56. Mina

FIFTY-SIX

mina

We’re sitting in the rental car just outside the Nolan estate. The entire inside of the car is lined in plastic. I think it’s excessive personally, but this is a rental, so it’s better to be safe than sorry. The last thing we need is blood and fibers linking us to local deaths. I have no idea what his plan was if we got pulled over for something. This isn’t exactly the most inconspicuous way to travel, even after dark.

Brian used a credit card linked to a dummy shell corporation and a fake ID to rent the car. Still, I almost think it would have been less risk and trouble to steal one. I reach around the plastic to open my door when Brian’s hand on my arm stops me.

“Wait, open this first.” He puts a black box wrapped in a gold ribbon on my lap. And a red envelope. He got me a card, too? I wasn’t expecting that.

“I didn’t get you a card,” I say. “And your gift is at the motel.”

“It’s okay.”

He looks a little nervous which is a weird look on Brian’s face. I open the envelope. The card is two skeletons holding hands inside a big red heart with blood dripping down the sides. The text on the front reads: “You and me, We got this.”

“Where did you get this?”

“A gothic shop while you were sleeping in yesterday. They had a Valentine’s weekend special.”

I open it to find a handwritten message: “I like killing people with you. Brian.”

I bust out laughing. “Romantic.”

“You haven’t even gotten to the best part.” He nods to the box. “Open it.”

“Is it Snow White’s heart?”

“Just open it.”

I untie the ribbon and carefully open the box. I gasp as I take in the exquisite knife resting inside black velvet. It’s obviously handcrafted—the kind of knife that lasts a lifetime. It has a red ivory handle with what looks like a fierce warrior goddess carved into it. An intricate flame design runs the length of the blade, and at the base of the steel are the words: “Brian and Mina” inside a heart.

“Do you like it?” He produces the sheath and holster for it from inside his jacket.

“It’s gorgeous.” I lift the knife out of the box turning it over. “And the weight is fucking perfect.” I start to put it back, but Brian’s hand closes over mine.

“Bring it. For luck.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in luck.” But I trade it out for one of my knives from Gremlin.

“How are we going to get it back home. Ship it?”

He shakes his head. “Nah, we can travel with it. I highly doubt anybody will think it’s a murder weapon. It obviously came came from an artisan. And it’s one knife, not an arsenal.”

It’s nine o’clock when we slip in the back entrance and take out the small group of staff. Quick quiet shots with silencers. I hate taking out staff. They’re innocent but we can’t have any heroes. Or witnesses. In an ideal situation, the target is the only one you kill. It’s nice, clean. Surgical precision. But outside of movies, it rarely works out like this.

Whatever powers took away my feelings, I wish they’d done just a slightly better job.

Nine is a bit late for a Valentine’s Day dinner, but they arranged the time so Clarissa could more easily get away from her people without detection.

“That’s everybody,” Brian whispers.

We drop our magazines and reload. Just the two lovebirds now. The food has already been delivered, and I smell the delicious scent of chicken primavera and garlic bread. I can’t tell if the smells are just the leftover smells from the kitchen or if it’s coming from the entryway where everything is set up.

“What the fuck?” Brian whispers.

“What?” I whisper back as we move together down the hallway toward our targets.

“That music.”

“I still don’t know what you’re asking.” Classical music drifts down the hall to our ears.

“That is live music, Mina. Not a recording. How did I miss that he hired a string quartet?”

Shit. More innocents.

“Brian, no,” I say.

“We have to.”

The quartet starts to play what I recognize as Shostakovich, but I have no idea the name of the song. They're all numbers and letters. I don’t know why composers couldn’t bother to give their music real names people could remember.

We get within view, and I see Clarissa and Cole at the table. The roses Brian bought are in the center of the table over a white linen tablecloth with drippy candles in crystal holders. There’s a fire in the fireplace, and then the string quartet set up nearby.

“We’re going to go in quick. I’ll take out the two in the back, you take out the two in the front.”

“Brian…”

“Don’t think, Mina, just do it. We’re already too deep in for this.”

“No, wait. If we shoot the quartet first... Cole might be armed. They’re probably both armed. We need guns on Cole and Clarissa first.”

Brian sighs. “You’re probably right. But we don’t leave loose ends. Agreed?”

“Agreed. But… don’t shoot anybody immediately.”

“Why not?”

“Just… don’t, okay?”

We slip quietly into the room. I stand behind Cole. Brian is behind Clarissa. Our guns are cocked.

Cole makes a move which I’m sure is for a gun.

“Hands on the table where we can see them. Both of you,” Brian says.

The two obey.

“We’ll give you whatever you want,” Clarissa says her voice wavering.

“Are you going to give us one and a half million dollars? Because that’s the combined price on your heads,” Brian says. “Your people are not exactly thrilled with the way you’re running your respective criminal enterprises.”

“I’m sorry, do you mind?” I ask Clarissa. I lean over and pull her plate toward me and take a big bite of the chicken primavera. “Oh. My. God. This is delicious. I would ask the cook for the recipe but we sadly already killed him.”

Clarissa is crying. Crying. She’s a crime boss now, for fuck’s sake. Cole remains stoic. Just once I’d love to see the man break down and the woman be cold as ice.

“This is why you wanted me to wait?” Brian says.

I shrug. “It smelled so good.”

“Can we do this now?”

“One sec.” I grab a piece of garlic bread and dip it into the olive oil. “Oh my god, Brian. Are you sure you don’t want some of this?”

“I’m sure.”

The music abruptly stops, and then there are screams. The string quartet has finally noticed our presence.

“I’ll take you for Italian later,” Brian says.

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

“Fine,” I grumble and push the plate away. “My compliments to the chef,” I say as I fire on Cole and Brian takes out Clarissa. By this point my adrenaline is surging, so when the members of the string quartet get up to run, I’m not as upset about the collateral damage.

When it’s just us in the large quiet house, I blow out the candles on the table while Brian snaps photos of each of the kills with a thin black digital camera and slips it back inside his inner jacket pocket. He refuses to buy a smart phone for any reason. He says the security risk isn’t worth the convenience. He only deals with prepaid burners that don’t tie back to him, that he can easily dispose of after a job. Of course, cameras leave their own data and digital fingerprints behind, so he trashes those as well. We go through a lot of electronics in our line of work.

We’re about to make our exit when the front door opens, and a brunette girl who looks to be about seventeen steps inside. She drops her book bag in the middle of the floor. Her head is bent, focused on her phone. She laughs at something someone must have texted her and then says: “Sarah has a stomach bug, so I called an Uber. He’s outside waiting for his money.”

“Fuck,” Brian mutters.

She looks up, takes in the bloody scene in front of her, and starts screaming—one long never ending wail, a mix of horror, fear, and grief, each fighting for dominance. Finally she’s able to form one word.

“D-Daddy?”

My heart breaks for her. Crime lords and various random pieces of shit with heavy prices on their heads… I can kill those worthless motherfuckers all day long without breaking a nail or a single feeling of remorse. It’s almost a healing and cleansing act. Cathartic even. But I try never to think about those left behind. I have to compartmentalize. But it’s hard to compartmentalize when the innocent young daughter of the guy you just killed walks in on your bloody art project.

“Take her, I’ll get the Uber driver,” Brian says, heading for the door.

“What?” I can’t have heard him right.

Brian takes one look at me, and he knows I would never shoot this kid. I can’t believe he even suggested it.

“No!” I say, seeing the intention in his eyes. “Have you lost your mind, Brian? Don’t you fucking dare pull that trigger!”

He shrugs at my lack of compliance, shoots the girl, and without breaking his stride, continues out the door to take care of the driver.

The girl stands there for a moment, completely stunned. I’m sure my expression mirrors hers. Neither of us can believe it, though I should be able to by now. Her hand goes to her stomach. She pulls it slowly up to her face to see her own blood.

She glances back to her dad and then to me as though she’s trying to use her last few moments alive to understand what happened—as if knowing the details will make any difference to the ending. Then she stumbles and falls to the ground.

I rush to her, my hand pressing against hers as if together we can hold the blood in, but I know we can’t. Even if I could call for help, they wouldn’t get here in time. A hit to the stomach like this isn’t salvageable.

“I’m so so sorry,” I say through my gathering tears. “Honey, I’m so sorry.”

But she’s already gone, staring unblinking at the ceiling.

I’m numb. I can’t believe this just happened. I can’t believe Brian just… But why not? Why can’t I believe it? It’s not as though I haven’t had mountains of evidence of what he is. It’s not as though I somehow didn’t know he was a sociopath. But I compartmentalized. I romanticized. He was my hero so it didn’t matter if he was the rest of the world’s villain.

“Come on, we’ve got to go,” Brian says. His words are as casual as if we were just running late for some inconsequential meeting.

I’m covered now in this poor girl’s blood, and I can’t stop the tears. The tears quickly turn into sobs, and I look up at Brian who just stares at me as though he can’t understand this meltdown. And he can’t. He’s not even human.

“You fucking monster!” I scream. “How the fuck could you just walk straight at her and shoot her without blinking? She was a young innocent girl with her whole life ahead of her.”

“Yeah, and we just killed her dad. She walked in on her dad’s bloody body. How do you think she’d have turned out, Mina? We can’t leave witnesses. You know that. She’s old enough to be able to talk to police. I told you back in July that this life sometimes comes with casualties and you’d have to decide if you could handle that.”

“Fuck you! You cold motherfucking bastard! She was just a girl! Just a kid. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I thought something in him was changing, but I was lying to myself, telling myself pretty stories about how my love had turned the beast into a prince. But in real life, they never really do transform into anything good, do they?

The way he’s been watching over Aidan, I thought… I was so fucking stupid. Of course he hasn’t somehow grown a heart in that empty black pit in his chest.

Brian sighs. “I know it’s tragic but…”

“Tragic? Tragic?!? That’s just a fucking word to you, Brian. Like ice cream, or noodles. It doesn’t mean anything to you. You don’t feel anything real !”

My voice is growing raw from the screaming.

“Mina…”

“Do you feel anything for me at all? Can you even feel anything or is it all just a fucking mask? Why bother if there’s nothing inside you? Why bother playing with me and pretending…”

“Do you think I took some kind of pleasure in this?” Brian asks, gesturing to the girl.

“Yes, Brian. I think you fucking did, you psycho!”

“I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

He can’t answer me, but I know exactly why not. Because I wouldn’t like it. The only reason he didn’t like that just as much as any other kill, was because he knows I wouldn’t like it. My displeasure takes the edge off what would otherwise be just a normal day for him.

“I am the only leash you have, and even then you still cross these lines!”

“Mina, we need to go. We can talk about this later.”

I pull myself up off the floor. And there is a part of me that is so defeated right now and ready to just follow behind Brian like some docile kicked dog. But then there’s another piece of me coming apart at the seams. I pick up a wine glass from the table and throw it.

The shatter is so satisfying—the splash of dark red merlot against the wall like the beginning process of a Jackson Pollock. How can I love this monster? Why do I feel these things for him that I know he can’t return?

Yes, I’m a killer too. It doesn’t break me to pull that trigger, but I have limits. I can’t take out innocent kids. Or sweet old people. Or puppies. Brian would probably shoot a kitten if he thought it would be somehow expedient.

I throw the other wine glass, and then I grab the bottle. I’m just getting started.

“Mina!” Brian shouts. “We have to go. Now! We don’t have time for this shit.” As if I’m having a tantrum over something silly. The fucking nerve of this guy.

I see red .

I turn and fling the wine bottle at him. He ducks just in time, and it hits the window behind him. And now I’m on a roll. I throw vases, plates, everything that can shatter that isn’t nailed down.

I grab a steak knife off Clarissa’s napkin… it’s covered in her own blood. I don’t know why she needed a steak knife for chicken primavera, but I don’t care. Brian’s eyes widen like he thinks he’s going to have to defend himself from me. I can’t stab the bastard, but I need to stab something.

I plunge the knife over and over into the wall, screaming. I feel like I’m completely unraveling, my rage becoming a separate living entity with its own soul and backstory.

Brian is behind me a moment later, prying the knife from my hand. He drops it onto the floor. “Shhhh,” he says, holding me in his vise-like grip. He pets my hair like I’m some kind of mental patient, instead of the only one in this house having a normal fucking human reaction to anything.

“Shhhh, Mina. Calm down. Just calm down. It’s okay, just calm down. Just breathe, baby.”

But there’s no time for me to calm down… several doors burst open at once and what I can only assume are members of the rival gangs come flooding into the Nolan estate.