—?— PROLOGUE —?—

  I spun the glass and watched the perfectly square, oversized ice cube slosh around in the finger of bourbon at the bottom. I knew some people out there said it was a sin to put ice in good bourbon. Those people didn't have to drink with me. I liked the ice. I thought it added some character. Hell, I never let the good stuff sit in the glass long enough to water down anyway.

  I always liked to sit and contemplate things for a little bit before I started a new job. It had become a ritual. But that night was going to be anything but routine. I just didn't know it yet.

  So I clanked my ice cube back and forth in the glass, trying not to let the knuckleheads on the other side of the bar disturb my peace. They were just kids. I remembered being young. How naive we were, walking around like we had the whole fucking world in our hands. But age tempers wisdom, and these days I'm not so quick to get heated. Especially while sitting in that bar.

  If you'd been in that bar looking for the good guys, you were in the wrong place. Not that I considered myself a bad guy either. I guess you could've considered me pretty morally neutral. If the pay was right, and they had it coming, I had no problem getting the job done. And that night should've been no different.

  You see, I'd just gotten done having a little meeting with Joey upstairs. Joey thought he was a big shot. He walked and talked and acted like he was some big boss. But honestly, the guy was just an asshole. Still, he was the gatekeeper. The family told him what they wanted done, and he told those of us on the lower rungs the details so we could make it happen.

  That night's chat was about a little rat who'd been squeaking. Word had it the local DA had been getting information she had no business having. And apparently, this inconvenience finally had a name.

  The bartender walked back over and refilled my glass. He reached below the bar and pulled out a small wooden box, then looked at me for a moment.

  "Joey said I should leave this here for you, Jay."

  "Thanks, Sammy. I think this is going to be my last drink for the night."

  The old bartender gave me a quick nod before moving back down to the end of the bar. The old bastard didn't even bother picking the box up and sliding it across to me. He forced me to sit up in my chair and reach over to grab it myself. I think it was his way of being only as involved as he needed to be.

  I'll be honest, though. It felt disrespectful. But that was okay. The man only ever charged me for my first drink, never the second. Which was good because I had expensive tastes.

  That's when she walked in.

  Oh God, she was beautiful. Blonde hair. Perfect body. Legs that went on for days. I know it's not polite to talk about a girl like that these days, but like I said, I have expensive taste. Sometimes my mouth wrote checks I couldn't afford.

  She strode past every other guy staring at her the moment she came in. She moved through the crowded bar all the way down to the end and sat beside me.

  "Evening, Jarek. You don't mind if I call you Jarek, do you?"

  "My friends call me Jay. And I don't believe we've been introduced," I said.

  "Nor will we, Jarek. Now, I know you already had a talk with one of my associates, but some new information has come to light. We'll be sending somebody along with you to lend a hand."

  Any warmth I thought I saw behind those beautiful eyes disappeared with the tone of her voice. This woman was stone-cold. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. She was right. I didn't want to know who the Hell she was. In fact, I would've been happy to never see her again.

  Looking back on it now, I can tell you this was the first sign I should've recognized. And if I'd known then what I know now, I would've run and never looked back.

  She slid a folded piece of paper across the bar.

  "Don't read it here. Just do as you're told, and when it's done, lay low."

  Without saying another word, she got up and walked her terrifying yet stunning figure back out of the bar.

  I snapped back and realized something strange. The entire time she'd been in that joint, I couldn't remember hearing a single sound other than her voice. Not the rowdy kids. Not the clinking glasses. Nothing. It was like she consumed the moment.

  Shaking it off, I grabbed the box and the note, gave Sam another quick nod on my way out, and walked back out to the lot.

  The icy wind cut through my coat as I sat in my car, sending a shiver down my spine. I'd been in this line of work long enough to know when a job felt off, and that night, the knot in my gut twisted tighter than a drum.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I opened the box and pulled out the nine millimeter and suppressor. I slid the suppressor and the piece into the side pocket on my car door. I grabbed the thick envelope, opening it enough to take a quick peek before shoving it into the inside of my jacket liner. I didn't count the money, but not because I trusted them. Too many eyes. And not just the eyes of potential thieves, but the eyes of friendly would-be gangsters and thugs. They would tell Joey, or someone else in the family, that I had the audacity to count the money.

  I took a deep breath and let it out before unfolding the small paper. I was surprised to find only an address. I was relieved to see that the meetup location was only about five minutes away. A long drive would've left too much time for me to think.

  In my line of work, thinking was dangerous. At least, it had been dangerous to do before you got the job done. You thought just enough to carry out your orders and fulfill the instructions. Afterward, that was when you thought. Most idiots would do a job and then just try to go back to living like nothing ever happened. They'd roll into the bar, hang out with the same friends and knuckleheads they did the job with, or go back to their own houses. Fucking idiots.

  I pulled around the corner about half a block from the meeting site, pulled off to the side of the road, and cut the engine. I grabbed my cigarette lighter from my pocket. Being careful not to burn my fingers, I lit the small note on fire while still sitting in the car. It was just a little piece of paper and only took a second.

  I got out and looked up and down the dark street before reaching for the gun. It was cold and foggy. We were in an industrial area. There didn't seem to be a sign of life. At least, nothing I needed to worry about.

  I took another breath and reached into the car, grabbed a brand-new pair of thin leather gloves, then leaned down to grab the gun. I looked it over and pushed the it into a shoulder holster I wore under my jacket. It didn't fit that well, but it would hold. When I bought the holster, I had purposely gotten one that was meant to be more universal. Still, it was tight enough that I didn't have to worry about dropping evidence if I had to run. Or having it fall out when I had no intention of letting the people around me know that I had it in the first place.

  You never use your own hardware for work. The rules are simple. They gave us whatever tools we needed to get the job done, and we discarded them as soon as we were finished. It was all part of the system. I was sure these guns were taken off rivals or small-time crooks. That way, if the police ever found one of them discarded, it wouldn't trace back to us. The powers that be could keep eyeballs off the family.

  That was fine with me. It just made it easier to lay low after a job and not have to worry as much. I did always feel nervous before a job, though. We didn't exactly have a chance to test these things before having to fire them. And that made me anxious.

  I turned the corner. In the parking lot of an old industrial complex, I saw an unmarked van with its engine running. Without saying a single word to the van's only occupant, I walked over, pulled the sliding door open, and stepped inside. The driver didn't wait for me to get the door closed before he started pulling out.

  We drove for a few minutes before I finally broke the silence from the bench behind the driver's seat.

  "I'm assuming they're sending you because there's more than one person involved in our rat problem."

  The man spoke in a gravelly voice.

  "There are five."

  "Christ, and they're only sending two of us?"

  "The other four don't pose a threat," the man said.

  "Jesus, man, you sound as cold as that bitch who slid me the note."

  The rest of the ride was quiet until we pulled up in front of a small house in the middle of suburbia. The driver threw the van into park and stepped out just as fast. I followed the monster into the house, dread sinking through me as I caught sight of the drawings on the fridge. This was no wise guy's house. This was a home, with parents and kids who didn't deserve the Hell that was about to rain down on them.

  I whispered in a half panic, "Hey, I don't do kids, and I don't do girls!"

  The man turned and looked at me. I saw his face for the first time. It was cold and pale, and fury radiated from him as he whispered back, "You will do as you're told."

  Right at that moment, another man stepped into the kitchen and turned the light on. The monster I was with raised his pistol to the man's head and pulled the trigger three times.

  A scream pierced the silence, followed by panicked movement at the end of the hall before I heard a door slam shut.

  "Hey, fuckface, I told you I don't do kids and I don't do girls!"

  The asshole turned and raised his gun in my direction. I ducked behind the counter as shots rang out inches from my head.

  "That's okay. You were never leaving this house anyway," the man said with a growling laugh.

  A magazine clattered to the floor as the asshole reloaded. I jumped up, and everything in me sank as my gun dry-fired twice before I threw it at the son of a bitch. I dove through an open doorway into a living room as four more shots rang out in the kitchen behind me.

  The monster in the kitchen started singing that damn nursery rhyme, his voice grating against every nerve I had. I dove for cover as he fired shots in my direction, his gravelly laugh echoing in my ears.

  I scrambled for something, anything to defend myself with. I spotted the fancy knife clutched in the dead man's hand. I grabbed it, my fingers slick with his blood, and crawled back into the kitchen.

  Every instinct screamed at me to run, but I couldn't tear my gaze away from those goddamn pictures on the fridge. This wasn't just some mob hit. This sick fuck was going to slaughter an entire family, and then he was going to kill me too.

  Fuck this guy.

  On top of everything else, the asshole was walking around in circles, singing "Ring Around the Rosie" like some kind of psycho.

  No, I wasn't running anywhere.

  As I made my second pass toward the end of the living room, he fired four more shots. The fourth shot nicked my shoulder. This time, though, I stopped as a magazine dropped and hit the floor.

  He rounded the corner, and I stuck that fucking knife in his face.

  I pulled it out and stuck him again. The scream that came out of him was inhuman. Like the screeching of a car crash right before impact. As I pulled the blade out of his face for the second time, I turned to see the barrel of the shotgun.

  I barely had a second to make out the face of the woman in the photo on the fridge before the trigger clicked.

  And the lights went out.

  The Trinity Divide,

  Tuesday and Thursday until we reach the end—and yes, the manuscript is complete, so no worries.

  Fair warning: this one goes places most LitRPG won't. I wanted to dig into the theological lore that a lot of authors shy away from—the messy, uncomfortable questions about angels, demons, and a cosmic war that's been raging since the beginning.

  Thanks again for reading!