Chapter Four

A few days later…

Echo hadn’t started out being a killer, he’d grown into the job as a small boy living under duress.

Death carried a particular smell, and the act of killing stayed with a person. The visual violence, the brutality of ending a life hung around. But after a while, even that faded.

When?

It was hard to say.

Years, maybe? Decades? Absolutely.

He couldn’t remember the exact moment taking a life had become an unfeeling act. Now, he just killed. It was his thing. It had made him the man he was today.

Killing was all he’d ever known. Violence was all he’d ever been exposed to.

The act of killing, of ending a life, bothered a whole hell of a lot of people. Of course, some people might find satisfaction and morbid glee in the act itself.

Echo felt none of that.

Murder was just something he did.

The mark lying on the dirty floor at his feet gasped for air. Clutching his chest, the guy made a gurgling sound that slightly echoed in the rest stop bathroom.

Echo crouched next to the guy and studied him—much like he would a bug. The man had killed his entire family and now lay bleeding out on a dirty concrete floor filled with piss, shit, and fuck else. It was odd to Echo that the mark dared to look stunned.

Un-fucking-believable.

“Hello,” Echo said. “I’m death.”

Echo fingered the tip of the bloody blade and gently waved the knife in front of the man’s eyes before he leaned over and slowly shoved the blade into the mark’s meaty side, just beneath the rib cage. The knife went deep with a squelch.

Letting out a gasp, the mark gave a low, agonizing moan. The stunned look faded away and fear swept through the man’s eyes. A gurgling sound emerged from his throat.

Reaching into his back pocket, Echo pulled out the photograph of the man’s smiling wife holding their two little children in her arms. Echo stared dispassionately at the photo of a loving family. He would have preferred to skip this part, but the client insisted.

The dying man’s gaze landed on the photo and his eyes widened—mouth suddenly opening and closing like a fish.

“P…please.”

That surprised Echo.

He was sure he’d removed the fucker’s ability to speak. Hmmm… he’d need to process that particular piece of information for next time. Improving his craft was always paramount. Perhaps he’d put tape over the mouth of his next mark.

“Begging won’t help you.” The blade Echo slid from the man’s side made another squelching sound when it was pulled out.

“I’m sorry…” This time, the words were almost unintelligible, but Echo got the gist of it.

“Sorry?” He moved a bit closer to look into the man’s eyes and smiled. “Tell that to your wife’s brother.”

Terror filled the mark’s eyes. This was the part that Echo loved. It wasn’t a requirement to let his marks know who ordered the hit, he’d added that part in pro bono.

Free of charge.

He really did enjoy his job.

He tapped one flat side of the blade against the man’s forehead, leaving behind a bloody mark.

“I…g, g.”

Echo flipped the photo from his gloved hand and it landed in the middle of the man’s bloody shirt. From there, he placed the tip of his knife at the base of the mark’s throat.

He stilled for a second.

Not even breathing.

One second.

Two seconds.

Whoosh!

With a quick punch of his free hand against the handle, he sent the blade through skin, cartilage, and bone. He twisted the knife for good measure before pulling it free, but it didn’t matter—the fucker was already dead.

Oh well.

He would have spent more time with the mark, but he was running a teensy bit behind schedule. Completing two hits in one night was his thing, but tonight, he’d taken three jobs and the sun was rising in just under two hours.

Three jobs was pushing it, Solomon had earlier warned him. Not that he listened to his boss much anymore.

Wiping his blade on the man’s shirt, he slipped it inside the sheath strapped to his thigh and walked out of the bathroom. He cut a right and stayed close to the brick wall before making his way into the blackness of the brush-covered hillside that ran behind the building.

The hiss of a semi-truck’s brakes came from the parking lot. If the trucker had arrived five minutes earlier, Echo would have been found. Doing the hit in a public place had been risky, he knew that, but it certainly would never stop him.

He was tired of feeling nothing.

Wasn’t it a good thing he had discovered how to get a bigger thrill? So what if he’d raised the stakes and now killed with the thought of being caught? Doing jobs in public places had turned out to be downright exhilarating…

He never got caught.

He was too sneaky.

When the truck’s door slammed in the distance, Echo kept walking.

He didn’t look back.

Reaching the industrial plant at the end of the block, he leaped onto a nearby scaffold. He balanced on the lower railing for a second before climbing several feet upward. From there, he jumped across the distance to a metal ledge that surrounded a burnished tower.

Hand over hand, using his feet and body, he advanced higher and higher up the tower. Reaching the highest point, he leaped and balanced on the narrow railing that surrounded the top.

Crouching, he studied the terrain below.

His gaze snagged on the figure of a man.

It was the same guy he’d sliced in the bathroom at the bar last October.

Coincidence?

He didn’t believe in them. That was Solomon’s teachings—everyone and everything was suspect.

Echo squinted at the distant figure. He’d only cut the fucker, when he could have easily sliced open the blue-eyed, blond-haired man’s throat.

When he’d told Solomon that he’d let someone live, his boss had not been amused. And Echo figured he’d made a smart move by telling Solomon over the phone instead of in person. His boss had bitched about him not cleaning up the scene.

The figure glanced up, but Echo wasn’t worried. There was no way in hell the man could see him and he doubted the guy could climb that high. Even if he did, Echo had ways of escaping that the guy below probably never dreamed of.

He was a master at the art of escape.