Xavier

Chance Montgomery wants to see what kind of person his apprentice and partner is.

Doing hits on women wasn’t my thing. If I came across the jobs I would always reject them, but I wanted to see what kind of person my apprentice was. I liked him because he reminded me of a young deranged me, but most of all, I trusted him. He was good with a gun, stealthy in his movements and deadly with his kills. I liked his style so some jobs I let him be the one to administer the accounts. But this one was a test of morals; I wanted to see what the kid was made of. The mark was a heavy set black woman who was now sitting duct taped to a metal chair with a sock in her mouth and a strip of duct tape across her lips. When I first heard about the job, I was at home with my daughters while my wife was at work. Xavier always kept the conversations short when it was time.

 

“Your dog got out of the yard again,” he would say then hang up.

 

I took the girls to my parent’s and left them there. My next stop was where we would meet up with our contact; her name was Paige and she worked for my uncle getting all the info required for the job. She posed as a stripper at one of his clubs and would take clients sent by him to a back room where she would give them a private dance concealing the real intentions. I got there a little late pulling my car next to Xavier’s.  He was bobbing his head to some music he was listening to and when he saw me he gave a simple smile before getting out of the car. We met at the front of our vehicles and greeted each other with a hand shake.

 

“Paige just texted me and said she would meet us out here in the parking lot.”

 

I didn’t respond. Just remaining silent while going to the hood of my car and sitting down.

 

“How are the girls?” He asked. 

 

He had grown accustomed to them; it wasn’t my intention though my wife invited him to dinner with us a couple of times. I remember when we first met, I didn’t like him. In fact, the only thing I wanted to do when I first met him was beat his a*s. His arrogant and cocky demeanor, along with looking like a pretty boy, made me want to f**k up those nice white teeth of his. When we first sparred I knocked him unconscious. I felt good about it because he had some skill, but instead of asking me for a rematch he asked me what mistakes he made and how he could correct them. It was already my uncle’s plan to induct a younger me into the family. However, it was my decision to enhance the skills that he already possessed. He had the cliché rough childhood; abusive older siblings and parents; runaway and raised on the streets. The only difference was that a rich old guy took him under his wing and showed him how to have some class and to act domesticated around other rich people so he could steal from them when the old man would throw parties.

 

“They’re doing alright.” I answer.

“I saw a DVD when we was following our last mark through that mall that they would like.”

“What movie?”

“It was a Disney movie with all of the princesses in it.”

“It’s good to know that while I’m thinking about what we have to do, you’re thinking about Disney s**t.”

 

He smiles it off.

 

“Hey, I love those little girls.”

 

I knew he did. I never knew any of my real siblings, so when they started calling him uncle Zae I didn’t mind. In one of his drunken moments, he confessed that he looked at me like an older brother. Paige came out of the club and we both looked in her direction. Two guys followed behind her yelling profanity and saying what they would love to do to her. She ignored them while coming our way with a sexy walk; shifting her a*s from left to right.

 

“Hey b***h, we’re talking to you!” One said while catching up to her and grabbing her arm.

 

Xavier began to head to her rescue but I grabbed his arm smiling and motioning her way with my head. She kicked the guy in his groin and punched his friend in the throat that ran up to help him, knocking him to the ground instantly. They stayed down in pain and she proceeded in our direction, getting to us I only smiled while he laughed hard.

 

“I always thought you were sexy; but now you are the sexiest chick I’ve ever saw.”

“F*****g a******s made me break three nails,” She said upset.

“What do you have for us?” I asked.

She reaches into her small purse and pulls out a flash drive.

 

“It pays ten grand for the mark, another ten grand for torture, and my usual fee plus the cost of the nails.” She said tossing it to me.

“What else does the client want?” I asked.

“They want the tongue and proof that they suffered.”

 

Xavier stayed quiet like he usually would while I got the minor details that the dossier didn’t provide. I walked back to my car where sat next to my laptop instantly checking it out. Xavier did his routine of trying to sweet talk Paige while I loaded up the info. I called him and he wasted no time joining me while she went on to her own business. Seeing the mark I automatically decided what I was going to do and observing that the deadline was tomorrow night I took it out and told him to study it then told him where to meet me and what time to be there. I picked my girl’s up and went back home with enough time to make dinner for the family. The next morning we met early while it was still dark in the diner we always met, he studied her info all night and from the details given he devised a plan on how to get her. He was a natural when it came to stalking and even though I had something else planned; I forwent my idea and let him run the whole show. She parked her car in the parking lot of a strip mall a block away so she wouldn’t have to worry about the complications of where her neighbors parked in the houses around hers. We parked by her car and he put her front tire on flat, we waited she walked up noticing it beginning to curse at the reason she would be late. He got out and walked out looking concerned.

 

“Damn it looks like you got a flat.” He said.

“Yeah and I got fifteen minutes to get to work.” She responded annoyed.   

“I’ll help you. Do you have your spare?”

“Yeah’ it’s in my trunk.” She responded walking and opening her trunk.

                                                                  And he was ready with his plan as he waited until she reached in it before pulling out his gun pushing it into her lower back telling her in a low cold voice to walk toward his car. He put a sock in her mouth and made her lay down on her stomach in his trunk where he handcuffed her and put some duct tape on her mouth. He shut the trunk and got in the car with a smile on his face. We drove to an abandoned industrial warehouse district, I could tell he had did his homework because he led me to one I hadn’t used before and to a room that already had some kind of fire damage.

He made her walk pointing his gun at her head and when she wouldn’t sit down after he had demanded her into the metal chair he hit her with the gun. I only watched as he set up the camcorder and made sure it pointed in her direction. He began by smacking her around but once the tape was wet by her own blood he ripped it off of her lips and pulled the sock out. His face was covered with a ski mask so he could do whatever he wanted and not be recognized by the camera if he crossed it. He began by taking her shoes off and cutting off each toe with garden secateurs. She screamed in agony looking at me for some help but I stood in the corner looking at her like I just didn’t care. I didn’t know what she did to deserve this; I rarely asked why a mark had to go, it made things a lot simpler to me. But Xavier loved to hear why marks needed to die. An half of hour went by and he is still was at it cutting her with razor blades, pulling finger nails out with pliers and pouring salt on her bleeding open flesh. The camera was still running and with an assortment of tools he made sure each had its share of blood on it. After he took a knife and cut off her n*****s he walked to the camera, paused it, then he walked toward me like he was tired pulling the mask off his face.

 

“I have some food packed in a cooler in the car if you want some.” He walked past me like it he wasn’t fazed by what he was doing.

 

I didn’t create this in him or even teach him how to build such a tolerance to what he was doing; it just seemed to be in him and he enjoyed it. I walked out of the room with him but didn’t eat a sandwich like him taking his time and talking to me about trivial things. He asked me if I would go check her out just to see if she hadn’t passed out from the shock so I obliged. I walked in front of her and tapped her face a little and backed away when she started to scream again.  He walked into the room with two pillow cases with something in it.

 

“Rats go crazy over fresh meat; I fed six two pounds of ground beef and they were done with the whole thing in twenty minutes and even started to fight each other just because of the smell. They are going to love their next meal.”

 

He turned on the camera back on then proceeded to tape the pillow cases around her ankles. She screamed loudly through the muffle he had made her as they tore into the open wounds of her feet. He stood back with his hands on his hips smiling like he was amused as her body struggled to shake them off.  He looked up at me and walked to the door motioning me to follow him out. I walked out with him and he started to laugh taking his mask off.

 

“What do you think? Do you want to know why this is happening?” He asked.

 

 

I was just a spectator; he seemed to be in control of everything and was enjoying this a little too much.

 

“What’s up?”

“The client’s husband got killed in a robbery while he was working at a gas station, he left behind no life insurance and nothing but money owed to the landlord and disconnect bills while trying to provide for three kids and wife. One day he had to work overtime and the wife had nothing for the kids to eat. She borrowed some food from this b***h with promises of the return as soon as he got home. But he worked until sometime after midnight that night only being able to come home before he had to be back in six hours just to pull another double for his family. She called CPS on them for not returning the favor that night.”

“If they couldn’t afford food, how can they afford twenty grand?” I asked.

“Her parents are loaded; she told daddy and he made this happen. You’ll see him next year; he’s running for county sheriff.”

I was good at what I did when I did it so I let him finish what he needed to do.  Near the end he cut off her ear and poured gasoline on her. After he lit her up he let the camera get the just of it before he ejected the copy of the disc and finished letting her burn by herself.  We delivered the ear and the disc of her being tortured and killed and received our payment. Even though getting close to anybody was something I wouldn’t normally do, I liked the kid. He had what it took to do the job; cold, heartless, quick with his plans and very careful with details to not be caught; I knew one day he would be my replacement. But if he was going to be that one, he’d have to learn more before he was better than me. He earned us that twenty grand a piece that night and after that I gave him a lot of torture jobs; he was good at it and he seemed to get better after each one thinking of more creative ways to bring pain to a human body. Sometimes in life you have to give kudos to the ones that deserve it and he proved to me that he could handle it.  After that I never doubted his devotion to the job.

  

 

      The end of this story.