Page 1 of Six
Prologue
Twentyyearsago.
Project: Blood Assassin
Subject: Six
Day 700
Time 7:30
The most recent surgery Subject Six underwent has provided us with some interesting new developments. Six’s episodes have increased. His hostility and detached behavior are also growing, undeniable proof that we are progressing in the right direction.
During today’s episode, Six broke both of his hands. The Subject’s strength and endurance are extraordinary and will require further testing. However, three people were needed to hold him down in order to inject him with the usual dose of diazepam. The Subject looks and acts feral, blind to his surroundings. We’re still unable to control him.
Also, the unmanageable seizures must be resolved. There’s no room for weakness in the Project.
Unfortunately, the Subject refuses to talk and in doing so, he’s withholding precious information. A more effective discipline, different from the one we instill in the other subjects, must be used on Six.
Another surgery is set for next week. It might be too early, but I don’t see any reason why we should wait. Subject Six must be accustomed to it by now.
In order to achieve tangible improvements we need to double our efforts and work harder on every single subject.
Project Assassin has to go on, at all costs.
Chapter 1
Presentday
RAGUEL
A cacophony of shouts, laughter, booing, and curses surround me, echoing inside the dilapidated factory. The five-foot circular concrete wall does a good job of holding the crowd back but doesn’t silence it. I can hear people chanting my fighting name.
Hulk. Hulk. Hulk.
They call me the Hulk because with a single punch I can put my opponent flat on the floor. These rocky muscles aren’t only for show.
This level of chaos makes my brain hurt, and with my next breath, I attempt to tune it out. I focus my attention on one thing and one thing only: my opponent. I take him in. He’s bouncing from one foot to the other, stretching one arm in front of his very hairy chest. A long scar mars his shaved head, his nose is crooked, and a couple of incisors are missing. He’s got more than some experience in thisfield,for sure, but he’s not as big as me. Nobody is.
I’m certainly not the guy who disappears into the background. I stand the fuck out, at six-five and two-hundred-and-fifty pounds. I learned a long time ago that I don’t have a choice but to be seen, even when I’d like to fade into the crowd. My innate serious expression—or as my brother, Rami, calls it, the perpetual lemon-sucking frown—makes me even more unapproachable. People who cross my path for the first time do a double-take when they see me. And then the fucking nervous glances begin.
At the moment, I have at least fifty pairs of eyes on me. I fucking hate being on display. But since I’m about to be part of a clandestine fighting match, the attention cannot be avoided.
I make my facial features as neutral as possible and turn my head slightly toward Rami, without taking my eyes off the fighter in front of me. I’d like to show him my heavily scarred back—it always intimidate others. But in these kinds of illegal matches, people like to play dirty, so the fucker will just have to admire my impressively wide torso. My brother is standing behind me, outside the unrefined fighting ring, a bottle of cheap vodka in his gloved hand. He’s also a big motherfucker, a little shorter than me, but the people around him have taken a step back, cautious not to touch him. Good choice; he hates that.
He twists the lid off and lifts the bottle over my head, letting the strong liquor pour down my throat. I swallow some and spit the rest on the floor. Tastes like actual paint stripper—and I should know since I work in construction.
“Toy with him a bit,” Rami whispers, leaning closer to me over the wall, careful not to be heard. “Let the crowd enjoy it a little. We need to get the boss’s attention.”
I give him a sharp nod while remembering the reason why I’m doing this.Thisbeing infiltrating an illegal fight ring to get closer to the guy who started it—the boss, Lenny Berko.
A few months ago, Ramistumbledonto a police file—from time to time he breaks into the police servers and scans open cases. My brother is a very skilled hacker, but he uses hisgiftwith mostly good intentions. In the last four months, the bodies of seven teenagers have been found on the outskirts of Chicago. The cause of death is always the same: massive internal bleeding from the brain or other organs. From the coroner’s autopsy reports and pictures, it’s clear that the victims had received heavy beatings, their bodies covered in bruises and cuts, their knuckles and ribs broken.
My hands ball up at the memory of those battered, lifeless bodies left to rot in landfills and scrapyards like they meant nothing. But they did mean something, everything to their families and friends.
Carl Manner seventeen years old. Paul Cleeve sixteen. Gene Alvin Sloan eighteen. George Fallon sixteen. Sebastian Tom Jenkins nineteen. Fredrick Cole fifteen, and James Ian Patterson seventeen. I silently recite their name to remind myself why I’m doing this.
A year ago, Lenny Berko started this illegal fight business and it’s more than a little suspicious that just two months later the bodies started to appear. The teens came from different parts of Chicago. No apparent connection between them. Only five of them were reported missing by the families. Why or how they got involved in all this is still unknown to us.
