Page 10 of Ripple Effect: Ep. 1

“Yes, she is. And it seems she’s got you by the balls.” I smile down at him, glancing back to the splotch of blood at his crotch and back again. “Oh wait. She already took those, didn’t she?”

“Fuck … you.”

There was a time I’d search for something about the bastards that would justify the kills. Something that would eliminate the guilt. Years later, I find myself searching for some reason not to kill. A glimmer of humanity inside of me.

There’s nothing.

In the underworld, they’re all bad. Nobody’s worth mercy.

Even if the man lying before me weren’t part of a circle selling girls on the black market, I’d enjoy slicing my blade across his flesh—a fact that has me swallowing a bottle of whiskey most nights.

They’ve turned me into a monster. Nothing but a machine used to exact someone else’s vengeance. A mindless killer—numb, heartless, a hollow vessel of violence and pain.

When you want a man dead, you buy a gun. When it’s personal, you hire me.

I pull three long ground stakes from my black bag and grab the sledgehammer lying on the cart beside him. “You’re tough as nails, I’ll give you that. But let’s see how you handle something bigger.”

A scream echoes throughout the small room as I line the tip of the stake at his kneecap. The guy’s loyalty is incredible. It’s almost a shame to have to kill him. I slam the hammer down on the top of the stake and the crack as it penetrates his bone overpowers the agony bouncing off the walls. His splintered scream is glass scraping against my spine, cut short by the gurgling in his throat.

The cries of pain have become the soundtrack to my life. The man who might’ve empathized with them is buried far beneath the merciless bastard who’s taken his place. I’m focused on one thing—getting the information I was paid to extract, and anything else fails to penetrate the ruthless shield that gets the job done.

Lining up the second stake at his other knee, I give another glance back at him and when he shakes his head, I lightly tap the top of the spike, just enough to make him sob.

“Talk.”

“I … told you everything.”

“Tell you what. I was gonna wait until after you were dead to toss you to the bucket. But since you ain’t got shit to tell me, I might as well do it now.” I nudge my head toward the large cast-iron barrel half-filled with something the Mexicans call pozole, sulphuric acid and some other chemical stew—my preferred method of eliminating the evidence over setting fire to the building. After all, the abandoned factory has proven to be a quiet place to hold interrogations. It’d be a shame to burn it down.

His eyes widen as I slide my arms beneath his bound legs, preparing to lift him. The guy must weigh one-sixty on a good day, but half starved, makes him a much lighter load than when we nabbed him from the nightclub a week ago.

“Wait! Wait! Just … okay. I’ll … fucking talk.” More blood expels on a hacking cough. “Promise … you’ll end this with … a bullet.”

“Promise.” I set him back down on the chair, where he slides against the blood pooled beneath him. “Who arranged the hit?”

Two weeks back, Lucien Bertrand received a tape of his thirteen-year-old son getting his brains blown, tied to a tree in the woods somewhere. The kid’s body had been dumped in a field outside of town, and within hours, I got the call. A week later, these two shitheads—Matteo and his friend propped in the corner—showed up at the Spades with guns. The Bertrand brothers, who are something of a small-time syndicate in Chicago, with far-reaching connections, own the club. Lucien was shot a half dozen times and landed in the hospital, where he’s been in a coma ever since.

My objective was to find out who arranged the hit, but I like to be thorough. Sometimes the bastards leak information without even realizing they’re doing it. Like his buddy Accardi, in the corner, who slipped and mentioned Frank Caruso, who I know happens to be the bookkeeper to Dominic Marchetti, and likes to boast about his collection of teenage porn. He also likes to host underground parties where girls are passed around like a bottle of Boone’s Farm in a dorm room.

If Matteo here tells me anyone other than Marchetti ordered the hit on Lucien, I’ll know he’s lying.

Lying flips my kill switch.

They tell me I’m too unstable. I got pills for that. Nerve pills that I take to help curb the rage.

A few years back, I penetrated the underbelly in search of my sister, who’d been sold into slavery when she was just fourteen years old. So this shit’s become more than business to me. Diving head first into the bowels of humanity put me face to face with some of the vilest scumbags to walk the planet.

Eventually, I found a shallow grave where she’d been discarded like Tuesday’s trash, and it was then I decided whatever moral thread kept me tethered as a member of society could be snipped. So I joined the corrupt bastards of the underworld, became a monster, and left my humanity buried alongside my fucked and used up baby sister.

These days, I kill because no one is there to stop me and redemption doesn’t exist in the underworld.

Dorian, Lucien’s brother and second in command, told me to have my fun with these pricks. “Cut loose,” he said. So I don’t worry about the blood I’ve spilled, even if it’s more than usual.

“Accardi … he got us … the job.”

Fuck. Should’ve seen that coming. Lying bastard told me it was Matteo. Too late to ask now.

“Think … it was Marchetti . He ordered … the hit … on Lucien.” He flinches and looks away. Guilt, I suppose. It’s no secret that Dorian will likely have me go after Marchetti next.