Page 4 of Rise of the King (Checkmate 5)

Some men are like cockroaches; nothing will take them down. So I don’t move when men bang at the club exit. I don’t move when police sirens wail in the distance. And I don’t move when my phone dings in warning. I only turn when the snow is more red than white and Cole’s body stops twitching, then I exit the alley at a jog and slide my bloodied knife back into my pocket.

I’ll have to wash my coat in the bathtub again, then I’ll have to call Ace in to take care of another body before a kid finds him tomorrow on his way to school. But for now, I have a phone; I have a first name, and I have a number.

It’s more than I had before I walked out of my apartment tonight.

I live in the industrial district of a city that houses more than half a million people. If this were New York City, the artsy hipsters would’ve already sent property prices through the roof when they turned warehouses into condos.

Thank God I don’t live in New York City.

Here, the warehouses are still for the squatters, and cars left outside are still stripped as soon as you turn your back, unless you’re a dealer or a pimp. If you sell women or drugs, then you’re good for as long as you want to park, because if anyone wants to mess with a dealer’s ride, they find themselves stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey and tied to a lamppost in the snow until their feet fall off.

I’m neither a dealer nor a hipster. I’m a dude with limited funds and a fabricated ID. I pay my rent with cash because leaving a digital trail seems foolish. So I’m stuck with a warehouse home and no heating, even in the dead of winter.

For now, my lack of heating is unimportant because adrenaline runs hot in my veins – another man dead, a whole lot more to come – and my blood runs warmer from my jog. It’s closing in on four in the morning, so the streetlights are still on, but the further I run from the club, the more often the lights are blown out and the world is cast in darkness.

That weather reporter was annoyingly accurate when he predicted ten inches of snow and a fuck-ton of wind to slam the shit into our faces. My nose burns from the cold, and my ears ache beneath my beanie, but I don’t slow, and I don’t hail a cab. I have gangster-wannabe blood on my boots and a bloodied knife in my pocket; I have to get my ass home and clean before they throw me behind bars and decide I’ve pushed my luck too far.

It takes twenty minutes at a brisk jog with heavy boots before I reach my apartment building.

What is now a five-story apartment building for poor folks, was once a printing press with a dozen chimney stacks on the roof and massive windows on the upper levels as though the rich owners enjoyed looking out at the world they were building. The apartments have no rooms, per se, because walls are expensive. Instead, they’re open floorplan living, with a divider to hide the toilet from the dining space.

I take up the entire fourth floor, and my upstairs neighbor is either dead and rotting, or a ballet dancer light on their toes. The tenants on three make the typical amount of noise any family of four makes, but compared to number five, their lack of silence annoys the shit out of me.

My building was constructed in 1892 according to the plaque on the front, right above what used to be signage that readBenton Printing.I don’t know where the Bentons are now, but I’m pissed they never thought to insulate their thin-ass walls or double-pane the glass.

Back in the day, the coal fires that powered the presses would have kept everyone warm, but those suckers haven’t operated in at least fifty years, and as I pass through the front door and into the foyer with overflowing mailboxes, my fingers almost stick to the doorknob and tear the skin from my hand when I release it.

It’s so fucking cold, I can make cloud animals with my fogged breath.

Jogging up the stairs, one flight, then two, then three, I stomp on the third and take sick pleasure out of waking those assholes at four in the morning the way their kids wake me at midnight every damn day.

Stopping at my apartment door, I lean back and glance from one end of the hall to the other, then back over the stair banister to make sure no one is following me up, then up to the floor above me to make sure my zombie neighbor isn’t coming down to snoop.

When I’m certain it’s clear, I push my key into my front door and let myself in. It’s no warmer inside than it was out; the only difference is the lack of wind. My ceilings are too high to keep the place warm without spending a fortune, and the space is too open to maintain a patch of warmth. Closing and locking the door, I shuffle forward as tremors take control of my body and make my teeth chatter. I move toward my bathroom and shuck my dirtied coat and jeans off. Flipping the taps on and peeling my boots and socks off, I dive into the shower until the boiling water defrosts me enough that my teeth stop slamming together.

It’s so fucking cold, my toes ache against the porcelain of my old claw foot tub. Even with hot water running down my body and the steam rising to mark my ceilings, the cold is deep inside me like it’s eating my bones.

Every day I live in this place, I dream of going home. I dream of going back to where I’m warm and never hungry. I dream of summers with my brother, back when things were easier and life wasn’t so fucked up.

We’ll get that again. Soon. But not until I find Cole’s boss’s boss’s boss.

The day I execute him is the day I get to go home.

Leaning over the side of the tub and dripping onto the floor, I grab my jeans with shaking hands and fish my things out: phone, wallet, Cole’s phone. Tossing them aside, I stand tall again, drop the denim into the bath and start washing the blood out until my shower runs red. He got more on me than I realized. If a cop drove by on my run home, I’d be in the pen by now, with no chance of parole.

Leaning back out of the tub, I repeat the process with my coat and lament the fact they’ll take a long-ass time to dry. Tomorrow, I’ll have to wear my shitty coat so the cold can bite me that much more.

Within ten minutes of arriving home, I pull extra pairs of socks on, fresh jeans over top of my sweats, a winter hat that covers my ears and face to below my brows, and my shitty coat. It’s not my favorite because it’s not as warm as the other, but it’s better than having no spare coat at all. My wet clothes hang on the shower curtain rod and create icicles that drip clear water rather than red. Tomorrow or the next day, once they’re dry, I’ll switch them out and go back to digging my hands into my favorite pockets until my world goes back to normal.

Swinging through my kitchen and rubbing my hands together for friction, I flip the button on my coffee machine and suck in the aroma of instant coffee like it’s the finest thing I’ve smelled in all my life. As I watch the drops slowly fill the pot, I plan my five minutes alone with the heavenly brew and imagine my plans for the rest of my day. It’s Monday, February twenty-fourth, and not quite four in the morning. I’m not going back to bed, which means I have a whole day ahead of me. A whole day of talking to my contacts, of scrolling someone else’s phone, of findingPete, and ticking off another enemy before they get to mine and hurt the only person on this planet I love.

I can’t lose this war, and putting a hit on someone I love is motivation enough to stay under the radar and work myself to the bone until every last man who took part in our destruction is eliminated.

Nobody fucks with mine and lives to talk about it.

As soon as the coffee pot is full, I pour into a tall thermos mug and drop a little milk on top. Taking it and Cole’s phone to my desk in the center of my apartment, I drop down in enough clothes to make me look thirty pounds heavier than I am, but they keep me warm enough to keep the frostbite at bay and all my toes intact.

Staring at my laptop screen, I breathe through the tingle that runs along my spine when my email predictably dings.

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