1 Chapter One: Name

   The ever putrid stench of beers and fine wines sends me into a nervous panic, due in thanks to an abusive alcoholic I once called father. The very same could be said about loud noises as well, from all the yelling directed my way at a young age from an unthankful, unsupportive, unimaginable mess of a mother. Honestly, I could go on about the two of them, but, it would only further add to the amount of time wasted letting the very words that fabricate sentences about them pass between my lips. The short story is I have a lot of problems that could be found in the roots of my past. A lot of things that have made me paranoid about nearly everything around me. Yet, here I find myself, on the last tram of the night heading downtown in one of the biggest cities in the world. Karma may not be quite the bitch she's made out to be but, she had a funny way of showing her nicer side.

   If there was ever anything to be said about my life, something that I would want to be plastered onto whatever tombstone I'd end up six feet beneath, even if it meant the words had to be written in blood, it would be this.

   "Good things come to those who wait."

   Cliche? Maybe. But perhaps, there was more to it. Words could always be interpreted differently in the twisted minds of individuals. The way that I see it, in the screwed up ongoing conclusion that I refer to as my life, the only thing that could fit the definition for the two words side by side, "Good things," was really quite simple. If I waited long enough I would get it, and surely even faster if I took matters into my own hands. Only in a matter of time, I would get what I deserved, I would get my revenge.

Now, I'm sure you're asking yourself, "revenge on who?", and well, before your mind jumps to the most plausible of answers I will set things straight. I am not going to murder my parents, as much as I'd love to hear that the world was finally cleansed of another uncalled for excuse of a stain, I'm still a good person deep inside. I read the good book like twice, or, at least the important parts and despite how they always treated me like utter trash I did indeed respect my parents. Fate would come their way skipping along a golden trail soon enough with me ready to carry off their belongings to the nearest charity. Till that time came, however, there was but one other mission in my mind, and that was to find and kill the man that took away the only real family I ever had, my brother.

"Tall glass of red, please."

Here sitting across from me just mere minutes before midnight was somebody I was sure could lead me in the right direction, or give me the answer to questions I had long been needing closure to. Even if it meant I had to sit through the downright awful dinner in my least favorite restaurant chain and wait to beat the man upside his head out in the parking lot.

"Oh, and the same for my friend here as well!"

The small stocky man, built like somebody you would picture fighting for a belt in a boxing ring, shouted across the room to the fumbling nervous waiter; it was probably his first and last night on the job after he would soon come to realize how terrible people could be when they hold your financial status at the end of a pen.

"You know I don't drink, right?"

Of course, he knew, because strange as it was that was how I met this man, in group therapy where like an idiot I exposed part of me to a few handfuls of other scared people trying to find an excuse not to kill themselves. So what was he on about? Was he trying to intimidate me? Perhaps put me on edge as he knew it would when the ice cubes clacking against the sides of our cups would inevitably drive me mad enough. Never will I be able to rid my mind of all the disgust for noise.

I read all of the data I could find on this man, going as far as to break into the rehabilitation institute he was a patient at before we had met. Disguising myself wasn't nearly as hard as I had imagined beforehand, as I probably needed to be institutionalized as well I blended right in. I was there for all of four days before I managed to locate the patient files, grab his and fake an accident that seemed bad enough for the higher-ups to make a call to pass me along to an actual hospital. Where from there it was easy as walking out the front door. The doctors and nurses never paid attention, always spreading gossip on who is with who during the worst possible moments of others lives.

His name was Sante, last name not important; He had just turned thirty-five the second of last June, stood at a hefty six-foot-three and weighed two hundred and forty pounds, mostly compounded of the muscle bulging from beneath his skin. You could tell he worked out intensely, more than likely trying to keep himself occupied from addiction. I could relate to that, but not for the same reasons as most. Nonetheless, all of that didn't really mean anything, all I needed to know was his face which was already etched into my memory and where I could find him. His paperwork had it all, an address and a phone number.

"Thank you."

Sante spoke softly to the still nervous waiter as he delivered our poison to the table, scurrying away at my simple nod.

I remember for weeks, I tried the phone number I had found in his file, calling more frequently as the days went by until I finally gave up. I tried to keep things clean, to make a minor threat to the man's family, a wife and two daughters, to get the information that I needed but with my phone calls bearing no fruit, I chose a different approach. I went out of my way to drive over to his lovely two-story house one afternoon when I was free of my other responsibilities, and from there I followed him. For a few days actually, until I learned of his routine, thinking that I could get answers to my questions by pure observation until most of my curiosity was left shut behind closed doors. From there I improvised and entwined myself, or more correctly asserted myself by force into his life, even signing myself up for long overdue rehab, hoping to find vulnerabilities in him there.

This, however, slightly backfired as you could tell, because he knew things about me that he shouldn't have. About my hatred for alcohol and noise, because I was stupid and slipped up during group sessions. He wasn't as dumb as you would think coming from a muscle bounded looking fool, the man was actually surprisingly smart, working as a manager at a local bank branch which is how he supported such a luxurious looking home, with a stay at home wife, while still being able to pay for therapy. Or at least that's what I tried to tell myself. Because part of me wanted the trail of blood to stop, to just turn back around, go home and move along with life. But I couldn't do it. Not knowing what I did, that this man, this scum was a part of something big. Bigger than either of us and because of his secret life I had lost my dear brother in the world of numbers.

Money or people, it was harder to tell which was more valuable in the twisted world I found myself stepping into. My brother was a mere number, one single person that got somebody this retched person knew the big bucks, and I still had no idea why. Would it make me change my mind if I found out? Would I be able to go through with all of the intent inside of me if the scenarios that repeatedly went on inside my head didn't match that of reality? It was hard to tell. Why would somebody pay to kill my brother? He was so kind. So smart and charming. Everything you'd think the personality of your favorite movie star had, he had it. Still, someone wanted him erased from the world and so they wrote a number next to his name, sent it out to a group of people and within a few hours he was dead.

I shouldn't even know he was dead, we hadn't been in contact with each other in over a year since he moved out of town to pursue a better career, but his killer was stupid. They hadn't done enough research, not like I had anyway, to be able to cover their tracks. He didn't live alone, but that didn't matter, nobody has been able to find his fiancés body since the incident happened so I only safety assumed she had been murdered too. But the murderer left one witness still, or a lead to what started all of this anyway. Because I actually did try to catch up with my brother, in fact, we were chatting when the whole thing went down over video call on his desktop. I had to watch as my brother had his throat slit on the screen of my phone, hundreds of miles away. My heart broke, I was mentally shattered. But something sparked in me that I had never felt, at least not since my teens. A deep burning rage slithered through me, I punched the walls of my apartment so violently that night, screaming at the top of my lungs, that the neighbor had called the cops on me to see what was going on. The cop of course just told me to quiet down, but on the inside, I already knew that I would be moving out the next morning, into my brothers place the next town over.

Thinking back to a month and a half ago to when this all started, maybe I should have called the police and told them what happened. But what would that have solved? Maybe they could have found this man faster than me, but I didn't want him to rot in prison, and I didn't want him to suffer at anybody's hands other than my own. No, I wanted this monster to look me in the eyes and tell me why. Why did he take my brother away from me, and then finally end his life the same way if not slower than how he did my younger sibling.

   "I heard the crab here is great, you want anything?"

   Sante urged me, sliding his menu around to my side of the table, despite that I already had my own. A kind gesture one would think, but I found it strange that he was offering me drinks at first and now food. After all, I am the one that asked him out for a dinner date. Of course, it was meant to be a friendly late-night talk between two recovering addicts, but it was so much more. Did he know it was too? Another hit could have been put out by now. That could be why he was being overly generous, knowing soon he'd be into more cash than he knew how to handle. Who really knows for sure? It could even be out on me if he found out who I was and what I was doing. This all could just be an act of mercy, my last meal before departing this world. But I rested easy, because I knew inside that wasn't the case. These people, his people, were cold-blooded killers, they couldn't care less about your last wishes.

   "No, I'm not really hungry. Thanks though."

   "If you say so, but you'll be missing out."

   We handed our menus back to another girl that had come by to wait for our table, the young man from before at another table seating guests across the restaurant.

   "You're food will be out soon sir."

   The girl smiled a fake grin under her plaster of make up she wore to get more tips. Leaving just Sante and me at that moment where it feels like forever until the food actually does arrive. This void of time often spent taking selfies or checking up on social media by the millennial generation, that though I was apart of I felt like an outsider.

   "You mind if I make a call quick?"

   He wasn't really asking a question as he was more or less telling me he was excusing himself for a moment. Taking a short sip of his fancy glass of wine before standing from the table and making a trail to the restrooms in the far corner of the establishment, past the small tables with only one or two seats where the late-night loners would sit.

   "What's your game?"

   I whispered to myself as if the consciousness in my mind would answer back. It never did. Leaving me with a mess of unsolvable riddles.

   "Are there men in this very restaurant?"

   Unmoving from my position, my hands folded together, elbows on the table with my face buried into my palms, I eyed the place slowly.

   "No, it's too public of a place to kill me outright."

   My gaze drifts, running across every possible way I could see myself dying here tonight while making it look like an accident.

   "What if they put something in my drink? Maybe that's why the waiters switched. Maybe that young guy, Perry I think his name tag said is an undercover just here for me."

   The paranoia stirred as usual, but for good measure I suppose. It's kept me alive for such a long time since I entered into this dangerous game.

   "That would be so easy, almost amateur."

   Surely if he did know who I was, what I had planned, what I had gone through to get to this dinner tonight, he'd already know I'm too smart to fall for such a thing.

   "Four minutes already."

   That's well past a call to a friend, maybe a call to his wife if one of the kids were sick and slowly by the second stepping into business call territory. But, what kind of business exactly was another question without an answer that had popped up like an unwanted blemish in my head.

   "Excuse me! I- I actually changed my mind. Would it be possible to add one more glass of wine to our table?"

   "Of course, sir. You haven't finished you're first, however. Feeling ambitious?"

   The girl from minutes before laughed at herself as if she were any bit funny.

   "N-no no, we're expecting another friend to join us for the night."

   "Not a problem then, coming right up. You just let me know if you two change your mind on getting any food now. I recommend the crab if you do get anything, It's to die for."

   A crazy coincidence I'm sure, still, I wasn't going anywhere near that damn crab.

   "Perfect."

   I set the board just a little bit in my favor now, moving my pieces along. My thought process was a strange one to follow but I saw it going down like this. If Sante came back and the glass I had just ordered was already brought to the table I'll have drunk the newly ordered one. This will lead him to think I had already drunk the first glass instead and possibly cause him to open up about something. Alternatively, if he comes back beforehand and the glass isn't here yet, he'll ask the waitress or me why we got another one. From which, then I'll explain that I'm expecting a friend to come along, ensuring my survival for at least the remainder of the dinner.

   "Eight agonizing minutes."

   My foot began to get jittery, not so much from anxiety but in anticipation. From being so close to my goal, that I could practically smell blood like a shark.

   "Here you go, sir. Enjoy!"

   "Thank you—"

   I never even took a mere moment to check and see what the girl's name was, my eyes locked on Perry the entire time, watching his feet clumsily move across the floor.

    "Ten minutes. Shit."

   Without even so much as a second thought, I stood up from the table, tucking in my chair behind me and started at a steady pace towards the front door.

   "I can't believe it."

   I had made a mistake. The wine was a test to see if I'd slip up. He wanted to get me drunk enough to talk but I wouldn't, so instead, he wanted me to eat. He wanted me to eat so he could waste time long enough for something to happen, for the potential poison to set in. But I wouldn't eat, and so he excused himself.

   "Damn it."

   I walked right past the front desk without any regard for whoever would come out after me if they realized I had left the table without paying the bill, even though I hadn't drunk or eaten anything. Sante wasn't just making a phone call, it was now undoubtedly a business call, just not one made for the reason I imagined.

   "Clever bastard."

   Spinning in circles, glaring out at the empty roads and diminished parking lot of the night his car was nowhere in sight. Because he did know who I was, he did know what I had planned and just how dangerous I had become. He wasn't calling in any of his men at all to kill me, he was evacuating them.

   "Perry!"

   The long night if anything would bore one thing if at all, a message. As the young waiter, with his dress shirt slung over his shoulder, clocked out for the night and was making his way to his car, I stopped him.

"Let your boss know something for me, will you?"

"Wh-What are you talking about?"

Black clouds hung overhead, blocking out the light of the moon. Getting a permit for a gun would have left too many footprints to follow, so I never got one. But as the frozen man stood before me, my favorite new killing utensil slid out from the sleeve of my cuffed shirt. A small emerald hunting knife I had gotten offline using my brother's fiancés credit card I found left in his place. A knife that had a letter etched into the side of it that I had given my new name from.

"Please, stop!"

Overpowering the skinny figure of the not so guilty waiter, I made only cuts deep enough to cause a necessary scare with whatever trauma would follow along with it. A mark in the form of slices that would become my label.

"Let your boss know that Z is coming for him. Tell him to learn fear in the name and that... there is nowhere on this earth that he can find where he will be safe from me. Because Z is here, and he's coming for all of you."