Chapter 2: Clean Execution
I hook the black medical mask back over my ear and walk out.
The airfield is quiet at this hour.
Private hangars.
Minimal lights.
The kind of place where people mind their business because the people landing here prefer it that way.
My jet sits at the far end of the strip.
Black.
Unmarked.
The pilot is already waiting.
He nods once when I board.
No questions.
That’s part of the job.
Inside the cabin, the lights are low. The leather seats still carry the faint smell of jet fuel and polished metal.
And on the table in front of my seat—
The file.
Black.
Matte cover.
No markings.
Exactly where I expected it to be.
I sit and flip it open as the engines begin to wind up outside.
Inside are photographs first.
Grainy surveillance stills.
A man leaving a warehouse.
The same man at a bar.
The same man walking down a cracked Detroit sidewalk with a gym bag slung over his shoulder.
I turn the page.
Name.
Age.
Affiliations.
Routes.
Drop locations.
Times.
Every movement laid out clean and organized.
The Jokers run on structure.
Chaos is what we remove.
The jet lifts off smoothly, Puerto Rico shrinking beneath the wing.
I study the file while the city disappears behind us.
Page after page.
Patterns.
He’s predictable.
Predictability is weakness.
I memorize the routes first.
Warehouse to bar.
Bar to apartment.
Apartment to gym.
Same path.
Same hours.
Every day.
He doesn’t think anyone is watching.
Most men in his position don’t.
They think the violence happening around them belongs to someone else.
I close the file halfway through the flight.
Not because I’m finished.
Because I’ve seen enough.
Detroit greets us hours later with gray skies and a wind that bites through the fabric of my jacket when I step off the jet.
Home.
Not the kind people write songs about.
The kind built out of concrete and broken men.
The Jokers’ base sits on the other side of the city.
But I don’t go there.
Not yet.
Work comes first.
The building on the file sits on the east side.
Old industrial strip.
Dead streetlights.
Empty lots.
The kind of place where people learn not to look out their windows.
I park two streets away and watch the warehouse.
Lights on.
Music leaking faintly through the metal walls.
Back door propped open.
He’s here.
Good.
I sit there a moment longer, replaying the routes in my head.
Patterns.
Timing.
Positioning.
Then I step out of the car and start walking toward the building.
Time to see if the file got anything wrong.
Time to see if the file got anything wrong.
The bass from inside the warehouse thumped against the corrugated steel, a sickly pulse that masked the crunch of my boots on broken glass. I slipped through the warped door, the space inside vast and choked with shadows from a single, dangling bulb. Figures moved in the murk near a cluttered workbench, their laughter raw and punctuated by the clink of bottles.
He was there, just like the photos.
Big.
Loud.
Leaning against a stack of pallets, holding court.
“Nah, man, I told him, you bring that weak shit around here again and I’ll–”
He stopped.
He’d seen me.
A stranger in a clean jacket, standing just outside the circle of bad light.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked, the command in his voice blunted by confusion.
I didn’t answer.
I just watched his hands.
His eyes flickered toward the workbench, where a stained towel half-covered a pistol.
That was his pattern.
Reach for the piece.
Establish dominance.
He went for it.
I was already moving.
My first shot took the guy to his left in the thigh, a sharp cough of suppressed sound, and he went down screaming, clutching a blossoming dark stain.
The second man fumbled for his waistband.
My next round punched through his throat, and he gagged, collapsing backward into a rack of metal shelves with a catastrophic crash.
The Target had the pistol now.
He swung it toward me, wild-eyed, and fired.
The report was deafening in the enclosed space, the round chewing into a support beam beside my head.
Splinters kissed my cheek.
I closed the distance before he could find his aim again.
I slammed his gun hand against the edge of the workbench.
Bones crunched.
He howled, the pistol skittering away into the darkness.
He was strong, though.
All rage and adrenaline.
He drove a fist into my ribs, the air leaving me in a grunt, and tried to wrestle me down.
We staggered into the pool of light beneath the bulb.
His face was a contorted mask of fury and sudden, dawning fear.
That’s when he saw it.
The edge of the black card, FCJ in sharp silver foil, had slipped from my inner pocket during the struggle.
It lay on the grease-stained concrete between us.
His eyes locked onto it.
The fight left his muscles for one critical second.
“No,” he whispered, the word choked. “Not them.”
I drove my forehead into the bridge of his nose.
Cartilage gave way with a wet, tearing crunch.
He reeled backward, blood cascading over his mouth, hands flying to his ruined face.
I didn’t let him fall.
I hooked an arm around his neck from behind, squeezing his carotid in a tight vise.
He clawed at my forearm, heels drumming on the concrete, his breaths ragged, wet whistles through the blood.
When his struggles weakened to spasms, I released him.
He slumped forward, gasping, onto his hands and knees.
I stepped on his broken hand.
He shrieked, the sound high and animal.
On the workbench lay a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka.
I picked it up, smashed the bottom off against the metal table edge, leaving a jagged, glittering crown.
He looked up, one eye swollen shut, the other wide with pure, voidless terror.
I showed him the serrated glass.
“The file was right,” I said, my voice flat in the sudden quiet. “You are predictable.”
The first thrust was low, into the soft shelf of his belly.
He made a sound like a deflating tire.
I twisted the glass, pulled it out, and thrust again, higher.
He folded over the wound, his hands trying to contain what was already spilling out, hot and slick over his fingers.
I worked methodically, without rage, a surgeon opening a cadaver.
The glass found his diaphragm, his liver.
The sounds were soft, internal, matters of pressure and release.
His breathing became a wet gurgle.
He toppled onto his side, curled around the devastation in his abdomen, watching me with fading comprehension.
I dropped the bottle shard.
It shattered near his head.
I knelt beside him, one knee in the warm, spreading pool.
His lips moved, but only blood bubbled out.
I reached for his head, cradled his jaw in one blood-slick hand, and looked into his dying eyes.
With my other hand, I drew the black FCJ card from my pocket.
I held it before his fixed gaze.
His remaining eye trembled.
A final, choked whimper escaped him.
I slid the card’s sharp corner deep into his ear canal, with a firm, deliberate push.
His body stiffened, then went still.
I stood up.
Arterial spray had patterned my chest and arms in wide, dark arcs.
A deep, pumping wound had drenched my legs, the fabric heavy and warm.
I was stoked in it, head to toe, a second skin cooling in the warehouse air.
I took one last look at the scene.
The two others were dead or dying.
The Target was a ruin in a lake of his own making.
The music, on a loop, thumped on.
I walked out the same broken door.
The cold night air hit the blood on my face, a stark, clean contrast.
I didn’t look back.