Ben

 

I’d roared back to the clubhouse after letting that pathetic wretch Eric scamper off back to his rat hole. I felt filthy after touching him. He was a sniveling coward, too soft to do anything but run away from whatever paranoia it was that threatened him. He disgusted me.

 

But I had bigger fish to fry. He’d told me what I needed to know. I felt sure James was the man behind the trigger, the one who’d murdered Olaf, along with his own wife. We had our target. It was time to plan the strike.

 

My bike had barely stopped rolling before I was off it and storming inside. I burst into the office, nostrils flaring. Jay, Duncan, Spark, and Slick were all in there, still poring over the papers. Four pairs of eyes snapped up to me the second I entered.

 

“What happened?” Jay asked softly. “Did you find Joiner?”

 

“I found the motherfucker all right,” I growled back. “And he told me what I needed to know. It’s time for revenge, men. Tonight, we’re going to kill James Sanders.”

 

They all looked at me, flabbergasted. I briefly explained what I’d figured out, that Eric Joiner had been there the night of the murders. How he had seen James step into the apartment and shoot Olaf and then his own wife. That he’d been high and paranoid and recruited Ivan’s son to help him fake his own death and disappear, but that I’d found him and forced the truth out of him.

 

“The bastard,” Duncan said when I finished. He looked shell-shocked. “He killed his own wife? Why?”

 

That was the last piece of the puzzle I didn’t understand. But I didn’t have time to sit around and twiddle my thumbs while I perused James’s list of possible motivations. They said revenge was a dish best served cold, but they were wrong. It was best served when it’s hot enough to burn.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We know he did it. He’s got Olaf’s blood on his hands. Now it’s time to spill some of his.”

 

Jay nodded and cleared the table. I started to walk across the room to join them, but before I moved, my phone started ringing. Annoyed, I fished it out of my pocket. Carmen’s number flashed across the screen. I frowned.

 

“I can’t talk right now,” I said. I tried to keep my voice as calm and nonchalant as possible. She didn’t need to know what was happening just yet. Learning that her father had murdered her mother would be a massive shock to the system. I wanted to wait until the right time and place to fill her in.

 

But it wasn’t Carmen. “I think you need to make some time for me,” said an unexpected voice. I halted in my tracks. I felt Jay look at me. He knew me well enough to see that something was very, very wrong.

 

“James,” I said in a dry rasp. “What are you doing?”

 

“I want to talk to you, Ben. You’ve been very nosy. I think if you had questions, you should have just come ask me yourself.”

 

“The only thing I’m coming to do is chop your fucking head off, you son of a bitch.”

 

“You could try to do that, if you wanted. Hell, you might even succeed. But, just a little bit of advice for you, since I am your father-in-law and all. I wouldn’t try to do that.”

 

“Oh? Why not?”

 

“You wouldn’t want Carmen to get hurt, would you?”

 

My heart plummeted. I knew it even before he said anything, but I asked the question he wanted me to ask. “What did you do?”

 

“She’s with me, Ben. Why don’t you come join us for dinner?”

 

The line went dead.

 

The room was completely silent as I walked over to the table, my eyes gazing into nothingness, and gently laid my phone on the surface. No one said a word for a long time. The fight and fire that had been raging in my chest was completely evaporated now, replaced by a cold, sucking void.

 

“What happened, boss?” Slick asked after a while.

 

I could hear my pulse hammering in my ears. “He’s got Carmen,” I replied. I blinked. “I have to go get her.”

 

# # #

 

The address in the text from Carmen’s phone matched the one on the mailbox out front of the house. It was a small, dusty bungalow a few miles outside of town, with plenty of acreage separating it from its distant neighbors. The afternoon was giving way to evening as I pulled up and parked my motorcycle. A man stood up from a lawn chair as I climbed off. He kept his gun pointed directly at my gut.

 

I held my hands in the air. “I’ve got nothing on me,” I said.

 

He grunted and pointed for me to come stand beside him. “Hands on the fence,” he barked. I leaned against it, palms flat. “Spread your legs.” He patted me down roughly and thoroughly before whipping me back around to face him and nodded. “You’re clean. Go inside. They’re waiting for you.”

 

I turned my gaze to the doorway. Such an innocent little house. I wondered if anyone knew what kind of a sick fuck was lingering inside. With my wife. My child’s mother. I swallowed the hard knot of anger building in my throat.

 

I crossed the yard, took the two steps onto the porch, and paused just outside the door. Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I raised a hand and knocked.

 

“Come in,” came James’s voice.

 

I twisted the doorknob and entered. My heart quickened the second I stepped into the room. Carmen sat at the table with her back to me. She turned and looked at me over her shoulder. “Carmen, you—” I started to say, but she cut me off.

 

“No. You’re a liar, Ben. Don’t ever say my name again.” Her eyes were fiery and enraged. She looked like she was surprised to see me but that she was ready to slice my throat if given the chance.

 

What was she talking about? When had I lied? I looked around the room, bewildered. It was empty except for the three of us. I turned to stare at James. He pointed at the empty seat between the two of them.

 

“Come, Ben. Take a seat.”

 

Cautiously, I stepped over and settled down. My whole body was tensed like a coiled spring, ready to explode at any minute. James noticed.

 

“Relax,” he said soothingly. “No one is going to hurt you. We are family, aren’t we?” He smiled as he looked back and forth between Carmen and me.

 

I unclenched my fists, but stayed tense. I didn’t trust the bastard as far as I could throw him. He folded his hands in his lap and leaned back to get a good look at me before he began talking.

 

“Now, Ben, my dear son-in-law, there are a few things we need to discuss. Let’s start with the oldest business, shall we? You took quite a bit of money from me.”

 

I didn’t blink as I stared back at him. While we locked eyes, I tried to take in as much of the room as I could in my peripheral vision. I didn’t see any armed guards, nor did it look like James was holding any weapons. Maybe I could just strangle him with my bare hands. He was a big motherfucker, but I had enough adrenaline coursing through my veins to fight a goddamn whale. He would be no match for my anger.

 

“Well?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Are you not even going to own up to what you did?”

 

“You don’t even know if that was us,” I said.

 

He chortled. “Ben, come on. Do you think I’m an idiot? I’ve been in this business for a very long time. It was a sloppy theft. I knew it was you the day after it happened. I’ll admit, you took me by surprise, but you got away with it because I let you.”

 

“Why?”

 

With a shrug, he said, “It was better to let you think you had the upper hand for a while. It kept you complacent. Feed a rat a bite of cracker and he stops hunting so hard for the real cheese, if you follow what I’m saying.”

 

“I don’t believe you.”

 

“I don’t give a damn if you believe me or not,” he said curtly. “I’m telling you the facts. I knew it was you; I let it go. For that, you are welcome. But, things have changed a bit.”

 

“Stop talking bullshit, James. Tell me what you want.”

 

“I’m getting there. In due time, young buck, in due time. You don’t need to be in such a rush everywhere you go. Some things are done better with patience.”

 

I flexed my fists. “I ought to kill you right here and now,” I said.

 

“Just like you killed my mother?” Carmen blurted.

 

I whirled to face her. My jaw hung open. “Just like what?” I exclaimed.

 

“You heard me,” she said. Her whole face was lit up with hatred, directed straight at me.

 

“Carmen, what are you talking about?”

 

“She spoke very directly, Ben,” James admonished. “I think you understood her perfectly.”

 

“Carmen, baby—”

 

“Shut up,” she interrupted. “Don’t ever call me that again.”

 

“Carmen, I didn’t kill your mother. Are you insane? What has he been telling you?”

 

“You’re a liar, Ben. You killed her and you took me just to mock my family. Wasn’t killing my mom enough? You had to ruin my life, too?” Her eyes were filled with hot tears, but it wasn’t the willowy crying of someone ready to admit defeat. It was pure flame. She really wanted to stab me, to make me bleed.

 

“Listen to me, Carmen. I didn’t kill your mother. It was him.” I jabbed a finger at James. “He did it.” Turning to address him, I continued, “I know it was you, you son of a bitch. I found Eric Joiner. Remember him? He saw everything. He told me what happened. John Robinson, Eric Joiner—they know you’re the one who killed her. And Olaf. And now I know you did it, too. I’m here to make you pay for the lives you took.”

 

James shook his head sadly, like I was a dumb kid who just didn’t understand the day’s lesson. “Now you’ve really gone off the deep end. I’m worried about you, Ben. So many fantasies playing through that skull of yours. It must be hard to be so tangled up in your own lies.”

 

“They saw you, James! Witnesses saw you do it. They saw you covered with your own wife’s blood. What did she do to you to deserve to go out like that?”

 

“Ben, Ben, Ben, come on now. Do you really expect either me or my daughter to believe you? You’ve always been a piece of shit. Now you’re a lying piece of shit on top of that.”

 

“You’re the murderer, James. Not me. Carmen, you have to believe me.”

 

She hadn’t budged from where she sat, rigid with fury, glaring at me. If looks could kill, my ghost would haunt this patch of desert until the whole damn planet exploded.

 

“Why would either of us believe such a despicable lie, Ben?” James asked softly.

 

“They saw you, James. They fucking saw you.” I felt sickeningly desperate. I decided to bluff. “They’re going to go to the police and tell them everything,” I said. “You aren’t going to be able to hide from you what you did anymore.”

 

“Who is going to talk to the police?” He chortled. “Oh!” He put a hand on his chest as if he’d just remembered something. “Do you mean…these men?”

 

I turned around in my seat as the front door flew open and two of James’s burly henchmen dragged John Hunter and Eric Joiner into the house. Their hands were bound behind their backs and gags were strapped over their mouths. They looked utterly terrified, like sheep at the slaughter. I couldn’t blame them. I’d be terrified, too, if the man I’d spent years running from, the one I’d seen with my own eyes as he murdered two people, had finally snapped shut the trap around me.

 

The men roughly arranged John and Eric on their knees at the side of the table. “Let’s hear what they have to say,” James suggested. The gags were unbuckled and both men drew in long, rasping breaths.

 

“I didn’t see anything, I swear,” Eric sobbed immediately. “I’m nobody. I’ll disappear right now. Say the word and I’m gone. Just please don’t hurt me.”

 

John was white as a sheet. “I’ve never seen you in my life, sir,” he said soberly.

 

“John, Eric,” I said. “Tell the truth. Tell them what you told me.”

 

They turned to look at me with the blankest expressions I’ve ever seen.

 

“Who are you?” John asked softly. “I’ve never met you before.”

 

“You’re lying!” I said. “Tell them! He can’t hurt you!”

 

James chuckled. “It is a pity to see you so desperate, Ben. I’d always had a lot of respect for you in the past. You had such a reputation for being cool under pressure. But I guess I was wrong. Up close, you’re nothing but a sweaty, nervous wreck. Look at him, Carmen. Is this a man you’d take at his word?”

 

I looked at my wife. She was distant already, her mind miles down the road, leaving me in the dust. “Carmen…” I said, trailing off. I was out of words. Out of hope. Rock bottom was even less comfortable than I’d feared. It was cold and dark down here. No matter how hard I tried to clamber out, James kept shutting me down, knocking me back to the bottom of the well. Maybe I’d done this to myself. Maybe I should have kept both my nose and my dick out of James’s business. I’d been such a fucking idiot. My head hung heavily.

 

“I didn’t think so,” James finished. He looked supremely at ease, like a king surveying his kingdom and admiring how goddamn high and mighty he was.

 

“Just let them go,” I said in a whisper.

 

He nodded. “You heard the man,” he instructed his soldiers. “Let them go.”

 

The henchmen tugged John and Eric up to their feet and guided them to the back exit. The screen door screeched open and shut as they stumbled through. I heard the distant clank of the gags being dropped onto the wooden porch, followed by desperate feet slapping the earth. They must be running out of the yard.

 

Then I heard two shots.

 

“You… you…” I stammered. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so lost for words. I always knew what to say. I was Ben Killmore, goddammit, not some stuttering pussy. I was cool under pressure. I had ice in my veins, steel in my heart. I was the baddest son of a bitch in this city, county, state.

 

“Those men reached the end of their rope,” James said. He seemed sad, almost apologetic. What a snake. What a true bastard.

 

“You killed them.”

 

“They killed themselves, Ben. That’s what the police will find, because that’s what happened. I don’t think you understand yet. However I want things to happen, that’s how they happen. I dictate reality. I do. Not you. Not them. Certainly not the police. Me.”

 

Realization dawned on me. “You cut off the investigation. You told the commissioner to make it stop.”

 

“Some business is best handled by those involved. The police always tend to muddle things anyway, in my opinion. Besides, this way was best. I promised the commissioner that I would find the man responsible for murdering my wife. And I have found him. It’s you.”

 

I sat back in my seat, shell-shocked. One by one, all the avenues of escape were closing around me. There was nothing left but this gray-eyed demon, playing me like a marionette. I’d been an idiot for so long. Ignorance was bliss. Awareness was hell.

 

“Are you going to kill me?” I asked. I turned to Carmen. “Do you want me to die?”

 

When she spoke, her voice was cold and clipped. “Did you do it, Ben? I want to hear you admit it. I want to hear the words come out of your mouth.”

 

I gathered all the seriousness I could into my throat and said, “I didn’t kill your mother, Carmen. It was him. If I have to die, so be it. But I’m not the man you’re looking for. He is.”

 

James planted his hands on the table and stood. “I’ve had enough. It’s been amusing for a while, but no more. I won’t have you keep lying to my daughter. You’ve hurt her plenty. She’s back to me, and I won’t let you continue to twist your claws in her heart. Your time is up, Ben. Go quietly, won’t you?” He gestured to his henchmen as they came back inside, fresh off killing two innocent men. “Bring him out back,” he ordered.

 

I didn’t resist as they stomped over and yanked me to my feet with their hands around my upper arms. One shoved me in the back towards the screen door. I walked through it, head hanging low. Behind me, I heard James and Carmen following.

 

We all gathered outside. I felt a kick in the back of my legs and I fell to my knees in the dirt. The sun was setting in the west. It looked breathtaking. I’d hardly ever taken a second to appreciate what a goddamn miracle it was that we had that great big ball of beautiful fire coming up and down every day to keep this planet alive and well. I’d never appreciated much of anything, really. Well, there was one thing.

 

Her.

 

Carmen was looking down at me from a few yards away. Her eyes were like her father’s—gray, distant, glacial. I’d appreciated her. I could honestly say I had. She’d done things to me I never expected and sure as hell didn’t deserve. A man like me, a bad man, deserved to die.

 

But did I deserve to die like this? Knees in the dirt, my own wife looking down on me as I bled out? My child was in her womb. It seemed beyond tragic that he’d be brought into the world with so much hatred swirling around him. Lies and blood and brutality. It was a sick planet, I decided. Maybe the sun only looked so beautiful because it was miles and miles away from us twisted humans.

 

My fists were rooted in the dirt. I stared at the ground. Every detail was crisp and vivid. The sounds of the twilight were impossibly rich. The smell of the air was perfect. My whole body knew I was about to die and it was taking the chance to savor every last thing one last time.

 

“I didn’t do it, Carmen,” I whispered. “Just remember I said that. And don’t tell our child its father died on his knees.”

 

“Shut the fuck up,” said one of the henchmen, prodding me in the back of the head with a gun.

 

James walked around in front of me. He took the gun from the henchman’s hand and said, “I want you to look me in the eyes when I kill you, Ben.”

 

I turned my gaze straight into his. The sky beyond his head was purple and deep. The stars were just starting to come out. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he cocked the gun and leveled it in the center of my forehead.

 

“Are you sure you want to see this, sweetie?” he asked Carmen. Sweetie. The picture of a perfect father, even as he got ready to execute his daughter’s husband. He was a filthy liar, but it didn’t matter how many times I said that. She wouldn’t believe me. He’d done a real fucking number on her head, and she was beyond my reach now.

 

She looked at me as she said, “I want to see it.”

 

James nodded. “Very well. You’re a grown girl. I’ll respect your decision.” He adjusted his grip on the handle of the gun. “This is for my wife,” he said.

 

I kept my eyes riveted open. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing any fear in me. I had none to show. I was an outlaw about to die an outlaw’s death. I knew it might come to this, that walking into the lion’s den meant there was a good chance I’d never come out, but I’d come anyway. For her. For Carmen. I didn’t regret it.

 

“Pull the trigger, James,” I said.

 

He grimaced. Three shots fired.