Everything I’ve studied and practiced and done over the past five years is telling me that what I’m doing is stupid. That I need to take a few days to let him sweat, to make him start to relax his guard. Maybe even to let a little paranoia set in. Or that maybe I should’ve just taken Jacob out from day one.

The call came in from a trusted source, but that doesn’t mean much. Trust in my world only goes so far except in cases of people like Marcus. As the old saying goes, for most men at least, everyone’s got a price. And Waters still has plenty of money to throw around. For all I know, Jacob could be sitting at his house, chilling out with a crew of a dozen men just waiting for me to show up.

So I should be doing anything other than what I’m doing, which is crawling up the slope that surrounds Waters’ mansion alone. For fuck’s sake, I don’t even have any guns with me, just a pair of double-edged fighting knives. I should be hitting this house with every fucking thing I’ve got. Instead, I’m crawling up this slope like some ninja out of the movies. And why? First, because I want to feel Jacob Waters’s blood on my hands, and a pistol’s too quick for him. Secondly, and more practically, because if I shoot, that’s going to bring every single man Jacob’s got in the area right on top of me. If I want to make it back to Sarah, I need to do this quietly.

I slide up another two feet, pausing to listen if I’ve been detected. The silence doesn’t reassure me, but I can’t let my fear get in the way. I check my watch. I’ve been crawling up this slope for nearly an hour, and it’s getting close to three in the morning. It’s the ideal time for this crazy fucking idea of mine, the time when any guards are going to be sleepy and everyone should be more or less not alert.

I crest the slope and get behind the brick retaining wall that forms the outer edge of the lawn at the Waters estate, looking carefully through the gaps in the design. There’s no movement, none, but I keep watch. If I am going to survive this, not only is my reputation assured, but this is going to be over. On the other hand, if I’m going to survive this, I need to be smart.

I watch for ten minutes, looking for any sign of movement at all, and there’s none. Still, the last report Marcus fed to me said that Jacob Waters was sighted going into his mansion around midnight and his driver pulled away twenty minutes later.

I cross the lawn and go to the back door, trying it and finding it locked. Not a problem. I didn’t get to where I am without learning a few things about breaking and entering, and this door’s a piece of cake. Jacob’s always had a reputation that matters more than any lock for keeping his house secure.

Creeping through the dark house is weird. I keep wondering if this room or that was a place where Jacob did terrible things to Sarah. The feeling only increases when I see a dark shape laid out on the floor in the dining room. I approach carefully, kneeling and turning on a pen light, horrified when the blank, dead eyes of a blonde girl look back up at me, her face a puffy wreck and her throat cut ear to ear. “Sweet Jesus.”

“She tried to say no,” a now familiar voice says behind me. I turn, staying low as Jacob Waters comes in, a short samurai sword in his right hand, the edge dark with what I know is this girl’s blood. He’s limping a little from where Marcus shot him in the ass, but not all that much. “Nobody says no to me.”

“Didn’t think you’d be up,” I comment, trying to buy time. “Night owl?”

“Something like that,” Jacob says, swinging the sword. I may be half his age, but he’s got a fucking razor sharp sword and he’s fast. I barely roll out of the way of the first blow, gaining a little distance and getting to my feet, pulling both of my knives, reversing the one in my left hand to protect myself.

“Nice knives,” Jacob says, adjusting his grip and taking a trained stance. I hope it’s just something he saw in movies. I mean who the fuck studies sword fighting nowadays? “I have a similar pair in my study.”

“Why not go get them, make this even?” I grunt, keeping my eyes not on the glittering tip of the sword but his wrists. It’s one of the first lessons I learned about how to fight with a blade. Where the wrists go, the blade follows, so keep your eyes there. “Then again, you’re the kind who doesn’t play fair.”

“Says the guy who stole my wife and tries to use her as a human shield,” Waters says, thrusting his sword forward on the final word. I see it coming and duck, stepping forward and slicing the side and back of his right leg before momentum carries us apart again, Waters groaning in pain and starting to limp some more. “I’ll have your head on my desk!”

Waters doesn’t give me a chance to reply, swinging his blade in small X shapes that force me to retreat out of the dining room and into the hallway. Here, I can’t go around his blade, and I back up more, trying to draw him into another big space. “You’re not a man, Jacob. You’re not even an animal.”

“What the fuck do I care?” Waters asks, grinning. “So long as they fear me.”

“They’re going to fear me in the future,” I reply, stepping into what feels like the main foyer of the house. It’s huge, with a marble staircase that curves up and around, and I know I must end this here. I can’t bet on having enough space to fight him anywhere else. “Just like she’s going to be mine after this.”

“She’s mine,” Waters says, his breath coming in shallow gasps. Maybe I hit a vein, or maybe he’s just not in very good shape, but he’s tired already, the tip of his sword wavering in the dim moonlight coming through the windows.

“Huh. She called out my name a lot over the past few days,” I taunt, trying to provoke him into a berserker rage. I want him sloppy, I can’t get past that sword without it. “Then again, she did say you’re a little . . . short in certain areas.”

Waters roars, raising his sword over his head, and I take my chance, stepping in and slicing upward with my right hand, cutting him across both wrists deeply, his sword falling from his now useless hands to clatter to the marble. Meanwhile, my left hand brings my knife up to press into his throat. Waters tries to jerk his head back, but not in time as I draw my blade across, a fountain of blood erupting out to cover my arm and face. He sinks to his knees, staring up at me with rage and a total lack of understanding in his eyes.

“If I were going for justice, I’d shoot you in the head right now like you shot my father,” I say, kicking him in the chest. He falls back, still trying to breathe as the blood flows from his neck to shine black in the moonlight. Appropriate for someone who I just said wasn’t even human. I squat down, staring into his fading eyes, where panic and a glimmer of understanding is starting to emerge. “But I’m not a very just man.”

I watch for another minute as Jacob Waters bleeds out, his blood pooling underneath him on the marble flooring. When he twitches his last, I cut a piece from his shirt and dip it in the blood, writing my message on the tile. The King is dead. Long live the King of the Streets.

Satisfied, I walk out, leaving the door open and exposing Jacob’s body to the elements. I’m halfway down the hill when a car pulls up and someone gets out. “Jesus… what the hell happened to you?”

It’s one of Waters’s men, but my face is so covered in blood that he doesn’t recognize me until I get closer, and by then, it’s too late as I jack him against the car, my knife at his throat. “There are two bodies up there. One of them is my work. The other was that fucker’s work. Put the word out. I’m the man in town now. I’m the new king.”

The man nods shallowly, and I take my knife away long enough to let him start to relax before I grab his head and slam it into the roof of his car, knocking him out. His body drops to the pavement, and I check his pulse to make sure he’s okay.

Having a witness like this makes things easier in some ways.

Still, kinda sucks to not take his car. It’s a pretty long walk.