Epilogue

epilogue

brIAN

13 Years Later

It’s a calm sunny morning, the wrong kind of day for so much gravity. It should be raining, thundering—at the very least dark and gray. There’s nothing light about what’s about to happen. I’m about to become either a father, or an executioner.

It’s a very nice three-story red brick with white columns, way too nice for a kid his age. But he’s seen a lot and got his trust fund early—the second he turned eighteen. I waited six more months. It was a long wait after I’ve watched him for so many years. I’ve kept him alive on more than one occasion, though he doesn’t know that. It would be a shame to break that pattern now.

“Yeah?” the kid says.

“Hello Aidan, my name is Brian Sloan. I’m the man who killed your father.”

His eyes widen, first in shock, then narrow in anger. He pulls a gun from the back of his waistband, holding it sideways like a gang member on TV. I just shake my head at this amateur move. I could disarm him. He’s not trained.

Of course I don’t have to do that because I didn’t come alone. I hear the slide rack of another gun and smile at my dark goddess.

Mina stands behind him, her gun pointed at his head. A .22 so we won’t have to worry about an exit wound if she pulls the trigger. Neat. Clean. Just how I like it.

“I would be very careful about what I did in the next few minutes,” she says, “We’re here to make you an offer, and I don’t want to be a giant cliché, but it’s one you can’t refuse.”

“You should probably put your weapon down. My girl is well trained and, well, she does have a gun six inches from the back of your head. Haven’t you ever heard of locks?”

“You’d be so proud,” Mina says. “He’s got locks, a security code… but nothing I couldn’t break through. He’s even got a couple of guards on the property. Or had. We should find out who to send flowers and condolences to.”

Aidan slowly puts the gun on the ground and then stands, his eyes never leaving mine. “Coming to kill me before I can kill you, you motherfucker? Don’t think I haven’t been looking.”

I just laugh. I hope I don’t have to kill him, because in a very real way, I’ve been Adian’s father since the Fourth of July thirteen years ago. He was already here in the world, but in some ways, he was just being born, and like most births, there was a lot of blood, a lot of tears, and a lot of pain. I remember when I was born like that.

Now the darkness that crawls around inside of me, inside of Mina, is also here in Aidan. I could never bring a child into this world the normal way. I’d made sure of that medically many years ago when I first started the house with the other guys. But I also couldn’t bring a child into this world with me as I am.

Only I did. I chose to make this monster now standing before me. I knew what he would become when I gave in to Mina’s pleas that night. So I’m responsible here. He’s already broken many laws, already killed. And no kid of mine is going to prison for being a sloppy dumbass. I’d wanted to wait a few more years, but I can’t keep saving him from himself and if I don’t insert my influence now, he may be too lost anyway.

“Let’s go inside and sit down for a chat,” I say.

When we get inside the house, I move to Mina’s side. His gaze flicks to hers and I know… he remembers her. I don’t think he fully realized she was one of the bad guys that night—one of his nightmares coming to break his world apart in blood and death and gunfire way too loud for a small child’s ears.

I know how he feels. It’s hard for me to believe something so tiny and beautiful can be so lethal, too.

Trauma like that can mess up your memories, slot the wrong things into the wrong spaces. But now he’s putting the pieces together, now he’s realizing. She wasn’t an angel that just miraculously showed up to save him. And as he looks back and forth between us I see the moment it clicks inside his head, and he isn’t quite sure which one of us killed his father, which one of us deserves his wrath.

To be truthful, I don’t remember which one of us did it. It was a chaotic night, and I didn’t really care who my bullets were slicing through as long as Mina survived the night’s misadventures.

“It’s not her fault,” I say. “We were going to blow the building up. Several men I needed dead were all together in one space on a night of distraction. There wasn’t going to be another opportunity like that. Mina saw you in the window and wanted to save you. She didn’t know what that meant or what would happen. But I did. So if you want to hate someone, I’m your guy.”

The kid turns his rage back on me, which is right where I want it. If he loses his shit on Mina, he’s a dead man and her misguided mercy will have been for nothing.

“Tell me, Aidan… How would you like to learn how to be a real killer?”

There’s a long pause, and then his eyes light with excitement. I haven’t seen that look on his face since I saw him watching the firework display that night. But he masks it quickly, his cynicism and anger returning. It’s the safer emotion.

“And you think you’re going to train me?”

“I trained her,” I say, my head tilting to Mina.

She does a slow spin, revealing the various guns and knifes on her sleek black-clad form. I will never get tired of seeing her this way.

I see the light in his eyes at the chance to do real damage in this world, and do it the right way. If such a way exists.

“Okay,” he says, nodding.

“Good answer, kid. You’re going to be glorious.”