The Killer’s Vow by Aria R. Blue
Simon
The contents of the trash can are spilled on the floor.
“You can learn a lot about a person based on what you find in their trash cans,” Rebekah says, kicking stuff around.
Cigar stubs and ice cream containers.
I sigh and look around Vlad’s loft apartment.
“You know, this isn’t what I had in mind when you suggested a heist.”
“Snooping is way more fun than stealing,” Rebekah says, riveted by Vlad’s trash.
We broke into Vlad’s apartment.
Rebekah swears that he’s hiding something from us.
“How do you know he won’t try to come back here?” I ask.
“I know his schedule,” she says casually. “He only returns after six in the evening.”
That leaves us thirty minutes.
“I regret his already,” I say, walking to the window wall that overlooks the Moskva. Vladimir lives in one of the posh residential areas of Moscow.
Rebekah helps herself to a cold beer.
She slides one over the kitchen island to me.
“He’s going to know we’ve been here,” I say.
“Maybe at one point in his life, he would have noticed,” Rebekah says, opening the cabinets in search of something else. She opens a bag of rye breadsticks, a staple Russian junk food. “But now, he’s getting sloppy.”
I take a swig of my beer.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” I say, shaking my head at how cocky she is about everything.
“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Rebekah speaks around a mouthful of crispy bread.
“It is, I guess,” I say, lifting a shoulder. “I’ve traveled all over the world, and I haven’t met anybody else like you.”
“And you never will either.”
I look away. “Did you ever fall in love, Rebekah?”
“No time for that,” she replies. “Now tell me, what really happened between Vera and you, Simon?”
“You’re not happy that we broke things off?” I ask.
Last I remember, Rebekah wasn’t Vera’s biggest fan.
She draws a circle in the direction of my face. “If you’re going to wear that sad face for the rest of your life, no. I’m getting depressed just looking at you. And for fuck’s sake, take off that fake mustache. It’s giving me a headache.”
I ignore her request. “I never apologized.”
She grows quiet.
I don’t look at her as I say the words out loud for the first time. “I’m not a man who regrets much, but I regret leaving you behind in Tokyo every single day.”
She doesn’t say a word.
When I look back at her, I find that she’s wearing a face of disgust. “Ugh. What did that witch woman do to you?”
Vera cast a spell on me.
And all she had to do was exist.
It made everything shift and morph in my body and mind. My heart pounded hard for her.
She showed me that compassion and love can still exist in a person who was broken by the world.
The rest of the world failed her.
I can’t do the same.
That’s the reason I’m not chasing after her. I respect her too much.
And if she thinks she needs to do something on her own, I’ll respect that too.
“I mean it, Rebekah,” I say. “You were the most important person of my childhood. We grew up together and had breakfast and dinner together. You were a gift that I’m grateful for to this day. I don’t know what would have happened to me if you weren’t in my life.”
“You would’ve been much less cooler,” she offers.
“And also, I’m sorry that I didn’t come back for you when Vlad first got me out.”
“I know,” she says, avoiding eye contact with me again. “I know you are.”
“Where were you?” I ask. “For the past five years?”
She walks around the kitchen island and kicks off a five-inch heeled boot.
I suck in a breath. Her right foot is a prosthetic from the ankle down.
“I was in Russia the whole time, learning how to walk again.”
I look up at her.
I never knew.
“If I ever see that look on your face again, I’ll poke your eyes out.”
“Did Vlad know?” I ask.
“No, but he couldn’t have known that I was dead. Because obviously, they never found my body.”
“It’s weird. We’ve been working with him for nearly ten years, but we know nothing about his personal life,” I say.
“Exactly,” Rebekah says. “That’s why we’re here.”
“I don’t think he’s going to keep anything of value out in the open.”
“I have something very specific in mind,” Rebekah says, moving with purpose toward the living area. “Remember how we first met, Simon?”
“That night when the older boys came crying for their toys,” I say.
“Yeah, you stole their stuff, and they came to beat you up. You were such a bad influence on me,” she claims.
“Me?”
“Yeah. Why else did you think I started stealing? You were the one who started it.”
“Those evil plans to take over the world were all yours, though.”
“I tried,” Rebekah says, going through his bookshelf of Russian literature. “But it’s not that fun being evil without an accomplice.”
“I don’t like it anymore,” I admit for the first time. “Being an assassin, I mean. It’s getting harder to detach myself from it and only look at it as a job.”
Rebekah glances back at me. “Don’t do it then. We have options now.”
“What are you searching for?” I ask.
“I already told you.”
And then it hits me.
That wooden chest that was so precious to me as a boy. After those boys broke the original one, Rebekah gave me a brand new one to keep my mother’s stuff in.
I left it behind with Vlad when I ran away to make a living as a teenage artist.
I always wanted to ask him about it after returning, but I didn’t want to look weak. And he never spoke about having it either.
We search the entire house, from the bedroom closet to the bathroom cabinets.
We don’t find the wooden chest, and we don’t find out anything else about Vlad either.
“Think like Vlad,” Rebekah says with a determined gleam in her eye. “If you were him, where would you stash things?”
“Maybe it’s not here,” I say, looking out at the pink skyline of Moscow.
I thought I missed home.
But it’s nothing compared to how I yearn for Vera’s companionship. Her presence lights fire to something deep inside me while soothing it with a gentle hand at the same time.
“The cigars,” Rebekah says, snapping her fingers. “We didn’t find any cigars.”
“So?”
“Wherever he keeps them is where he hides his things.”
“We looked everywhere, from everything on the floor to the paintings on the walls.”
Rebekah nods and then looks up. “The roof.”
She rushes to his bedroom and stands on top of his bed. And she starts punching at the square panels that make up the roof.
“We should get out of here before we get caught,” I say.
Rebekah’s breath catches.
One of the panels is loose, sliding over when touched to reveal a space.
“Simon, there’s something here,” she says, getting on her tiptoes to get a closer look.
“Move,” I say.
She hops off the bed before I stand on it. Excitement of the unknown buzzes through me, a high that can’t be compared with anything else.
I reach into the space.
My fingers bump against something hard. I reach for its corners.
“It’s heavy,” I huff, finding its other end and dropping it down on the bed.
It’s a cardboard box.
There are no imported cigars here.
This is a box full of old things—documents, files, and…my wooden chest.
Rebekah opens a file and sucks in a breath.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Other kids,” she replies, handing me the file. “Children like us.”
I take it from her and swallow when I see that it’s a bundle of papers with information about children from various orphanages all over Russia.
We weren’t the only ones.
It’s kind of sick to think about. Taking vulnerable children and giving them the option of turning into killers for the government.
I go through more files.
“What’s that?" Rebekah says, pointing at something to the side.
It’s a large sheet of rolled-up yellow paper.
I unfold it.
I see its contents. I double-check it to make sure my mind isn’t playing tricks on me.
And then, I see black and red.
* * *
We waitfor him in the dark.
Neither of us speaks. Instead, we process everything we just learned in silence.
The sound of a key being turned makes us finally look at each other. We don’t need words to communicate.
She nods and gets into position.
Before Vlad gets to switch the lights on, I have a meat cleaver to his throat.
“Your little secret is out, old man,” I hiss in his ear.
First, he tries to play it cool. “Simon, get off me. What the hell are you doing inside my apartment?”
His voice falters when he sees that I’m not alone.
“Whatever you think you know, you’re wrong,” he says, switching to panic real quick.
“I didn’t say that I knew anything.” My voice is sharper than the knife in my hands.
Rebekah works in silence, tying the man to one of his own chairs. By the time she finishes, he doesn’t even have room to fight back.
“I dated a really kinky girl once,” Rebekah gloats, admiring her handiwork. “She was only turned on when I had her tied up.”
In the time that we’ve been here, our eyes have adjusted to the dark.
His haven’t.
So I turn on the red LED strip lights for him. His entire apartment is bathed in red now.
To suit my mood.
“Nice place you got, Vlad,” I say, advancing toward him with my right hand flexing over the meat cleaver’s handle. “We decided to invite ourselves since you never do.”
For all his faults, Vlad is a sharp man.
He forces himself to accept that we had already seen all that we needed to see.
He tries to bargain with us. “Let me go, and I’ll explain everything.”
Rebekah opens the yellow chart. “Start with this.”
“Targets,” he says, the lie rolling off his lips easily. “For you.”
Rebekah throws the chart aside and pulls his tongue out, holding it between her long acrylic nails.
“Lie to us again, and we’ll decide that this tongue of yours is useless.”
His eyes well with unintentional tears as she draws blood using her sharp nails.
When she lets go of him, he starts speaking immediately.
But his choice of words are all wrong.
“You two were nothing before me,” he says. “I saved you from a lifeless existence. You would’ve been street rats if I hadn’t selected you for this mission.”
“What mission, Vlad?”
He’s a liar, a fraud, and a cheat.
He told us that we were working for the Russian government. That we were doing honorable jobs.
Back when it all started, we were kids wanting to believe that there was more to life than the walls of our orphanage. I accepted Vlad’s offer, and Rebekah soon followed suit.
We rose to the top, taking orders directly from Vlad and nobody else.
We didn’t ask to meet the authorities because we were gullible.
We believed him when he fed us lies because we wanted something to believe in.
But it was all one massive joke.
And the joke is on me.
On us.
Rebekah smacks his head with the yellow chart. “You’re not that idiotic, and we’re not hopeful little kids anymore. So tell us, what the fuck have you been up to?”
“I didn’t lie,” he says, his gaze flitting between us. “Those are the targets.”
I roll the chart out.
It’s a map of the world. Except instead of the names of cities and mountain ranges, it has names of crime families worldwide.
And there’s a circle over the state of Illinois.
Over Chicago.
The Reznikov’s are a target. But from what we’ve found, they’re not targets of the Russian government. No. This is some personal vendetta.
I stalk toward him. “Why did you make us believe that we were working for the government, Vlad?”
“Would you have done it otherwise?” he spits back.
“That’s the reason you go around lying to vulnerable little kids?”
When he met me, he said something about me was special. That I had something the other kids didn’t.
And I swallowed every word that rolled off his serpent tongue.
I drag the knife from the right side of his forehead to his chin, slicing through skin. I intentionally leave out his eye.
“Answers, Vlad,” I say. “I don’t like being lied to.”
Blood falls to the floor in heavy red pearls.
“Let me go, and I’ll explain,” he hollers.
“How about you explain first, and we’ll decide what to do with you later,” I say, moving the sharp knife to the unmarred side of his face.
“Wait,” he says, trying to move against his restraints. “I was going to tell you eventually.”
“When?”
“When you were ready to hear it.”
Rebekah digs her nails into his mouth again, pulling out his tongue. She watches him slaver with morbid fascination.
“You remember what I said about this tongue of yours, don’t you?” she purrs. “It would be such a shame if you could never lie again. You’re so good at it. I can’t imagine what else you’d do with your life.”
Vlad’s gaze rests on me.
Tears are welling up in his pathetic eyes.
“It was never my intention to deceive you, Simon,” he says. “You have to know that.”
More lies.
I lift his cardboard box of lies and hurl its contents over the room. Incriminating documents scatter all over the floor. My wooden box shatters.
Innocent pink ballet shoes have no place in this world.
The memory of her burns a hole in my heart when I see that the photograph of my mother has been shattered.
“Hundreds of children,” I say. “You recruit them and turn them into murderers. The worst part is that you feed them false lies about it. We’re all toys to be used for your grand plan, whatever the hell it is.”
For the first time, Vlad hangs his head in shame.
“Not you, son,” he says. “Never you.”
Rebekah kicks his forehead with the heel of her boot. “Explain.”
And he does.
He confirms that the Russian intelligence agency part was a lie. I listen with clenched hands as he tells us about who he really works for.
I have one more question left for him. “What did that Mexican guy have anything to do with this?”
“What guy?”
“Oscar,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose. This asshole doesn’t even remember the person he wanted killed.
“I knew you were headed to Mexico to meet the Rivera cartel. Oscar was a test. To see if you were going soft.”
All because I refused to kill Vera.
He must have bugged my phone. There’s a reason he’s always one step ahead, and it has nothing to do with the Bureau.
“I told you everything you wanted to hear,” he says. “Can we talk like adults now?”
I nod at Rebekah and then walk toward the broken wooden chest.
She slits his throat.
“No, wait—” The rest of his words are a gurgle as the life leaves his body.
I reach down and lift the picture frame of my mother. The glass over it has been shattered.
Gingerly, I remove the photograph from the frame.
For the first time, I notice another part of the photograph.
It was folded in half, displaying only a close-up of my mother. I unfold the other half into view.
My mind turns into a state of anarchy.
Not you, son. Never you.
Vladimir standsbeside my mother in the photograph, beaming at the camera.
I glance up at Rebekah.
She’s watching me with a knife in her hands. His blood drips to the carpet.
“What is it?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
The anarchy in my mind condenses into a single point of light. My mind lands on a single thought.
Family.
Family isn’t just forged through blood.
It’s forged through strong hearts that decide to stick with people through thick and thin. Through the starless nights and the sunny days.
It’s a promise carved into hearts.
A vow.
Like the one I made to myself that Vera will never feel helpless again. That I would always have her back.
I’ve been a fool until now.
I don’t need to be by her side to protect her.
Even if she doesn’t want my help, I’ll watch over her from the shadows.
I’ll walk on the earth she’s walked on, and I’ll be fucking grateful for the opportunity.
I’ll be her phantom knight.
I’ll be hers in any way that she’ll have me.
“We need to find Vera,” I wheeze.
Rebekah grins, wiping the blood on the knife over Vlad’s lifeless body. “Finally. It’s about time you stopped being a brainless moron.”