Page 4 of Vicious Souls

He shakes his head, looking somewhat dejected, and advises me he’s had a good run. In truth, I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose him. He’s my only living relative and I’ve lived such a sheltered life, I wouldn’t know how to go on. Where to begin? What to do?

“My time has come. This will all be yours, but be smart, King.”

“I wouldn’t know the first thing about doing what you do, father.”

“Promise me,” he wheezes. “Promise me, when the time comes, you will run the business.”

“Don’t talk like that. You’re all I have left.”

“You’re my only child. This will all be yours; you need to run it with an iron fist."

“Tate’s been with you since before I was even born. Why can’t he run it?”

The old man shakes his head defiantly. “Only you."

“He’s been a good soldier,” I remind him.

“There’s only so far you can trust him, King. Do not trust a person if the introduction comes from Tate.”

It is my turn to shake my head, as I look at my father in confusion. What has changed between my father and Tate that he no longer trusts him?

“Durian,” my father says. “Call Durian.” Before he falls back into a fitful sleep.

* * *

Tate drivesme to the compound, where I am faced with more soldiers and more enforcers than I’ve ever seen in my life. When I question him on the wisdom of having so many strangers around, Tate responds by asking me not to question his judgment.

“You’re forgetting something, Tate,” I remind him, looking at him pointedly. “You work for me, not the other way around.”

Tate snickers and lets out an exasperated sigh as he walks away, before he looks back at me over his shoulder and says, “Don’t forget what we discussed about you leaving. For your own safety, donotgo anywhere without me.”

I shoot him a death glare and stick my middle finger up, but he just rolls his eyes and shakes his head, before getting into his car and driving away, reminding the soldiers not to let their guard down.

3

DANTE

Irun a hand through my hair and smooth it back, looking in the mirror for any tell tale signs of sleep deprivation. My father may think I’ve forgotten, but I haven’t. At one point in time, Durian and Maddog Murray had been tight like brothers. They had moved in the same circles, and they were thick as thieves. Til this day, when my father brings up Maddog’s name and recalls the past, there is a wistful nostalgia in his expression.

I don’t know exactly what the falling out was about, but I do know it had something to do with a woman. I had heard the story when I was very young, maybe five or six years old, so my recollection is skewed at best. What I do know is one stole the other’s woman. I was not sure who, how or why, but I definitely recall it was over a woman.

I am my father’s son, so when Durian says he wants me to infiltrate Maddog’s circle and find out his son’s whereabouts, that’s exactly what I set out to do.

I can’t park the car on the street without it being noticed, so I do a little detective work and luck out with an AirBnB across the road and two houses down. I carry an overnight bag into the house and set up tripods and cameras and binoculars, then go about lurking in the darkness, waiting and watching. It gets old and tedious, and I curse numerous times that my father has sent me to do babysitting duties, but eventually there’s movement that grabs my attention.

Every day at precisely midday, a car arrives and a boy wearing glasses and a funny looking hat gets in and is whisked away, presumably to the hospital. If my surveillance is to be believed, this skinny boy in ill fitting clothes is Maddog’s son. I never get a good look at the boy’s face. There’s too much distance, and he always has his head down, his face buried beneath that Godawful disguise. One day, I follow the car, at a safe distance, and watch as it arrives at the hospital and the boy is whisked through a side entrance and up in a service elevator. I wait in the car until the boy leaves again, four or five hours later, and follow him back to the house. There is no activity and complete silence surrounding the house, except for the constant parade of guards changing shifts. My mind boggles at the sheer number of soldiers who rotate every eight hours. Tate, Maddog’s number two, is the only one that collects the boy from the house; it seems Maddog doesn’t entrust the boy’s safety to anyone else.

It’s only by chance that I happen to be passing the window at 6am one morning when I notice a taxi pull up to the compound and a figure emerge and punch in the digits to gain entry to the fortress. I watch as the woman, tall and swaying in her heels, sweeps a hand in the direction of the guards who have just arrived for their shift, greeting them wordlessly. I squint into the binoculars, but I can’t see anything past the long dark hair peeking out from beneath the woman’s scarf and the ridiculously huge sunglasses that she wears so early in the morning. I frown, trying to make out who she is, feeling a sense of familiarity, then lower the binoculars before heading to the bathroom for a shower. Something in the dynamic of that household has changed, I realize. Murray has always been careful not to receive guests at the house, and the boy seems too young to be entertaining girls.

After my shower, I order pizza, sit down at the window, and wait. I want a better look at the mysterious female visitor; she could be just the thing that turns this whole babysitting gig on its axis.

At 12pm, like clockwork, Tate picks up the boy and they leave the compound. There is no sign of the woman and I find it hard to believe they would have left the stranger alone in the house. I decide not to follow them to the hospital today, but to instead monitor the house in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the new player in the drama unfolding across the road. At 5pm, Tate arrives back at the house with the boy, who he drops off before making a hasty retreat. Tate never stays at the house; he must have a residence elsewhere. That would be my next order of the day; finding out where Tate’s home base is. It is bound to come in handy eventually.

I keep my eyes on the house, certain that something has to give. And it does. At 10pm, when the shift of guards turns over, a taxi comes to a smooth stop outside the compound. A few minutes later, the compound gates slide open and a flood of light follows the motion as the woman from earlier emerges, waving to the guards. She is wearing a different dress, but the same getup she was wearing in the morning to disguise herself. I rub at my eyes and clear my head of all the clutter floating around in it. Something about the woman feels off.

* * *

The alarm blares unceremoniously,rousing me from my slumber at 5am. I rub at my fatigued eyes and sit up, then make myself a coffee before I head to the window and hold my binoculars up. Sure enough, like clockwork, just after the changing of the guard at 6am, a taxi rolls up to the gate of the compound, and the same woman who left the property the previous night emerges from the vehicle and takes a few unsteady steps toward the security panel. She is wearing the same clothes she wore last night, and she is teetering on her heels; I assume she’s drunk and I focus the binoculars to get a better look before she disappears behind the huge sliding gate. I know there’s only one thing I can do with this newfound information. I’m betting this woman holds the key to Maddog’s son, and could possibly lead me to the boy; she’s as close as I’m ever going to get without committing a massacre.

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