Rourke grunted and started up the car. That was as good as I was going to get, and I knew it. I pulled out my phone and checked over my messages before I pulled up a notepad and started typing. Enzo Vitale. Neat. Strong. Notices things. Crazy as fuck. It was a good list, but a short one. I needed more to go on. I had to meet up with Enzo again.

I thought back to the note I’d left him. It was short, precise, and to the point. Just two words.

Fuck You.

The sounds of the city were muted out in the suburbs. One could almost believe they were in a whole different universe. There were no blaring horns, the fog of pollution, or blinding neon lights. In another life, maybe I’d live in such a calm place. But that hadn’t been my fate. The constant noise and smells were home, one I’d grown accustomed to.

I pushed open the back gate, the wood freshly painted black and the bushes surrounding newly trimmed. Someone had a lot of time on their hands.

Toys littered the yard, a pogo stick, a firetruck near the swing set, and a shovel in a sandbox that had sand spilled around it. My eyes twitched as all of my focus was drawn to the uneven sand. It wasn’t important, and yet I walked over to the small box.

I needed something else to focus on, something familiar that wasn’t out of place and that didn’t drive my need to fix it or tear everything apart. I reached into my coat, and my fingertips brushed along the cool metal of my staccato 9mm. It was familiar and perfection.

My hand wrapped around the gun and pulled it free. The moonlight glinted off the top of it, even the sky was mesmerized by its beauty. I took in measured breaths, remembering step by step how I’d taken it apart and cleaned it. My fingers twitched along the gun as if they were moving with my memory.

I felt more in control by the second and turned away from the distraction and to the house. The back porch light turned on as the door opened.

“Just taking the trash out.”

The man I was there to see stepped out of his house. As if he sensed a predator in his presence, he went still, his gaze sweeping over the yard until his eyes fell on me. There wasn’t a need for me to introduce myself. Recognition surfaced in his brown eyes the moment ours met.

“Don’t do this here,” Johnny McDowell pleaded.

I was a monster, but I wasn’t a sloppy one.

“Don’t worry. I don’t plan on splattering your blood on your freshly cut lawn. Tell them you have to go.”

Johnny made his way to the trash and dropped his bag in. I still held my gun out, but he made no move to run. He knew better. His family would be used as collateral, and Johnny wasn’t a man to place his family in harm's way.