Darkest Sins (Perfectly Imperfect #9)

22 years ago from the present day

Z.E.R.O. unit base

(Kai 12 years old)

*Trigger warning – animal abuse in this chapter.

“Aim at its hind leg and shoot. Now, boy, that’s an order.”

I look at the big brown dog lying on the floor, tongue hanging from his mouth as he happily waves his tail at me. Since the day Captain Kruger brought that dog six months ago, I knew something wasn’t right. At first, I considered that the dog might be a wild stray, and he wanted to see how I’d defend myself if the animal charged me.

Captain enjoys creating and observing situations where I’m forced to act on instinct. Spiking my drink with something that caused light sensitivity and made me dizzy before he sent me to a shooting range for practice, all so he could assess how well I could shoot under the influence of similar drugs. Cranking up the overhead brightness, and then playing loud sounds through the speakers in my room, so he could measure how long I could last without sleep and how functional I was under thedepravation. Ordering the guards to attack me from time to time to determine the quickness of my reflexes in such situations.

But I didn’t understand the purpose of a dog.

Now I do.

I’ve been taking care of that dog for months. Feeding him. Taking him out with me on the mandatory PT run every morning. He’s even been sleeping at the foot of my bed. Captain saw it, and he never asked me to stop taking care of the dog. I figured it must have been a present, after all.

“What are you waiting for, boy?”

“No,” I say, meeting his stare.

“You’re disobeying a direct order?”

Keeping my lips tightly pressed, I release the gun I’m holding, letting it fall to the concrete floor. I’m not hurting my dog, even if it means I’ll get punished.

“Mission failed, boy,” Captain barks into my face. “And when you fail a mission, you can expect consequences.”

I steel myself, expecting a kick to my stomach or a punch to the head. It never comes. Instead, Kruger turns around, aiming his weapon at the dog, and shoots.

Chapter 12

The front door opens, revealing a dark-haired man in his early thirties. “Can I help you?”

“Yes.” I nod. Then punch him right in the face.

The guy falls backward and ends up sprawled in the middle of the hallway. Maybe I shouldn’t have hit him that hard. I step inside, then close the door behind me and grab a handful of the guy’s shirt. I drag him across the living room into the small, untidy kitchen and drop him onto one of the chairs. There is a hollow bang when his head hits the table as he slumps forward, still unconscious. I take a seat across from him and lean back to wait.

The operative who was assigned to this mission got pulled over for a traffic violation, and during the stop, the officer spotted unregistered guns in the car. The dumb schmuck was taken into custody immediately. He’s out of commission for tonight, or at least until Kruger’s people can bring their top-secret papers to the police station and get the guy out. Since this contract needed to be carried out today, I got tagged, because of my proximity to the location, apparently.

The man stirs and groans. He straightens slowly and blinks at me in confusion.

I take out my phone and slide it across the kitchen table, screen up. The guy looks at the image of the USB drive on the phone and quickly shakes his head.

“I don’t have it. I swear.” He spits out a mouthful of blood onto the kitchen floor and continues talking. “I don’t know who took it, but it wasn’t me. I don’t even know what’s on it. You have the wrong person.”

I cross my arms over my chest and sigh. Information extraction is not my specialty. It requires the mark to be kept alive and coherent. Maintaining his living status long enough for him to ponder his life choices while I work him up is not a problem. The snag is, I’m not sure how coherent he’ll end up being when it’s time to sing. As I’m pondering my dilemma, I grab one of the tasty-looking apples from the bowl in the middle of the table. I take a bite, but it’s not as sweet as it appeared.

The guy stops fidgeting in his seat and gapes at me. I think he’s interpreting my relaxed pose as indifference. His eyes dart toward the door, then back to me, zeroing in on the apple. In the next moment, he’s leaping from the chair and running to the door. I take another bite, then reach into my jacket and pull out my gun. The idiot is hysterically jerking on the doorknob like a maniac, trying to pull it open. Unhurriedly, I screw the silencer on the gun, aim at his hand, and shoot. A pained scream fills the room.

“Come back here,” I order.

The man keeps sniveling as he trudges back to the table, clutching his hand to his chest.

“Shut up and sit.” I put the gun away and point to his seat.

He manages to plug his trap and slithers onto the chair.