dealer who forgot to cut him in.

“Alex Miller.”

“Who the fuck is Alex Miller?” I asked, knowing there was no player in town with anything close to that kind of name. No, it was all about the street names. Alex Miller sounded as government as possible.

“Someone I need to have a conversation with. Has thus far eluded my men. So I figured I would call in some outside help.”

“Lucky fuckin' me,” I said, shaking my head.

Lex shrugged a shoulder, reaching into his pocket and handing me a piece of paper. “That's the address. Middle of the night is probably best. And, not to tell you how to do your job, but you're gonna want to be fast. Shit apartment above some shit Chinese restaurant, but it's got all kinds of makeshift security.”

Great.

Makeshift security.

“And for this, I'll get...”

“Ten thousand for the grab. Two grand each day after until I take care of things once and for all.”

Well, at least I wouldn't be the one doing the killing for a change.

“And?” I prompted, brow raising.

“And you'll get him back in the same shape I got him in.”

“Fine,” I said, moving toward the mouth of the alley. “You know where to drop the money,” I yelled, not even bothering to look over my shoulder.

Only thing was, I never caught sight of Alex Miller. Whoever the fuck lived in the (shit) apartment above the (shit) Chinese restaurant didn't come out for three days in a row. The shades were pulled. The lights kept low. No noise. No nothing from inside.

I couldn't see any of the supposed makeshift home security I was warned about, but that wasn't to say it wasn't in place.

I shrugged into my leather jacket, slipping on matching gloves, and made my way up the old rickety fire escape.

Three AM.

The light inside the room had gone out almost two hours ago. It was time.

I crouched down at the landing, pulling a lock pick out of my back pocket and getting to work on the door.

Thirty seconds for a normal lock.

It took me twenty.

So much for security.

But even as I thought that, turning the knob, I realized my mistake. A bottle crashed to the floor. Alex fuckin' Miller put a bottle on the doorknob.

That was one way to know if someone was breaking in.

I took Lex's advice, not wasting any time, and throwing the door open.

I flicked on the light, charging into the small space.

And froze.

Just for the barest of seconds, before reaching for the gun tucked in the small of my back, a big nasty looking Desert Eagle, and aimed it.

At her.

“Where the fuck is Alex Miller?” I demanded, my voice loud enough to boom off the walls.

The girl was half frozen, one foot on the floor, one leg still cocked on an angle on her bed.

And she was fuckin' gorgeous. Like I needed any kind of distraction right then.

Maybe just over five-seven, slim, long legs, dark brown hair cut to brush her shoulders, mussed up from sleep. Her face was feminine, delicate. Soft chin, plump lips, a nose that tipped up ever so slightly at the end, and wide dark brown eyes, skin like porcelain, but rosy in the cheeks.

She had on a pale blue lightweight tee and a pair of black yoga pants.

The girl took a noticeable breath and swallowed hard.

“I'm Alex Miller.”

Fuck.

I should have known there was a catch.

Of course he wanted to screw with me.

“You fuckin' shittin' me?”

At this, her brows drew together.

“Who are you?” she asked, her voice shaky.

Fuck.

I was scaring the bitch.

On a sigh, I slipped the gun back into my jeans, pulling out the needle instead, laying it flat against my palm, out of sight.

“You don't need to know who I am. But I need to know for sure that you're Alex Miller.”

“There's... ID in my purse,” she supplied, her eyes moving toward her purse on a desk next to a laptop and pile of notebooks.

That was good enough for me. “Sit,” I told her and her ass all but fell onto the bed.

I walked over to the purse, turning halfway to keep an eye on her as I rummaged through. Finding typical scatterbrained women shit: mints, three different chapsticks, a nail file, hair ties, and, finally, her wallet. I flipped it open, seeing her license with a picture of her with much longer hair staring at the camera at the DMV. And, sure enough, her name was fuckin' Alex Miller.

Jesus Christ.

I sighed, throwing her shit back into her bag, seeing a toothbrush and paste shoved into a pocket of the side, wrinkling my brow, then slinging the long strap of the bag over my shoulder.

“Hey,” she started to object, rising from the bed.

My eyes shifted to her and she fell silent, sitting back down. “What the fuck did you get yourself into?” I asked, shaking my head as I made my way toward her.

I had no choice.

None.

I didn't do the job... he would die. Suffer first. And then die.

I had to break one of my rules.

And this bitch with her scared eyes and honey-sweet voice was going to pay the price for me giving a shit about another living human being.

“I don't know what you're...”

The rest of her sentence was cut out on a yelp when I stabbed the needle into her neck. Her eyes flew to mine. Huge. Pleading. And I felt like the biggest shit in the world. A fuzziness took over her features and she started drifting down toward her mattress.

I glanced around her room.

Lex was right after all.

It wasn't just the bottle trick.

She had her windows nailed shut. There were bats situated everywhere around the room, within arm's reach at all times. Actually, that was likely what she was going for when I charged in, when she was getting off her bed. Going for the bat propped up against the footboard.

I looked down at her sleeping body, wondering aloud again, “What the fuck did you get yourself into?”

Then I picked her up, cradling her to my chest, and made my way back down the fire escape to my truck, shuffling her into the passenger side, then heading back to the warehouse.

Where I locked her up. And then freaked the fuck out.

Two

Alex

I was supposed to be working. I had five jobs in my queue. Hacking was always in high demand. Wives who wanted into their husband's social media accounts to check and see if he is screwing around (he always is), people who want to take down some site that was slandering them, score early concert tickets. Whatever the job, there was always someone who wanted it done.

And I was woefully low on cash.

I was supposed to be working.

But, well, let's just say I have trouble staying focused.

I was technically working. Just not on a job that paid anything. It was the same job that I had been working on since I was sixteen and I learned about him.

Lex Keith.

It was such a tame name for such an evil bastard.

And he was good.

Careful.

No one touched him.

It was my life's mission to bring him down.

Which involved a lot of intel.

Like watching the cameras I had set up. Around his businesses. Around the restaurants he frequented. The whorehouses he spent his free time in, beating and abusing the women there who had nothing else to do in their lives but sell their bodies. Talk about taking advantage. Though, that wasn't even the most shocking thing about Lex Keith.

I had notebooks upon notebooks filled up (in a code I made up, with no key) with all his activities. All the deaths he was responsible for – with his own hands or through contracts. All the rapes he had covered up because he had a few choice detectives in his pockets. All the drugs he smuggled in and from where. What gangs and families he was affiliated with (which was just about all of them). What his vices were (brunettes, scotch, Italian food, cigarettes). What his weaknesses were (hot temper, distrust). His strengths (intelligence, his type-A anal attention to detail).

He was my life's work.

I wasn't getting paid for it though.

So on the third day locked up in my apartment, I quickly worked through my backlog of jobs, watching my online account fill up with money that would enable me to buy me another camera to put outside the gym he spent his early mornings in. And would buy me some groceries and pay my week's worth of rent.

The people who owned the Chinese restaurant were okay with this arrangement. I paid by the week. I kept the noise down during working hours. I didn't wreck the place.

I had been staying there for a few months, knowing that I should have moved at least two times already. I was getting lazy.

Which wasn't safe.

But there weren't a lot of places that didn't insist you sign paperwork and put down a security deposit and agree to spend a year of your life there.

I didn't commit that much time to anything.

Not since I was sixteen.

Not since I found my mother's body in the bathtub, dressed in her prettiest beige linen dress that skimmed her ankles and made her look like a fairy princess. Her hair was done. Her makeup perfect. She looked asleep. But I knew the second I laid eyes on her that she was dead.

I found the note sitting on the sink counter next to the empty bottle of pain killers she had taken.

A note that haunted me. That told me the truth.