26. Brian

TWENTY-SIX

brian

“What do you think?”

I turn to find Mina in a black corset and black leather pants with matching boots. “What am I supposed to be commentating on?” I ask, confused. This is pretty much the standard attire she’s worn every time we’ve been in a killing people situation together. That’s only been a few times, but still, a pattern is emerging.

“This corset. Do you think it’s too tight?”

“Are you planning to seduce him before you kill him?” I ask, waggling my eyebrows as I zero in on her cleavage.

“Hilarious. I mean… I don’t know if I can move properly in this one.”

“You seem to be moving fine to me. You look great, Killer. Now let’s go.”

She blushes, but follows me out to the car.

“Why are you so jumpy?” I ask.

“Do we have everything?”

“I always keep this car ready to go for standard house jobs.”

She nods, and puts her seatbelt on. “But do I have a bag? With my guns?”

“Yes, you’ve got a bag.” I pull the car through the circular driveway and out onto the main road. “What’s this about, Mina?”

“I don’t know. It’s just… at Easter I didn’t think about it, I just came to get you. And then for the Fourth of July there was a lot of planning, and it was going to be a boring button push anyway…”

“Famous last words.”

She laughs a little, but continues, “I don’t know, we didn’t plan for this. What if something happens?”

I squeeze her knee. “Nothing’s going to happen. These guys aren’t hardened criminals. They’re idiots with a kink, and some of them break our rules. So we enforce.”

“What’s going to happen to the girl?”

I’m quiet, keeping my eyes on the road.

“Brian?” she prods.

I sigh. “I don’t know, Mina. It depends.”

“Like fuck it does. She’s coming back with us. Promise me.”

“We can’t run a halfway house for damaged toys.”

“Promise me.”

My jaw clenches, but I say, “Fine.”

We have clients all over the world, but this is a local so it takes less than an hour to get there.

Despite this guy’s wealth, his security is well below the standard it should be. Contrary to expectation, not everybody with money fully understands how much they have to lose, or how easy it is to take it.

So we just roll in past a gate that isn’t even locked with a camera that isn’t even on. Fucking amateurs. I can tell Mina’s still nervous as we pull up.

“I still can’t believe you just… show up .”

“It depends on the people involved. There are exceptions where I have to plan, like when I came for you in Japan. But this guy? He’s nothing.”

She nods finally and gets out of the car. We strap ourselves down with the weapons in our bags then go up and ring the bell.

A refined older gentleman opens the door. A butler.

Mina shakes her head at me. Did she know I was planning to snap his neck, or just that I intended to kill him? I give her a reassuring look then pull my gun. The man’s eyes widen.

“Oh, don’t look so shocked. You know you’re employer isn’t a boy scout. Tell me how many people are in the house right now.”

“J-just Mr. Dinmore.”

“What about the girl?” Mina says.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, Miss.”

Mina pulls her own gun and trains it on the butler. “Tell me about the girl, Jeeves, or I’ll kill you myself.”

“I-I-I…”

Now he can’t get control of his vocabulary?

“The truth!” she barks.

He jumps at her tone, and the stress of two guns on him. “I… she… he… I don’t know. She… she’s not here.”

“ Where is she?” Mina presses.

Finally he caves and the truth comes out in a rush. “I-in the garden. B-buried in the garden. It was an accident!”

A moment later the butler’s brains are on the wall.

“Oh, so you get to kill the butler?”

“He’s not an innocent,” she snarls back at me.

Well, okay then. I follow her in her rampage down the house’s long hallway. We finally find Dinmore cowering under his own desk in his study. I see his shadow under the desk and tilt my head at Mina. She nods and jumps up on the desk like a cat.

“I-I’ve got a gun,” he says.

Stupid fucking thing to say. If you’ve got it, shoot it. I aim my 9mm at the flat wooden panel of the desk and unload the magazine. The bullets go straight through and hit their target. I watch as a pool of blood spreads out under the desk.

“I was going to do it!” Mina shouts.

“Too risky. He had a weapon. I wasn’t going to risk him pulling that same trick on you.”

She leans over the desk to peer underneath at the man.

“He doesn’t even have a gun, Brian. He was bluffing. Dammit!”

“You got to shoot the Butler.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Let’s bury them in the garden with the girl,” I suggest.

She sighs. “Okay.”

The cafeteria is full when we arrive back at the house. They still aren’t used to seeing Mina like this, and it pisses me off the way some of the other girls act around her now. Jealous. They chose to come here to be trained for the highest bidder. None of us ripped them out of their beds in the middle of the night.

It’s not Mina’s fault if some of them decided a bit too late that maybe they should have stayed in college and stayed in control of their own lives instead of turning a sexual fantasy into their entire personality.

In the hush that falls over the room, the voice of one of the newer girls drifts to my ears. “Look at her. Mina thinks she’s the shit. I’d love to see Brian truly punish her to wipe that smirk off her face.”

There are a few gasps, and I can just make out Annette’s voice to my right. “Oh shit, she didn’t just say that.” Always the concerned house mother.

I can feel my entire face going cold and dark as I slowly turn toward the offending new girl. But before I can move, Mina breezes past me, the click-clack of her high-heeled boots deafening in the now silent room. I watch as she grabs the girl by the front of her shirt and hauls her to stand.

“Fiona, you’re still pretty new.” Her words come out crisp and sharp, the way she was with Matsumoto at Easter. “I’m going to give you a chance to apologize before I have to make an example of you in front of everyone.”

Fiona rolls her eyes. “Whatever, Bitch.”

I start in the direction of Fiona when Mina hauls back and smacks the girl hard across the face, leaving a bright red handprint, and then I realize what’s happening. She’s protecting this girl from me. She’s handling it, so I won’t.

I hang back and observe, curious. Everyone in the cafeteria has been stunned into silence by this display.

“I can do whatever I want to you right now and nobody here will stop me,” Mina says, staring her down.

I glance over to find Gabe watching me for my response to this show.

Fiona remains defiant for only a few more seconds before she shrinks back and mumbles, “I-I’m Sorry.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Mina, hisses.

“I-I’m sorry, Ma’am.”

“Good. That was your only warning. You’re on my radar, dear. And that’s a bad place to be.”

Fiona seems to melt back into her chair as Mina takes a good long look around the room. Her eyes finally meet mine, and I raise a brow at her. I see the smallest shrug of her shoulder before she turns to join Annette and another new girl at their table.

Was Mina protecting that girl, or was she protecting my reputation? I don’t even know anymore. Gabe moves closer to me and speaks low so that only I can hear him.

“Do you remember Dmitri Barinov?”

“That slimy bastard Anton wanted us to partner up with?” I ask. I thought we were doing just fine on our own and didn’t need to be bringing any new blood into things. Barinov is too similar to Stryker for my tastes.

“One and the same,” Gabe says. “And, do you remember Julie?”

I raise a brow. “I’m not sure what you think is wrong with my memory, but yeah… that girl you moped over for months? Pretty sure I remember.”

He points at the table Mina is sitting at. She seems to be involved in a discussion with the famous Julie. “I found her in Dmitri’s establishment. I want that motherfucker and all his men dead. Do you think you and Mina can handle it?”

“Not for free. I only do jobs specifically for the house, unless it’s a contract.”

“Since when did you care about the money?”

I shrug. “I’m not your pit bull, Gabe.”

“How much?”

“I’ll do it for a couple million.”

“What? That’s insane!”

“That’s me and my girl’s going rate, now. Take it or leave it.”

“Fine. I’ll take it.”

“Mina!” I shout across the cafeteria.

She turns to look at me, all demure. “Yes, Master?”

I have to fight the eye roll. Do people in this house really buy this anymore? I glance around the room. Clearly they do. I guess the reality of our actual relationship would be too surreal for them to consider. I motion for her to join us and then we go with Gabe to iron out the details.