Aedan
As I shield the man I’m supposed to be working up to killing, Dad’s voice hisses in my mind: Let them kill him, you fool. This is brilliant. We won’t even have to do anything. Just let them kill him, Aedan! Don’t protect him. No—what are you doing?
But it’s like my body goes into autopilot, as it always does when death comes knocking. Aedan O’Rourke sinks down somewhere deep and in his place the hitman rises, cold and efficient with nothing but survival on his mind. I roll over, grab for my gun, and aim. In the time it takes for me to do that—a second at the most—a stray bullet catches Bruno in the leg. He lets out a scream, clawing at his waistband for his own gun, as blood gushes out of the wound, staining his pants and turning the earth copper. I aim, shoot, shoot, shoot.
These Cartel men, they’re fearless and mean and tough, but most of them aren’t trained for shit. They pepper the air above us with bullets, fling a stray at Bruno, and bullets pound into the trees around us, but their aim is shit.
Mine isn’t.
Three bullets, and each one of them catches its mark. One man, a huge bastard with a skull bandana around his mouth and wearing a colorful tracksuit, loses the top half of his head and slumps to the ground as though all the bones have been stolen from his body. The second man, skinnier, looking like a little kid with an old man’s bearded face, is flung backward as the bullet smashes into his ribcage. The third stumbles, cries out, as the bullet takes out his kneecap.
I aim my gun at him, approaching the men, roaring: “Put it the fuck down! Now!” All the while, I’m thinking about Bruno behind me, thinking I should be happy that he caught a bullet but knowing I can’t be, not when he was so decent to me today, and not when he’s Livia’s dad. Livia.
The man crawls backward, grinning up at me. “Idiota! Idiota!”
He aims his gun at me. I don’t hesitate, just fire, tearing his jaw free from his face and sending him crumpled and blood-soaked into the earth. I’m about to put my gun into my waistband when a tree just to my right explodes in fragments of shrapnel bark. I spin, aim, and a man wearing a bulletproof vest wielding a double-barreled shotgun aims at me. I duck, aim, shoot—and his head flings backward, blood and bone flying into the air.
I charge at Bruno and kneel next to him.
“It’s not fatal,” I say, looking at the little circle of pulsing blood. He grits his teeth, and nods. “I’m going to stop the bleeding,” I tell him, and he nods again.
I take off my belt and wrap it around his leg just above the wound, pick up a nearby stick, wedge it between the belt loops, and twist until it’s tight around his leg. Then I take his belt off, muttering, “Mean nothing by it,” and tie it around the contraption, holding it in place. I bend down, take Bruno’s arm, and haul him to his feet.
“Damn Mexicans,” Bruno snaps. “Coming at a man when he’s trying to enjoy a goddamn game of golf. What sort of animals are these?”
I glance around, searching the greenery. At the sound of gunshots, the course has emptied. A fat, podgy security man stands far away, near the bar, but he’s way too far to do anything if the—
Five Mexicans come charging out of the forest behind me, all wielding guns. Where the fuck are these bastards coming from?
I fling Bruno into the golf cart, ignoring his yelp of pain, and then run around to the driver’s side. The Mexicans lift their guns and start firing, but by that time, I’m already whizzing toward the bar, wishing this stupid electric battery was a muscle-car engine. Several bullets smack into the plastic shell of the cart, thudding in a series of dud-dud-duds. I veer left and right, zigzagging and lurching, as the Mexicans fire at us.
“Stupid, bloody animals!” Bruno roars. “Fica! Fica! Fica!”
I screech to a halt just outside the bar and then twist in the seat, gun at the ready. The Mexicans are retreating into the forest, screaming at us in Spanish, brandishing their guns. I don’t make out any of their words apart from one, which they scream over and over: “Carlos! Carlos! Carlos!” Loyal soldiers screaming their general’s name.
Bruno limps from the car and takes out his cell, speaking quickly in Italian. Then he hangs up and limps over to me. I offer him my arm, and together we walk into the bar. Apart from the security, it’s empty, and the security—donut dust on his lapel—looks like he doesn’t want a thing to do with us. I wave him off, and he’s all too happy to back away.
“My troops are on the way,” he says. “It was my fault, thinking I could come out in the open like this, but…”
“Two weeks is a long time in our life,” I finish for him.
He nods, and then winces. “Exactly. Take me round back, Aedan. That’s where the car’s going to be.”
“Alright.”
Propping him up, I carry him to the back of the building, out through a fire door and into an alleyway, the stench of overflowing trashcans mixing with his blood. He lulls in my arms, leaning into me, and it seems I’m destined to spend my life carrying Russos around; I take him to one of the cleaner sections of the dirty alleyway and sit him down.
He looks up at me with half-lidded eyes. I just saved his life, I think. I just saved the life of a man I’m supposed to kill.
“Thank you, son,” Bruno says, leaning his head back against the wall. “You did well. Very well. I won’t forget it.”
“Thank you,” I say, and it’s like hearing another man’s voice. I sound grateful, genuinely grateful, as though this is not the man I’m supposed to kill, as though I’m not Patty’s son, as though a lifetime of desiring Dad’s approval is not stacked upon my shoulders.
I kneel down next to Bruno and click my fingers. “Stay awake, Bruno,” I say. “Help will be here soon.”