4
Damon
I didn’t rush off after Batista, but seeing him leave his heavies behind told me there might be a chance of concluding my assignment, especially when I saw that the drug lord didn’t head to the main bathroom but bypassed it for an alternative corridor that appeared to be an offshoot to all the central club activity. The opportunity seemed almost too good to be true. It was unlike a man of his standing to go anywhere without a soldier by his side, so I followed cautiously, taking care to make sure that none of Batista’s crew had their eyes on the corridor. I also did a quick sweep to make sure there were no security cameras watching the corridor, so I wouldn’t be seen if the right moment came.
Before my target moved, I’d been happily enchanted by the warm and deep brown eyes of the long wavy-haired girl who looked so out of place. Forget about it, my mafia friends would’ve said. Like the personalized yacht fantasy, I would have been wasting time chasing the unobtainable. Staying focused and alert was central to my abilities as a hitman, and there was an important task to accomplish.
When I was certain that none of the cavorting minions had their eyes on the empty corridor, I proceeded with my fingers poised to draw a weapon.
There was a steeliness that descended upon me whenever I came close to making a kill; a heightening of the senses made possible by the ability to control fear. Experience had taught me to want the moment. If you don’t want the target in your sights, then you’ll be in trouble dealing with it once that moment comes. I wanted to see Batista’s gloating face now and wanted it over with, as my pace quickened down the corridor to discover that they led to the staff toilets. If there was no one else inside, I knew this would be a perfect moment to take him down, and I wasted no time entering the men’s room and pushing open the first, then the second door, eyes flashing from urinals, to sinks, then to cubicles. Finger on the trigger; this was my moment.
But there was no one there.
It was an anticlimax I wasn’t used to when the steely fog had already descended. Had there been another exit that I’d missed along the corridor where Batista could have gone? It wasn’t like me, but obviously I’d made some mistake unless this wannabe crime lord was also a wizard capable of teleportation.
A hurried scuffling sound suddenly drew my attention.
With the music blaring away, I might not have paid the sound any attention whatsoever. In my heightened sense of awareness, on the other hand, I was curious enough to step into one of the cubicles so I could put my ear to, what I supposed, must have been the female toilets on the other side of these ones. The sound of wood panels rattling became more obvious as I listened, and I quickly figured that a couple were probably having sex in there. That was hardly unheard of in a nightclub’s toilets, but with my investigative senses on overload, my instincts caused me to linger, and I soon decided it sounded like too much of a struggle to be straightforward, consensual fucking. The pace was immediately back in my step as I left the male toilets and entered the female equivalent, without pausing to care whether I was wrong.
Even if there had been any doubts, the sound of a frightened young woman crying out soon quashed them. Having advanced on the vicinity with an itchy trigger finger, my impulses were easily redirected towards dealing with another misfit. Some of my friends and relatives hadn’t been strangers to rape or sexual assault when I was growing up. The professional choice might have been to turn around and not get involved—drawing unnecessary attention was among the worst blunders a hitman could make—but my bloodlust was now tainted with hate and anger towards the type of scum who would attack a woman, and so I didn’t waste any time musing over whether I should intervene.
Bursting into the cubicle from where the taunting sounds came, I aimed my fist at the back of the attacker’s head, then grabbed him by the collar, and with a swift yanking motion, I pulled him away from the girl and away from the toilet. With his pants around his knees, it was that much easier to unbalance him, and the man was unable to stop his momentum from powering him towards the hand dryers, which he missed but smashed into the tiled wall instead. Only once the man’s arms and legs were flailing clownishly away from him did I realize that I had none other than Batista in my grasp, and instinctively, my fingers went back to my gun but then paused. There was a witness—the young victim in the cubicle—and so completing my work right here and now would be impossible without doing her in as well.
My hesitation was only slight, but it gave Batista the window he needed to attack.
I’d hit him hard, and the head clash with the tiling didn’t sound too pleasant either, but Batista must have had a thick skull because he didn’t dwell on either impact. Clearly not used to being treated in such a heavy-handed way, cocaine-fueled fury saw him immediately spring back on his feet and lunge to take hold of me. Crazed and bloodshot eyes bore down and hands stretched wide in an attempt to seize me by the throat, or else poke my eyes out, but I wasn’t worried in the slightest. I had enough experience with unhinged psychopaths to know that the threat was born of entitlement rather than ferocity. Without his heavies backing up his every move, Batista wasn’t going to get the upper hand on me in a fight.
No fucking way.
Stepping aside, I grabbed out at the gold chains hanging beneath the hands that grasped thin air, then swung the drug lord around once more, this time propelling him towards the sinks and smashing one of the mirrors with that same thick skull that had somehow left the tiling intact.
Breaking a mirror was apparently seven years bad luck, but that was scant consolation for me there and then. This was the man I was supposed to kill, not beat up and leave after showing him my face. The whole evening had the makings of a disaster written all over it, even though I was the one doing the beating.
I didn’t let indecisiveness extend the exchange between us, though. Batista wouldn’t get another chance to attack. I drew my gun, and instead of pulling the trigger, I smashed the butt of it into Batista’s nose, blood erupting on impact to suggest it was broken. Placing the drug lord in an unbalanced state once again, I saw that one of his legs was at a convenient angle to do damage. Aiming my own heel at the man’s knee, I sensed from the subsequent crunch and Batista’s first scream of pain that it was a good call. Whatever Batista was going to achieve after that move of mine—like calling on his heavies—would have to be achieved slowly.
“Now get the fuck out of here,” I ordered, pointing my gun and still resisting the urge to finish it right there and then.
“You’re going to pay for this, pendejo,” Batista replied through gritted teeth as he limped his way over to the exit.
I resisted making any further response there and then. I needed to act quickly and get myself and the girl out of here, where we would be cornered if the scum managed to make his way back with his soldiers.
“You okay?” I asked, entering the cubicle where the terrified girl had been left shaking. “We’ve got to get out of here,” I added, reaching out my hand in the hope of helping her to spring into action.
It was only on doing so that I realized I was looking into the eyes of the beautiful brunette I’d seen just a few minutes earlier.
Another moment of indecisiveness followed when I should’ve just grabbed her by the arm and got us both out of here. Though I didn’t know her, seeing her in such a state, with her clothes all ruffled and mascara running down her cheeks from tears of panic, caused a rush of both fury and compassion the like of which I’d never experienced. The silence between us was actually broken by her when she reached out and took my hand, and although she was trembling, it gave me some hope that she wasn’t too traumatized to act and do as I suggested.
“Are you a cop?” she asked, her voice shaking a little as she fought to regain her composure.
“No,” I said.
Her eyes widened, and I fumbled for a benign explanation as to why I had a gun on me. “I’m in the security business, so sometimes fighting guys like him is sort of my job.”
“I see,” she said softly. She looked down at the floor, then back up at me. “Thank you. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t come in. I thought…”
Her voice trailed off, and I knew exactly what she’d thought while Batista was still in here. She’d thought he was going to rape and murder her, and knowing Batista, he probably would have. Thank fucking god I’d heard what was going on and been able to stop it. No woman deserved such a horrifying end, especially not an angel like this girl, and even though I didn’t know her from a bar of soap, I knew I’d do absolutely anything within my power to keep her safe.
But I didn’t say any of that.
“Come on,” I said instead. “That piece of shit has lots of friends, and he’ll be back here with them as soon as he’s managed to limp his way back out to the club.”
That should’ve been the time to leave, but then there was the sound of the bathroom door opening once again. I spun around and pointed my gun, thinking it was too quick for Batista to have come back considering his shattered knee, but not prepared to take any chances. Instead I was surprised to see a young woman with mousy-brown hair enter, and she froze in her tracks as she saw me, predictably stunned at the sight of a gun pointing her way.
The first girl, whose hand I was still holding, spoke first. “Claire! Oh, thank god…”
“What the fuck…leave Bea alone!” the girl named Claire shouted. I realized that she thought I was attacking her friend, who I’d just learned was called Bea…or maybe her name simply started with B, and that was her nickname.
Now didn’t exactly seem to be the right time to ask.
“I’ll call the police! And I’ve got pepper spray!” Claire continued, fumbling with her purse.
I almost grinned at that. If I was actually some sort of crazed gunman, then pepper spray wouldn’t have stopped me even for a second.
“Claire, stop! This man saved me,” Bea said, holding her hand up.
“Saved you? What’s with the friggin’ gun then?”
“Some…some other man attacked me. He was going to…well, I’m sure you can guess. It was awful; I’ve never been so scared in my life. Then he came in and helped me,” Bea replied, jerking her thumb in my direction and turning her beautiful eyes back to me.
“Really?” Claire replied, clearly still doubting what she saw, most likely because her eyes were hypnotized by the pistol in my hand.
Bea nodded, and Claire finally seemed to snap out of her shock. “Shit…Bea, I’m so sorry this happened.”
With that, she wrapped her arms around Bea in a comforting hug, and I let go of Bea’s hand, letting the two girls embrace for a few seconds before clearing my throat to get their attention.
“You two really need to get out of here,” I said. “That man has a reputation, and he’ll be back for revenge.”
“Wait…” Claire suddenly spoke up again, her eyes lit like a light bulb had just gone off in her head. “I saw a chubby man limping into the men’s bathroom with a bloody nose before I came in here. Was that the bastard?”
I gave her a curt nod. “Sounds like it.”
“I’ll call the cops.”
“Don’t,” I replied. “I’ll deal with him.”
“He’s a security guard,” Bea said by way of explanation, and I felt a tinge of guilt for lying to her about the true nature of my job.
“Oh. Well, thank you. It’s lucky you were here,” Claire said, nodding at me. “C’mon, Bea, let’s get the hell out of here before that guy comes back.”
Bea looked at me, her eyes still wide. “I really don’t know how to thank you properly for what you did, but…well, if you ever need anything, please call me on this number. My father is a pretty powerful man, and I’m sure he would be happy to make stuff happen for a guy who helped his family like this.”
She pulled a piece of paper from her purse along with a pen before scribbling down what I assumed was a phone number. I was astonished how calm and collected she seemed so soon after such a horrendous experience and, as vulnerable and out of place as she’d been earlier, I felt magnetized towards whatever inner strength it was she possessed.
I wondered if she was even aware how strong she was.
“Let’s go!” Claire said, tugging on Bea’s arm.
And with that, they were gone. The only evidence they’d ever been here in the bathroom was the floral scent of Bea’s perfume drifting into my nostrils, and the warm spot on my hand where hers had just been.
I stashed her number in my pocket, and I didn’t waste any time thinking about who her powerful father might be, because the girl named Claire had unwittingly solved all my problems by revealing that Batista had not limped towards his crew after all, but into the men’s bathroom. The vanity of some criminals could often prove their undoing, and something in that vein was at work here. Rather than seeking help, Batista had obviously gone to get cleaned up, not wanting to be seen in a beaten state which could harm his ‘alpha dog’ reputation.
What a fucking idiot.
I peered out the door to see the two girls disappear back into the nightclub, hoping they had the good sense to head for the exit and then go straight home. Then my finger was back on the trigger and the cloud of steeliness descended once more.
If it wasn’t for Batista’s vanity, the whole evening would’ve been a total fucking mess. My face had been seen, which would’ve made it very difficult to get close again in a similar scenario, but somehow the mess had transpired into a great twist of fortune, and I entered the male restroom once more to finish it.
As I’d predicted, Batista was frantically cleaning himself up, kneeling over a sink to enable the tap water to wash away the blood still flowing from his nostrils. On hearing someone else enter, he didn’t open his eyes straight away, clearly thinking the exchange was over with and, despite his beat-up state, still arrogant enough to think no one would mess with him. If he did open them, he’d recognize his foe quick enough to spin round and face me, but not in time to do anything.
I waited, tapping my feet on the tiles, and he finally turned to find a gun pointed two inches from his face.
His eyes widened. “What the fuck’s your problem, bastardo?” he asked, but I didn’t respond.
Our close proximity and privacy allowed me the convenience of dealing with Batista without a gunshot, or with blood flying everywhere and a whole trail of evidence that the bullet might leave. Instead my free hand went to my belt, where I kept a poison-tipped dart for such a scenario, and I grabbed it and plunged it into Batista’s neck.
He groped at his neck, trying to slap my hand away, and I simply pulled back and watched with a smile.
“You…you don’t know what you’ve done,” he choked out. “You don’t know who I am!”
“I know exactly who you are,” I replied.
“You’ll…you’ll pay for this!”
I kept smiling as he uttered the empty threats. It didn’t matter what he said or did; the paralyzing agent on the tip of the dart was already spreading through his bloodstream, working quickly.
The suffocating death? Not so much.
It wasn’t the kindest way to send him to his maker, but it was the most professional. On top of that…the bastard fucking deserved it.
He’d never be able to hurt a girl like Bea ever again.