Page 8 of Vengeful King

I used to dream that I’d move to New York, or maybe go somewhere abroad. I had visions of my life that I thought would play out. I didn’t expect anything to be handed to me, but I knew I could work hard and get what I wanted.

But that’s not always how life works.

Instead, I’ve been sitting in my apartment for hours, using the neighbor’s unprotected WiFi to do my research. I figured if I was being told to kill a man, I should know who the hell he is.

I still can’t believe I’m being asked to do this. That I’m agreeing to it. But it’s not like I have any options left to me. I don’t have the luxury of saying no. Not when my life is on the line.

Then there’s Lachlan O’Reilly. A name with no face.

I knew when I couldn’t find shit about him that something was off. Everyone has a Facebook these days, or an Instagram. Twitter. Something. Social media is inevitable. But when I looked up Lachlan O’Reilly, I didn’t find shit. Anywhere.

It set alarm bells ringing. But maybe, I reasoned, he just didn’t go by his full name. Or maybe he’s just old. Maybe he doesn’t have social media.

Somehow, the thought of killing an old man doesn’t make me feel better.

I start with what I know. I know he’s in town, but that doesn’t help. I try nicknames, try just his last name—but that’s a mistake. Finding an O’Reilly in Boston is like looking for a needle in a sea of needles. Looking him up just keeps bringing dead ends, until I somehow end up in the back end of some business registry.

And then, like magic, there he is.

The business listing seems shady, and looking up the address only confirms what I’m afraid of. It’s on the rougher side of town, where the only lights are neon and the streets don't boast many cars. People don’t go there to shop or have an evening out. They go for one thing: Business. With a capital B.

Lachlan O’Reilly is a mafia man.

I glance up at the sink again, wondering what the hell I’m going to do. It’s clear the man is involved in some shady stuff. The only places I can find him are in vague references to the owner of the club he has, and even those are hard to find. There’s just not much there.

It doesn’t give me much hope. In fact, it terrifies me.

It means he’ll be well-protected. Not just protected in the conventional sense, either—protected with bodyguards, armed and trained, ready to kill. They don’t care if they shoot someone. They’ve probably done it before, and much worse.

And he’s protected in the media, too. I can’t find him in the newspapers; there are no direct connections to crime, not even as a person of interest. So whatever he’s done, he’s kept it away from the papers and the police. He has people on the inside, or he’s so good they never catch him.

So how the hell am I going to pull it off?

They could probably kill me and not even bother covering it up. After all, who would identify me? My mother? She can’t recognize me most days when I’m right in front of her. There’s no one who would even notice.

Except maybe the bill collectors, when they’re not paid.

I keep thinking about how I should just run. But I know I can’t. So long as my mother is alive, I can’t run away from this. I have to keep trying, keep fighting. I won’t leave her like this.

But my task seems impossible. I’m not physically strong; I’m not a trained fighter. I’m not a hacker or a spy. I don’t have any kind of skills that would help me get to this guy. I can’t even get someone to do it for me; I don’t have the money or the friends.

But there has to be something.

I get up and walk over to the sink, looking down into the small pool of water that never fully drains. I can see a blurry image of my face there, warped and stretched over the stainless steel.

People have always said I look younger than I am, maybe by a year or three. I’m twenty-four now; people have told me I look closer to twenty. I’ve always been carded. I’m not physically threatening at all.

But maybe…maybe he won’t see a threat coming from a woman.

I don’t know much about the mafia, but I’ve run into my fair share of third-rate gangsters. They’ve never been polite or respectful, and I was always wary of the way they looked at me or the other women around me. They didn’t seem to care much about women aside from being handsy and escorting them out of clubs and off to wherever they had places they probably didn’t actually pay rent for.

There’s a chance this Lachlan guy will be the same.

Maybe that’s why Mr. V demanded that I do this. Why he wanted me. Maybe he knew all along that I couldn’t pay, and he was just looking for someone desperate enough to use for his plans. Maybe he knows I’m more likely to get past Lachlan’s guard.

Maybe Lachlan has a reputation with women that I don’t know about. Maybe he’ll be easy to get to, easy to seduce. Maybe he drinks a lot. Maybe I won’t be killing a lucid man, but instead killing a man drunk off his ass.

Maybe he’s even a bad person. Maybe he forces himself on women. Maybe he’s killed women or children. Maybe his business is drugs, and he’s been responsible for teenagers getting hooked. I really don’t know anything about him. But he runs a club and he’s part of the mafia. So he can’t be a saint, can he?

---