Darkness

5. Cain

Five

Cain

I close my eyes as the light beams in my office. Coming back from The Pit always messes with my head, even though I know I rule The Pit, and no matter what, I will never live in hell again. Yet, the memories of what I lost, and all the fucked up shit that happened is always going to be down there.

I walked through the doors ten minutes ago, even though I know Lincoln will come in to make sure I’m good. Going home after The Pit is never a good thing. There are too many dark thoughts and memories that eat me up. At The club I have the music around me, and Lincoln will pop in and out of the office, with any excuse just to check on me.

I’ve had two days of people in The Pit wanting one thing or the other, but the only thing I could think about was the tiny chatterbox who was in my office. I rub the back of my neck as it gets stiff because her scent still lingers in the room. I thought after being away for two days it would have gone away, but luck is not on my fucking side. The scent of rain and thunderstorm is still here, and it’s not helping me focus on my work.

Both times she’s been around me, I’ve had this cold air hit me, which is never a good thing. An ice cold breeze hitting me only means one thing, something fucked up is about to happen.

When I saw her two nights ago on the CCTV footage, I couldn’t take my eyes off her, even when I tried to, I kept looking back over at her. Watching her move around the club, I noticed one thing, she’s scared of something. The amount of times I saw her looking over her shoulder, in every corner of this club, she has a fear of someone getting close to her. It was the reason I told Lincoln to take them to floor three, no one can go in there without their name being on the list. She would be safe there.

The first thing I did when I got back into the office ten minutes ago was put on my computer and type in her name. I haven’t pressed return, and once again I’m fighting myself if I should or not.

I close my eyes so I can relax for thirty seconds, enough time to try and get this woman out of my head. But it's not working.

I hear the door open already knowing it’s Hayden. He’s the only one who ever comes to see me after I come back from The Pit. For some reason he thinks he needs to check up on me, I think it has more to do with Uncle David making him.

They are my family, and I know Uncle David hates that he lost his brother and nephew on the same day. He hates that he couldn’t protect his brother's son, but at the time when everything happened grand-dad told me the family had more enemies than any family needed to have. Knowing dad was killed put us in danger from the other families. Every family, no matter how powerful they are, will always be in danger when they lose a powerful member of the family. My dad was the boss of everything, he was the brains behind it, so others feared him. But with him gone, the other families want to rise to the top, but I’m going to let that happen. Not on my watch.

“You’re pills.” I hear the bottle tapping on the table, and I open my eyes and lean forward to grab them. “You good?” Hayden asks I take two of the tablets before answering him.

“Always am.” I glance back over at the screen seeing her name typed out in my search bar.

“Are you going to tell your brother what we do?” Hayden sits on the couch to the side looking out at the club.

“Why?” I question. Logan never asks me what we do, if he doesn’t want to talk to me he doesn’t. Even I’ve got to the point where I believe if you want to talk, then talk. If you don’t then don’t.

“They keep thinking we sell drugs, and run some fucked up underground,” Hayden tells me, and I have to laugh, because the three of them think they know everything, yet I know that they know nothing.

“Leave them to think what they want.” My finger moves over the return button then it taps on it. “If they want drugs then you tell them we don’t have any.” As my software looks through all the systems in the world I look back over at Hayden. “What’s on your mind?” One of the things I’ve learned at a young age, is how to read people, know what the person is going to do before they even do it. I watch how people act, and Hayden seems off tonight.

He stands up, and walks over to the table and places an envelope on my desk. I smile as I pick it up.

“You got your first hit.” Opening the envelope I pull out the card. “You ready? You’ve trained well. I wouldn't have told Uncle David if you weren’t ready.” I’ve trained him to be a very good sniper, if I needed a hitman to kill from afar, I’d call him.

Our family gives out a card to any hitman who works for us. It’s a small A6 card with a stamp of a scorpion in the middle, all in gold. This is the Crawford calling card. It’s infamous.

Turning the card over I see all the code for him to log in and get the information about the hit. We’re not stupid, we know the card could fall into anyone's hand so when they log in, we have software so advanced, which they have to log in again using a retinal scanner. No one else can ever see what the details on the card mean.

“I need to be ready,” Hayden takes the card from me, and I blank out the screen on the computer. “What are you hiding?” he jokes with me. I know he doesn’t care about what I do, but I've never been the one to blank out my screen for anyone either.

“I don’t think you’re ready.” I get up so I can take my jacket off, and relax for the evening while I make sure nothing got fucked up at the club while I was away. “Do you have any pre-season games?” I ask him.

Like Logan, the four brothers play hockey in college. I think it’s more of a release as they get to almost beat someone up without getting in trouble. The underground fight club Logan and his friends have is also a good place to go. It’s probably the best business they have.

“They start in a few weeks.” Hayden taps the envelope on the desk, as I wait for what he wants to ask me. “Did you fight?” he asks, pointing to my hands.

“Someone thought they were making the rules, needed to show them they don’t.” It took me fucking years to rule that place, and some asshole thinks in a month he can run it. I don’t think so. “Now you know I’m good, is there anything else? I’m sure you have a target to be studying.” Being a hitman isn’t just showing up and killing someone, you have to know their routine, where they are at what time, are they away from their family, are there cameras where you’re going to kill them . Then you have to make sure there is no way anything can be linked back to you.

It’s not so simple.

“How old were you when you first killed someone?” Hayden asks, and adjusts his posture to stand up straight. He wants to show me he’s ready for this, but yet he’s worried about something.

“The first kill is always the hardest. But when you find out why they made the list, you won’t feel so bad.” How do you tell someone killing another human almost becomes a second nature. After the first few kills, you don’t even think about it.

“Do you know who it is?”

“I picked them. Hayden, I wouldn’t have told Uncle David you’re ready if I thought you’d fuck it up.” Leaning back in my chair, I see his body relax a little. Once he knows what he’s doing, he will make a very good hitman. “Have faith, Hayden.” He smiles and I know why, it’s the Crawford way. To have faith in ourselves, and in the family.

“Thanks Cain. Are you coming over tomorrow?” he asks putting the envelope in his back jeans pockets.

“You already know the answer to that.” My reply makes him laugh because he knows I don’t do family meals, and again they know why. I can’t risk hurting anyone else. Talking to them for the small amount of time that I do already is putting them in enough danger. I don’t want them to become targets.

Hayden nods his head a few times, and tells me he will see me in the week at some point, as he gets to the door I call his name. “Hayden, to answer your question, I was ten. It was either him or our grand-dad. I got a few more years with grand-dad before they killed him.” Even I hear the lack of emotion my tone, not caring that I was only ten when I first killed a man. Hayden’s mouth opens a little and his eyes widen. I can only imagine the thoughts going through his head.

“I know you hate talking about what happened down there, but you have to remember, dad lost his brother, his dad and his nephew all in one day. He only wants to listen to stories about grand-dad.” Not saying anything to him, he leaves my office, and I close my eyes for a moment.

What the hell am I meant to tell him, nothing good happened down there, does he really need to know the pain we both went through?

Opening my eyes, my hands move on the desk, waking up my screen. I didn’t even hit the mouse to wake it up. There she is on my screen, her beautiful smile, bright blue eyes staring at me.

I sit up in my chair, and look at the picture, not just her face but the picture. She’s standing on a podium with a gold medal around her neck.

Autumn-Rose White three times World Champion, two times European Champion, and she was meant to appear in the World Championship to defend her gold medal but never showed up. And since then no one has seen or heard from her. Her parents said she wanted time out of the spotlight as she has been in tournaments and competitions since she was a little girl.

I bring up another search and type her name in again. There has to be more to her story. No one who is the best in the world, wakes up one morning and never wants to do it again. Seeing only one picture of her with the gold around her neck, you can see it in her eyes. She loved being there, so why drop it all, leave your country and move miles away?

The software looks up everything it can about her, from all the competitions, to every school, and social media post she ever made, to where she lives and what she does here in the US. I set it up to print everything out for me. Looking at the screen for so long will just make my head even worse, so I’ll read it while the club is still open, there has to be some answers as to why she is scared of something. Or someone.