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  Jacques, the previous president, was too cautious by far, and from where Anton was looking he cost the Knights much more than he ever brought in. Their territory not only didn’t increase during his tour—they lost ground. Being stagnate was an unforgivable sin, but to lose ground—that was simply too much to bear. So Anton had no second thoughts when he pulled alongside Jacques on the highway, blew out his bike’s back tire with a shotgun to send Jacques into an uncontrollable slide, and then ran him over with the van. That Anton was then elected into the office of president was fortuitous, and not unexpected, but not the goal of removing Jacques. Anton simply couldn’t sit by and watch his club, which he loved dearly, fall to shit under Jacques’ spineless leadership any longer.

  There were other ways he could have dealt with Jacques, but in Anton’s mind, Jacques’ crimes of leadership were capital in nature. His solution was clean, direct, and final.

  Within the first month of taking the reins of leadership, Anton doubled their cocaine sales. Never before in the history of the club, had such an increase of revenue befallen them. There was plenty of work and lots of territory to reclaim. The membership was happy, money was coming in, life was good.

  Not everyone believed his changes were good, but those who voiced such views were in the minority. His goal of taking over the Steel Highwaymen—not just their territory, but the whole club—was met with greater resistance, but not enough to deter him from continuing to takes steps in that direction.

  And then, things suddenly began to fall apart. Men were getting arrested. The Highwaymen made a few successful retaliations, targeting drug drops and taking product. The Knights’ two strip clubs were raided by Vice for prostitution, with nearly two-thirds of the girls taken into custody. Then, those two cunts decided to jump ship.

  Anton realized, in the grand scheme of things, that Shayla’s and Sydney’s rebellion was minor. The bottom line, really, was timing. Everything else going on could be considered part of the environment; raids happened, men got arrested, and sometimes competitors won the day—but the cunts were personal.

  Shayla and Sydney were the club’s best movers, true, but they were much more than just coke pushers. They were, in many ways, the promotional team of the entire club. They were the glitz. They threw outrageous parties, they entertained exactly the right people. They were geniuses at putting a face on the Knights of power, prestige, and romance. At their parties, major deals were realized. They were the perfect hostesses for brokering agreements with current partnerships and wooing new alliances. They were, in fact, the only diamond given to the club by Jacques. When people discovered that they were with the Knights, it didn’t give the cunts clout—it gave the club clout.

  Then, they decided to stop. Just fucking stop. Everything going on could have been mitigated with the right spins, except them. When they cut back on their sales, going only for their stables and regulars, they not only took away four to five kilos of sales a week, but they also took away a very effective business environment. Clients and partners expected the entertainment provided by Shayla and Sydney. Losing them was like cutting off the club’s face.

  If everything else wasn’t going on, perhaps he could seek out and recruit what basically amounted to a new public relations team. Certainly, their decisions to cut back would not have been seen as it was—a vote of “no confidence” in his leadership. As it was, it was worse than losing just about any member or group of members. The perception was that the cunts were turning their backs on him; declaring that the Knights were no longer a power.

  He doubted that they actually understood the political importance of their support of the club—they were fucking party pussies, prime pussies, but still just fucking cunts—and he wasn’t about to make the mistake of confessing their importance.

  Now, on top of their rebellion, Neil—one of his best men, a seriously hard hitting son of a bitch with a ton of respect in the club—backed Shayla’s and Sydney’s play. It was like being thrown into ice water just before orgasm. It was completely unexpected. It was bad enough that the cunts were pulling the rug out from under him without a patch-holder like Neil giving his support.

  From that point on, things just went wrong again and again. Now he couldn’t even sit in a fucking chair!

  In his time as the president of the Knights, he had forgotten something. Something very basic: he had forgotten what got him here. He had grown to believe that a political problem required a political solution, instead of remembering that politics was only good when reasonable people were at the table. Jacques was not a reasonable person, and Anton didn’t hesitate to deal with him with decisive action. When the Gomez brothers went to the Highwaymen, he didn’t hesitate to deal with them in the same manner.

  He hesitated with the girls. He let their importance to the club blind him to the danger of allowing them to get away with it—daily. Every day they were allowed to live, their threat and importance grew. Neil was now the same level of threat. Just by living—doing nothing else but breathing—Neil was undermining his leadership. Hell, he had drug runners refusing deliveries on a regular basis now. Their sales were less now than when he started!

  The cunts and Neil both had to be dealt with—now. Which was why he was on Skype talking to Simon Grimm.

  “I have a job for you. Something that is in line with your expertise.” Anton told him, lying on his stomach in bed, looking at Simon’s light-colored, featureless face. The man was about as unremarkable as any man could be. His hair was dirty blond, his eyes were hazel, and his expression—unmemorable. If the Cubans and Anton’s Juarez Cartel contacts didn’t recommend this man so highly, he would have doubted Simon was the right person.

  “I was contacted by Juan, and Anthony. Are there further details they would not have given me?” Simon asked him.

  “Perhaps the level of urgency,” Anton told him.

  “Everyone who wants someone else dead believes it to be urgent,” Simon told him in a bored tone. “You do not have addresses? From what I gathered, you are not even sure if they are still in Miami.”

  “True,” Anton admitted, because what would be the point of downplaying his position to an assassin?

  “Fifty-thousand each,” Simon told him.

  “Fifty-thousand? I was told that you were expensive, not unreasonable,” Anton exclaimed.

  Simon shrugged and said, “Then we have nothing to talk about.” He began to reach for his keyboard.

  “Wait,” Anton told him.

  “Yes?” Simon said, with that same bored voice.

  “Fine, fifty each,” Anton told him.

  “I’ll give you my bank transfer information then, and after you have paid, send to the same address all of the information you have on the targets,” Simon said, as if Anton agreeing to pay him $150k was no more important than the choice of a breakfast cereal.

  “You expect me to pay you up front?” Anton asked.

  “Your credit is shit,” Simon told him. “I know you can’t use club funds for this. I know that your personal funds probably can’t even cover this. So, yes, definitely. Even if your credit was perfect, however, and you could show me the cash in your hungry fist right now—I demand upfront payment. Afterward, I will not wish to discuss the matter with you. They will be dead. There will be nothing to discuss.”

  Fuck, Anton thought to himself. The bastard was right. He couldn’t use club funds for this, and he didn’t have $150k to pay up front.

  “Is there a problem?” Simon asked, only mildly curious.

  “Let’s start with one. If that works out, then I’ll pay you for the other two at the same time,” Anton tried.

  Simon shrugged again, and damn if he didn’t look like he was about to yawn as well. “Certainly. After all, my reputation and references are only pristine. Which one?”

  “Neil. Neil Jackson. He’ll be with the girls, I’m fairly sure,” Anton told him.

  “Fine. And if you decide not to follow up, do not worry about it. I understand
that sometimes, plans alter with a change of environment. No harm, no foul,” Simon assured him.

  “I think it is too late for alterations or profitable changes. This is damage control,” Anton admitted.

  Simon gave him the banking information to make the deposit into Simon’s account, which he did right there while Simon waited. Once Simon agreed that his bank had the transfer information, Anton then sent the computer document with all of the information the club had on Neil.

  “Good,” Simon told him. “It will probably take about a week. Maybe less.”

  “I’ve been looking for four weeks now,” Anton told him.

  “I doubt they are hiding,” Simon told him, and this time he did give a little yawn. “He’s shot you three times now, yes? Retired from your membership? He’s not afraid of you. I doubt he thinks about you at all.”

  You motherfucking son of a bitch, Anton thought, but there was something in the man’s manner which kept him from voicing this outrage. “I hope you are right,” he managed to say.

  Simon’s lips gave just the barest hint of a smile. “Then our business is concluded until you deem it time to progress to the next two.”

  The Skype connection closed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Simon Grimm spent a great deal of effort in being invisible. Few people remembered him even after talking to him at length—even clients were sometimes hard pressed to recall his features. He had the face of every man on the street. He was a psychic blank. He moved through the world untouched and unhindered. He has walked past police protection and killed men in hospital beds, and then walked away with little or no resistance. He has walked through the front door of a target’s home, right up to them in their living room, and shot them in the head before the victim was sure there was a real threat. He simply did not appear dangerous, or remarkable, or memorable.

  It was like they died of nothing.

  Looking over the information given to him, he disregarded most of it, like known addresses and the safe house listed near downtown. Neil Jackson was not a killer per se, but he was savage. He would have a predator’s instincts. He was likely unconcerned with Anton or his thoughts of malice, but he would not disregard them either. He would be informed, cunning, and prepared. Neil Jackson would not be taken by surprise. He was not a man whose house Simon could simply walk into without encountering immediate and lethal resistance. Not any more than he could expect to walk up to a tiger and give it a pat on the head. He was, in fact, Simon’s preferred game.

  According to the file, Neil was six-foot-four and close to three-hundred pounds. He acted as an enforcer for most of his time with the Knights, and as a drug runner as well. The image of him showed a man who could probably rip another man in half if he was threated enough to do so.

  What made him dangerous, however, were his eyes. They were calm pools of iron. They were the eyes of someone who knew he was at the top of the food chain. They were not arrogant—simply certain. They had the certainty of long experience and a history of successful dealings with violent situations. This did not concern Simon too much. After all, he wasn’t a violent man. He did not create violent situations, or pose any threat. He simply killed people. Death was not violent—quite the opposite in fact. Next to sleep, death was the most calm, non-threatening state a human being could be in.

  The file suggested that he was living with both Shayla Carson and Sydney Dane, and that he protected both of them with deadly force. Looking at the images of the two women, he wondered about their relationship. According to Anton’s rather indelicate description, it was rumored that Neil was the lover of both of these women, and that the relationship was more than a ménage à trois—there was strong suggestion that perhaps deep feelings were involved, which interested him, as all facets of human relationships interested him.

  He began his search on the phone and going through public records on the computer. Finding nothing the first day, he began to think a little creatively, and checked public records for Shayla Carson and Sydney Dane. There he struck gold. According to a new court decision, both women had recently changed their last names to Jackson. It was no wonder Anton had not found them—he was looking for the wrong people.

  Spending the rest of the afternoon hunting through other records in the County Recorder’s office, he uncovered the purchase of a condo by Shayla and Sydney Jackson which, ironically, was only a few blocks from his own condo.

  Loading up his car with his rifle and his hunting pack, he drove over to the area and scouted out the streets. The condo, he discovered, was one of the nicer ones in the area. The large windows in front certainly looked promising. Looking behind him, the apartment complex roof top—two stories up and protected by a facade lip-wall—gave perfect protection and vantage. The only trouble would be the mirroring reflection of the condo’s windows. He would have to do this in the evening, when lights were on inside.

  He spent the next hour examining the terrain, planning out his escape route, and locating access to the roof. After that, he felt that he had been in the area too long, so he would wait another day. He was in no hurry. Tomorrow, the next day, next month, it didn’t matter to him. Neil Jackson was already dead. Neil just didn’t know it yet.

  When Simon returned to his car, he decided that tomorrow, Friday evening, around seven o’clock would be fine. While it didn’t matter when, there was also no reason to prolong the event either. The sooner he was finished, the sooner he could return to writing and illustrating his children’s books.

  Simon slept well that night, and worked casually on his illustrations the next day in his art room. He ate an early vegetarian dinner, walked back out to his car at six o’clock, and drove over to Neil’s neighborhood. There, he took his rifle case—which looked like a guitar case—and his royal blue backpack up the flight of stairs and to the roof access of the apartment building. He encountered two couples on his way, who forgot him as soon as he passed.

  On the roof, he took out his binoculars and studied the inside of Neil’s condo through the large, well-lit windows. There he found five people. Two young girls in their early teens, two women, and Neil. They were sitting down to dinner. The women were setting the table with take-out food placed on nice dishware. The girls were helping with drinks and the youngest put a vase of flowers in the middle of the table. It was all very domestic. Simon was looking at a perfectly normal family evening—except for the fact that the man had two wives.

  He wondered who the girls were. They were blond, but didn’t resemble either Sydney, who looked like a living Barbie Doll, or a Playboy centerfold, or Shayla, who had a haunting and vulnerable beauty. After some time, he came to the conclusion that they were Neil’s, but they were probably siblings rather than daughters. The face of the eldest girl resembled his same studious attention and calm assurance.

  Simon paused, wondering if he should wait for tomorrow. The condo was obviously a three-bedroom at least, but he didn’t believe the girls lived there with Neil. The situation and body language told Simon that this was a special occasion. A visitation with their older brother. The youngest of the girls obviously had a bit of hero worship going on with her elder brother. Simon’s studied eye could see it in the way she continuously stole glances at him. She also seemed very attached to Shayla. Perhaps killing Neil at such a moment would be too much violence. The death would be quick, even painless; an AK-47 round to the forehead, and one to the heart. It would take a second at most. The tinkle of glass from the window might be heard, perhaps. But then… screaming.

  Simon meditated on this violent aftermath for some time. His preference was for instant and unexcited deaths. The less noteworthy, the better. He came to the conclusion, however, that the aftermath couldn’t be avoided. Even without the two girls there, the women would still react in the same dramatic and keening way. He would just have to settle for a death so quiet and sudden, that their reactions would only come after a long moment of wonder, and then shock. So he opened his case and took out the
AK-47, loaded it with a clip, and then sighted through the high-powered scope.

  It was less than a hundred yards, but he still took the time to estimate the cross wind speed and settle himself into a stable and unmoving kneeling position, resting his elbow on the facade lip-wall.

  Neil was facing him, at the head of the long table. No one sat at the other end. In fact, there wasn’t even a chair there, which interested Simon. The two girls sat closest to Neil, the eldest on his right, and beside them were the two women. They were just beginning to serve up the food, which was appeared to be Thai. There were lots of smiles and even some laughter. Simon, in the quiet of the Miami summer night, exhaled, stilled his body, sighted on Neil’s forehead, and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Friday afternoon, Shayla was in a good mood. Better than good, really. There was no sign or word from Anton, or any dark warnings from Neil’s friends of impending doom. The twenty-four-hour mark had passed, and then passed again, with no one showing up at the door to kill them. And the girls were on their way over to spend the night with them.