Devin

 

“The number you have dialed has been disconnected. Please hang up and—"

 

Devin hung up and threw his phone on the couch. He’d tried Evan’s number four times, and each time the robotic woman gave him the same response. His son had changed his number without telling him.

 

They’d been on the outs for months, probably longer, though their relationship had only gone from chilly to arctic-level freezing in the last few weeks. Still, Devin always knew where Evan was. Even when he didn’t know anything else about his son’s life, he knew he could always contact him if the need arose.

 

And even though he felt ashamed to admit it, sometimes Devin would call Evan’s number just to hear his voice on the answering machine. It made him feel like a teenager pining after a crush, but there really were no bounds to a father’s love. Now, however, he’d been firmly shut out.

 

The woman might as well have been saying, “The number you have dialed has no interest in ever speaking to you again. Please hang up and get lost.”

 

Things disintegrated after Amber died. She had always been the one to hold the family together. When Devin and Evan would fight and bicker, she would appear and calm the storm. She was like that with everyone—gentle, kind, calming. Basically, the human version of Xanax.

 

When she was first diagnosed—a lump in her breast sending her to the doctor’s office—Devin assumed she’d get better. Good things happened to good people, and Amber had always been the best person he’d ever known. As things progressed and she stopped responding to treatments, he still assumed some sort of miracle would occur.

 

It wasn’t until the heart monitor went silent and they pulled a sheet over her head that the reality sunk in. It was then, too, that he realized he hadn’t spoken to Evan in months. Both of them had been so concerned with Amber, with her recovery and her comfort, that they saved little time for one another. So, when she was gone, no longer available to act as a buffer in their relationship, their distance became apparent.

 

It didn’t help that Evan hated what his dad did for a living. Devin worked as a hit man for the Moretti Family, a crime syndicate, and had for most of his adult life. Devin and Amber had decided to shield Evan from the true nature of his job, wanting him to have a normal childhood, but he’d always suspected his dad’s line of work was shady.

 

While Amber was alive, Evan had been willing to overlook his dad’s job, wanting to maintain a close relationship with his mom. After she died, however, he didn’t want to sweep his dad’s criminal ways under the rug anymore. He wanted out. So, he’d moved away and stopped returning Devin’s phone calls. And now, he’d changed his number.

 

Devin dropped into the kitchen chair and ran an anxious hand through his thick black hair. There was probably somebody at the Moretti compound who could find out Evan’s new number, but Devin didn’t think his son would appreciate having a mafia member look him up. And honestly, Devin didn’t know how comfortable he was with the idea, either.

 

Although Devin and his father and his grandfather had all worked for the Morettis, he still liked to keep a distance between his job and personal life. The mafia didn’t exactly play by any set of rules. If Devin ever stepped out of line, his family could be in immediate danger. So, the less they knew about Evan, the better.

 

He flipped open the folder on the kitchen table and tried to focus on learning about his target. Daniel Williams, thirty-four years old, married, no children, deep in debt. It was the same story over and over again. Guy begins to gamble. Not much at first, just fifty dollars here or a hundred dollars there. However, as time goes on, he becomes more and more confident. And then, loses everything.

 

A lot of guys figure out how to pay it back, though they often ruin their lives in the process—lose their families, their jobs, their savings. Some, like Daniel Williams, however, simply run out of time. An enforcer had already been sent to rough him up a bit, but when he still failed to make his payment, his file was slipped to Devin. Now, Devin was staring down at his potato-shaped face, imagining how best to kill him.

 

At times, the work made Devin feel guilty. Occasionally a story would resonate with him—a good guy down on his luck who made a few mistakes—and he wouldn’t want to take him out, but that was rarely the case. The truth was, good guys rarely found themselves indebted to the mafia. So, most of the time, Devin was able to separate his conscious and his duty. Daniel Williams was no exception.

 

A few hours later, just as the sun was setting behind the horizon, casting the world in shades of blue and black, Devin was pulling up in front of the one-story ranch home owned by Daniel Williams, his gun resting in the seat next to him. He could see a light on inside, but the garage door was open, and he could see that it was empty and Daniel Williams’ car wasn’t in the driveway.

 

An hour later, a car came down the sleepy street, and Devin sank down into his seat as the man whose photograph he was staring at earlier in the day pulls into his garage. Devin would have liked to take him out in the garage, so he didn’t have to break into the house—a quick shoot and run was always the best way to go—however, the garage door began to close as soon as the car was inside, so breaking in became the only option.

 

He waited a few minutes, watching as disjointed, fuzzy shadows danced across the yellow curtains that hung in the picture window out front and then went still. After several minutes of no movement, he slipped his gun into the space between his jeans and his hip, stepped out of the car, and made his way up to the house. The lock was ancient, easy to pick, and with only two attempts, the door opened, and he was in the man’s living room.

 

The room was cast in a warm, soft glow from the two standing lamps beside the couch. Sparse, but purposeful decorations fill the space, and Devin couldn’t help but compare it to his own home.

 

Amber had always been a bit of a hoarder. She wanted to save every souvenir from every vacation they’d ever taken and display them somewhere in the house. Every shelf, table, and window ledge was decorated with glass bottles full of sand from different beaches, blown glass dolphins, and commemorative snow globes.

 

Daniel Williams’ house, however, looked neat and tidy. Not the home of a man who would find himself embroiled with the mafia and deep in debt. It wasn’t until Devin scanned the room that his eyes caught a limp hand sticking out from behind an armchair. As he moved further into the room, his every sense on high alert, he was able to see that the hand was attached to a wrist and a body, and that body belonged to Daniel Williams.

 

For a brief second, Devin had to step back and question whether he was insane. Had he already killed Daniel Williams and then forgotten? Did he blackout the entire murder? He quickly decided this was unlikely and suspected someone else must have wanted Daniel dead, as well. It wasn’t so far-fetched. The man had one mafia family after him, so who was to say he hadn’t angered another?

 

Devin crawled closer to the body. Stab wounds. That sealed the deal. He definitely hadn’t been the one to kill Daniel Williams. Devin’s MO since day one had been a shot to the temple. Clean, easy, and an almost one hundred percent guarantee of death. It was “almost” a one hundred percent guarantee because there was always a chance one of his targets would be like the people he’d seen on those medical marvel shows who arrive at the emergency room with an ice pick sticking through their head, but are somehow able to still walk and talk normally.

 

That had never happened, but Devin couldn’t rule out the possibility. Stabbing, however, had never been his murder method of choice. It required very close contact, intimacy, and Devin liked to keep a distance between himself and his victims. And by the looks of Daniel’s chest, whoever had stabbed him had really meant it. He was riddled with gashes.

 

As he further inspected the wounds in the man’s chest, Devin realized he wasn’t dead yet. Almost imperceptibly, his chest was rising and falling. It was labored, and he would most certainly be dead any second, but somehow, despite the swiss cheese appearance of his midsection, Daniel Williams was clinging to life.

 

Devin almost wanted to congratulate the man on his valiant effort; however, a cold realization raced down his spine and made him shiver.

 

Daniel Williams had been recently stabbed.

 

Very recently.

 

Meaning, the killer could still be in the house.

 

Devin rose to his feet and lifted his gun. Slowly, he began moving through the house. The killer could be a rival family, but Devin didn’t know a single hit man who would leave his victim still breathing, regardless of how close to death they were. Still, his entrance could have scared the killer off, and they were now hiding in wait, ready to jump out and attack him. Devin gripped his gun a little tighter.

 

What were the odds of the man he was sent to kill being killed by someone else on the same night he showed up to kill them? The question itself felt like a tongue twister in Devin’s brain. It could be just a random person, but that didn’t mean Devin could relax. If they were still in the house, they could have seen him break in, and Devin had a strong belief that he should always tie up loose ends. He planned to avoid going to prison at all costs, and that meant there could never be a witness.

 

As he stepped into the kitchen, he saw it. A huddled shadow in a room just off the kitchen. Before he could even react, the shadow jumped up and lunged for the back door. When the door opened, the shadow was cast in moonlight, and in the split-second pause before sprinting out the door, Devin was able to see that the shadow was a woman. She was tall and thin with long blonde hair and, Devin observed, a very fast runner.

 

Cursing under his breath, he took off after her.

 

# # #

 

Cara

 

Cara ran to the back of the house as the front door opened, and watched as a strange man lurked in her living room. She wondered whether this could simply be an ill-timed burglary that coincidentally occurred the moment she decided to murder her husband. Or, she thought, had Danny’s debts finally caught up to him?

 

Cara didn’t know much about her husband’s extracurricular activities, but judging by their ever-dwindling savings account and the bruised ribs and broken wrist Daniel had come home sporting a few months back, she was able to guess that perhaps he had become entangled with a bad crowd. She’d tried to ask him about it, but that had resulted in a long night of yelling, punching, and angry sex which led her to never bring up the topic with him again.

 

Regardless of who the stranger was, she knew she couldn’t very well let him come into her house, see her husband’s body, and leave. Even if the man didn’t immediately run to the cops, it opened her up to a world of blackmail, and Cara was tired of feeling beholden to someone. Danny’s death was supposed to be her key to freedom; not a life filled with more secrets that left her lurking in the shadows.

 

She gripped the still bloody knife in her hand and tried to prepare herself to take yet another life. Then, she saw it.

 

The gun.

 

The man was armed, and Cara knew she would be no match for him with her measly knife.

 

The guy was ripped. His shoulders were broad and muscled, and each of his legs could have been mistaken for tree trunks. This wasn’t a man she could overpower, and she wasn’t about to bring a knife to a gunfight, especially with a guy who looked like he could have once been Mr. Universe.

 

So, she did what she’d been doing since the day she married Danny. She hid. She went into the laundry room just off the kitchen and curled up in the corner between the washer and the wall. The room also had a back door so she could make a run for it if she needed to.

 

The man moved through the house, and Cara prayed he wouldn’t find her, but as he crept into the kitchen, she knew her time was running short. Not knowing what else to do, she darted from her hiding spot and ran out the back door.

 

The night was chilly, and she became suddenly aware that she wasn’t wearing any shoes. Rocks and uneven ground scraped against her feet, but still, she pushed on, wanting to put as much distance as possible between herself and whoever was in her house.

 

She chanced a glance over her shoulder and realized with horror that the man was no longer in her house. He was directly behind her and gaining. She leaned into her run and pumped her arms, sprinting down the alley. If she hadn’t just murdered her husband, Cara would have darted into one of her neighbor’s houses.

 

In all the years she and Danny had lived in their house, they had never become close with their neighbors, but Cara knew them by name, and knew they’d help her if she were about to be attacked. However, they wouldn’t help her if they knew she had just killed her husband, and if she went to any of their houses, they’d call the police, the police would find Danny’s body, and Cara would go to prison.

 

No, her only option was to run.

 

As she turned out of the alley and onto the sidewalk, she cursed Danny for finding a home in such a safe, quiet neighborhood. Not a single person was in sight and, in fact, most of the houses were dark, the inhabitants already in bed for the night.

 

Cara turned around and saw that the large man was right behind her. She could hear his heavy breathing, hear the pounding of his feet on the cement, and she knew she would never outrun him. She had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. With the weight of that reality, Cara slowed to a walk and turned to face the man, her knife raised.

 

“What do you want?” she asked, brandishing the blade at him, despite knowing he had a gun.

 

He seemed startled by her sudden bravery, but his body didn’t show it.

 

Calmly, he pointed the gun at her. “I want to know who you are.”

 

Cara shook her head. “I’m not telling you anything.”

 

“Are you Daniel Williams’ wife?”

 

He asked the question as if he were a government employee trying to fill out some paperwork, not a burglar and potential murderer quizzing his next victim. The calm even tone of his voice made Cara think this wasn’t the first time this man had found himself in a situation like this.

 

She tightened her lips in a sign that she wouldn’t be answering his questions and raised the knife even higher until it was pointed at his neck.

 

“Or were you hired to take out Daniel Williams?” he asked, clearly growing frustrated with her lack of cooperation.

 

Hired to take him out? Cara wasn’t even sure what that meant. Again, she stayed silent, feeling it was best to say nothing. If he weren’t sure who she was or what her motives were, perhaps he wouldn’t kill her.

 

Suddenly, before Cara could even react, the man hit the knife out of her hands, spun her around, and pulled her into a choke hold. Cara tried to jab him with her elbows, but his abs felt like they were cut from steel. Then, her vision began to go black around the edges, and she fell against him.