As he gets closer, his shoes crunch against the shards of glass scattered over the stone floor of the warehouse.
“They’re all dead. I couldn’t get shit out of them,” he says with a shake of his head.
I could say the same thing, but the bodies of the ten dead men strewn across the floor with bullet holes in their bodies say it all.
“Same here,” Dominic replies.
I say nothing because such is the nature of those associated with the Order.
They would rather keep their silence and die, than suffer the wrath of their leaders.
Knowing these motherfuckers will hold on to information like a drug addict to their fix is nothing new to us.We just hoped the fear of a slow, torturous death might convince them to talk.
Clearly, we were wrong.
The problem is these men knew death would be their fate one way or the other.They just chose whatever they believed would save those they left behind.
“Come on old friend,” Dominic says, cutting into my thoughts.“Let’s go. There’s nothing left for us here.”
I hold his gaze and process his words.
There’s nothing left for us here.
Increasingly, day by day, that’s how I’m beginning to feel.I’ve walked this road before.The road the useless take when they know death came about because of their actions.That road is reserved for reckless devils like me.
“This one had information,” I mutter mindlessly as if it matters.Now it doesn’t matter one way or the other.
My eyes dart back to the man on the floor, and I pull out my knife from his heart, allowing any restrained blood to gush from his body.
“It was in his eyes,” I add, taking a measured breath.“Motherfucker was never going to talk though.”
I rip the sleeve off the blood-stained shirt on the man’s body, revealing what I already knew was there.
It’s the tattoo of the dagger with the snake going around the handle.
Dominic looks at the tattoo and frowns.“Next time, old friend.”
When he rests a reassuring hand on my shoulder, I give him a nod and push to my feet, steeling my spine to regain my composure.
One last look at the man who used to have the information I needed, and we leave.
* * *
It’s nightfall by the time I step through the doors of my home.
My guards avert their gazes from me as I make my way past them. I would look away too if I were them.
I still have blood on me, and I probably look like I just stepped out of Hell.
I’m getting the same looks I used to get after Gabriella died and I became a murdering bastard, killing anyone I thought had links to the Order.
I hit rock bottom and the only way I knew how to deal with the pain was to turn to the hardest drugs known to man.I went down that road until I ended up in prison twice and nearly met my end.
I can’t do that now.
I won’t.
What I must do is stay focused on what I need to do, even though it’s fucking hard. Especially after a day like today where I got nothing but fucking blood on my hands.