Page 4 of Jayson
His new face is a rough draft—surgical scars hidden under five day growth, cheekbones too sharp, eyes wild but what others may consider beautiful. Same old chaos, just dressed in different skin.
“Took you long enough,” he grins. “Trying to shake off your anxiety?”
I narrow my eyes and slide him a look, before I walk to the passenger side of the vehicle. He slides into the driver’s seat, muttering something under his breath about suits and sociopaths. I don’t respond. Just get in, shut the door, and sit in silence.
He’s too big for the car, his huge frame suffocating the silence.
We drive. I watch the streets blur by—greasy diners, shuttered storefronts, high-rises built on the fault line of a city teetering on chaos.
Ghost keeps talking. I let him. For a man of little words, Ghost is exceptionally chatty tonight, and I have to wonder if he’s more anxious than I am.
“You ever think about getting out?” he asks after a while. “Fake name. Clean passport. New city, new job. No blood. Just... quiet.”
I glance at him, then back out the window.
“Quiet isn’t clean.”
He whistles low. “That’s why you scare me, man. You say deep shit like that like you mean it.”
I can see why a man like Ghost would want a new life. The man spent ten long years in prison, lodging appeal after appeal against facing the death penalty. While still in prison, he helped us annihilate Altin Qadri, an Albanian rival who thought it would be fun to kidnap our women. In return, we faked Ghost’s death and helped him escape. He got a new face. He got a new lease on life. I guess he’s happy he’s out, but that fear of being found out, of even coming close to incarceration again - hell, it must mess with his head. Even for a suspected serial killer such as himself.
Mayor Bishop’sestate backs onto the water—it’s on a private road where he leads a private life. Yet everything about it screams corruption.
I take out my Glock, check the suppressor. Smooth. Clean.
This isn’t about rage. Rage gets you killed. Rage makes you sloppy.
It’s all about getting the job done. In. Out. Nice and easy.
As we pull onto the gravel road, Ghost slows the SUV, kills the lights.
“You want me to come in?” he asks.
“No.”
He shrugs. “I don’t mind if you want me to.”
“He’s one man. I’m sure I can manage without you holding my hand.”
He smirks and starts to say something before I shoot him a look that stops him in his tracks. Ghost is by no means a pushover; he does not scare easy and I know he doesn’t give a fuck about my brilliant side-eye. But I guess he must feel the tension radiating off me, because he clamps his mouth shut and says nothing more.
I step out into the dark. The rain has settled into a drizzle that settles into my bones, warning of things to come.
By the time the sun rises, Mayor Bishop will be gone. And I’ll be one step closer to whatever the fuck this life is trying to make of me.
Single white male.Late forties. One daughter off at college. Turns out, the man likes to bealone. He appreciates the kind of solitude men with too much power think they’ve earned.
It’s late, so the help is gone. That’s what the intel said. No drivers. No kitchen staff. No housekeeper humming in the laundry room. They all leave daily before Mayor Bishop gets home from work.
I’m not wearing gloves. Just black. Hoodie. Jeans. Tacticalboots. Clothes that disappear into shadows. Clothes I won’t be wearing for long.
The house is exactly as obnoxious as I figured it would be. Three stories of white stone and wealth, with windows so polished I can see my own shadow in the glass. It’s all for show—just like Bishop. Perfect on the outside, rotten underneath.
The security system is simple—too simple for someone with the sort of enemies he has. I clip the wires behind the fuse box outside and slip through the side gate like I’ve done this a hundred times before. Because I have, but for different reasons.
I skip the kitchen door—it’s too close to the back hallway, too exposed. The cameras are fixed on the garage, but not the guest bathroom window. I clocked that flaw in the satellite images. A blind spot no one ever bothered to fix. Which is how I make my way in.
I slide the window open with a plastic wedge and cut the screen clean. One knee over the sill, then the next. Quiet. No sound but the distant hum of the storm still hanging in the brooding night sky.
