Innocent

By M.C. Oliva

When a child trafficking ring takes root in the shadows of the Big City, a detective mired in tragedy, a hitman hiding from his past, and a femme-fatale vigilante cross paths and trade crosshairs. But to take down the crime syndicate behind the operation, they'll have to put aside their differences and find a way to work together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.C. Oliva
• Release date: May 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201164799

M.C. Oliva

M.C. Oliva is an Army veteran who began his writing career during a combat tour in Iraq. He believes that writing and other cathartic, creative outlets are vital to the well-being of individuals. When he’s not working or writing, he enjoys the outdoors, physical fitness, and most of all, spending time with his daughter.

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Prologue

October 9th – Hailey Ritter

Hailey cradled the television remote in her hands. She fumbled with it as she stretched her thumb as far as it would go, trying to reach the button to raise the volume. The cartoon on the television was about two kids, a boy and a girl, who found themselves trapped inside a witch’s house. The witch was trying to cook them. Yet, to Hailey’s amazement, the children were not afraid. They laughed as they ran around the witch’s house, making her trip and bang her head as she chased them. Hailey desperately wanted to know what the little boy and girl were saying to each other, but the music coming from the bathroom drowned out the television. Her mother and her mother’s friend were in there together. They were getting pretty so they could go out, as her mother always said on nights like these.

Hailey’s thumb found purchase on the volume button, and she managed to turn the sound up. She smiled as she heard the playful voice of the boy call out to the girl, whom he called Gretel. He called her sister.

Hailey! Turn that shit down, her mother barked as she stormed out of the bathroom and crossed the small apartment.

Hailey quickly turned the volume down. She moved closer to the television, still cradling the remote. She listened closely as the happy siblings talked and devised a plan to push the witch into her own oven.

Girl, we gotsta go, it’s already past midnight, Hailey’s mother called out to her friend. Her friend stood inches away from the mirror as she did her makeup. She delicately applied eyeliner as her mouth mimed the words to the song playing from her phone on the counter.

Hailey’s eyes grew wide with fascination as the children in the cartoon outsmarted the witch, trapping her in her own oven, and made their escape.

Hailey! Get’cho ass away from that TV! Your eyes are gonna go to shit, and yo’ momma don’t got money for no damn glasses!

Hailey hesitated, wanting to hear the siblings rejoice. She wanted to tell her mother that she needed to stand this close because she couldn’t hear anything over the music from the bathroom, but the last thing she wanted was for her mother to whip her butt before she left for the night. So, Hailey conceded. She gingerly moved away from the television and sat on the couch. Her ever-present frown etched deeper into her tender cheeks.

Hailey’s mother came around the couch as her friend, now by the door, fumbled with her high heels. Okay baby girl, momma’s going out now, her mother said as she bent over to be eye level with Hailey. You know what to do, right?

Hailey nodded. But her stomach turned. She hated these nights. She hated being left alone.

Okay, go to bed as soon as this show is done. I’ll be home later. And I’ll know if you stayed up. Don’t let it be like last time.

Last time Hailey had been afraid. So, she stayed up with all the lights on, watching the television. When she heard her mother stumbling towards the apartment door, she ran to bed, pretending to be asleep. Her mother was infuriated that all of the lights were on, and she didn’t believe for an instant that Hailey had been asleep. She’d left bruises on Hailey’s arms and Hailey’s butt was sore the next day from the spankings. Her mother actually apologized for the whooping the next day, saying she was too drunk to think straight. But she insisted that it was Hailey’s fault for not going to bed.

And wipe that damn frown off your face, little girl. That’s why Miss Prewitt is always getting on my ass. You’re always frowning, her mother added as she joined her friend.

Hailey wanted to cry. She didn’t like remembering the parent-teacher conferences where Miss Prewitt told her mother that something was wrong with Hailey. Despite her teacher’s apparent concern, Hailey’s mother only got angry during the conferences. But worst of all she hated nights like these. All alone. Her mind playing tricks on her, scaring her, making her think things in the apartment were moving. She knew her mother would eventually return, but when she got scared, time would stretch into eternity, making it feel like she’d be alone forever.

The door slammed closed and the apartment was suddenly still. Hailey listened in dread at the sound of her mother’s voice trailing further.

Maybe she’ll come back. Maybe she forgot something, she’ll have to come back, and then she’ll just decide to stay. Those were the things she always hoped for, but it never happened like that.

She listened until her mother’s voice was gone.

Fortunately, tonight she’d discovered cartoons that made her feel good. A new one had just started. In this one, a little girl in a red cloak, she looked like she was Hailey’s age, was skipping through a forest with a basket in hand. Hailey raised the volume, but suddenly a shrieking sound caused her to jump in her seat.

Hailey’s eyes shot to her mother’s bedroom, where the alarm clock was blinking midnight and shrieking horridly throughout the empty apartment. Hailey pushed off the couch and ran to the room. She fumbled with the clock, trying to figure out how to make it stop, but she only managed to turn on the radio. She ended up with static and muffled music. She eyed the cord and followed it up to the socket where it was plugged in. She set the radio down and got onto all fours. She reached for the outlet from under the bed, but it was too far. She got onto her belly and crawled a short way under the bed. She stretched her arm up towards the outlet, and her fingers wiggled as they sought purchase with the end of the cord. They wrapped around the thin part just shy of the head of the plug. With the cord in her grip, Hailey pulled hard. The radio came to an abrupt stop. In the ensuing silence, Hailey heard the unmistakable sound of the front door closing.

Momma? There was no answer.

Hailey crawled out from under the bed with a mix of excitement to see her mother along with hints of fear that she’d done something wrong by unplugging the alarm clock. She looked out the bedroom doorway, but no one was visible.

Momma? She asked again, this time with more excitement.

She made her way into the living room and saw a figure standing in front of the door. It was a man. Hailey froze. Her mother often had boyfriends come over, but never when she wasn’t home. And this man didn’t look like any of the boyfriends her mom brought home. He was much older and messier. He was wearing clothes that made him look like he could be one of the teachers at her school, and he had a scar above his right brow that snaked its way up to his receding hairline, where a clump of white hair stood out among a mess of otherwise greasy, dark-brown hair.

The man waved and squatted down. Hey, he said gently. You’re Hailey, right?

Hailey was terrified. She wanted to run. She wanted to scream. She wanted to do something, but she didn’t know what. She stood frozen in place, staring at the man.

You don’t have to be afraid of me. You’re Hailey, right? That’s your name, the man pressed on. Hailey? His voice was kind.

Hailey nodded. She wished she was brave like the siblings in the cartoon. She wished she had a brother to be brave with her. Maybe then they would’ve been able to think of something to do together.

Good, Hailey. I’m friends with your mother. Old friends. You can trust me, okay?

Hailey wanted to say something. She thought about what her teachers had taught her about strangers. She wanted to say something like her teachers told her to say, but nothing came out. She couldn’t think of what to say to a stranger standing right in front of her, in her own home, blocking the way out.

Look, I need to talk to your mother, is she here?

Hailey shook her head, no.

Oh darn. I was afraid I’d miss her. Well, will she be back soon?

Hailey considered the question.

Will she be back tonight?

Hailey nodded.

Okay, well then I can wait. He looked towards the television. You watching TV?

Hailey nodded.

Oh, it’s Little Red Riding Hood. That’s a fun story. Want to watch it together? I can watch TV with you while we wait for your mom to come home. That way we both won’t be alone. How about that?

Hailey looked at the cartoon that was playing. Little Red Riding Hood. The name sounded familiar. Something she’d heard in school. She wondered how the man knew about it. Maybe he did work at the school. Or maybe he had kids too. Maybe he was the father of one of her classmates.

Yeah, come on, the man said, walking over to the couch, waving Hailey over. Let’s sit and watch Little Red Riding Hood together.

Something felt strange, but Hailey didn’t know what else to do. What was so wrong with watching TV? She walked cautiously toward the couch.

The man smiled at her. Yeah, there you go. Take a seat. He sat down and picked up the remote from the couch. Let’s see here, we need to raise this volume because I can’t hear a thing, can you?

Hailey shook her head and climbed onto the opposite end of the couch. She heard the girl’s voice shriek and her eyes shot to the television. A large wolf standing on two-legs had jumped out from behind a tree. He towered menacingly over the little girl in red, his fangs bared as he growled.

Gosh, the man said, staring intently at Hailey. You are a pretty, pretty little girl.

Chapter 1

October 10th – Anthony Rosas

I felt the rickety old board shift under my cautious steps. The musk of the dilapidated house clogged my nostrils, and the spores of the mold eating away at the dry-wall behind the baseboards irritated my sinuses. I walked forward, like I’d done in the past, following the edges of the living space despite the anxiety clawing at the back of my skull, beckoning me to run, to escape.

What the fuck are you doing here? My mind screamed. Get out of here while you still can!

I willed myself onward. I stepped over junk and old pizza boxes with half-eaten crusts still inside them. I heard voices in the next room. I tried to listen, tried to position the voices or gauge if they were coming my way, but every beat of my heart was like an artillery shell fired into my ears. Fear rose from the depths of my gut like molten magma until it caught in my throat, threatening to suffocate me. The anticipation of what came next caused my blood to turn to ice. I was in a nightmare of a memory, and the twisted mechanics of dream-space stretched that horrific memory into eternity.

My first time.

I was trapped here. All because of that magical blue powder, melted and injected into my bloodstream. The drug is like a time machine, re-inserting you into a random, emotionally charged memory of your past. And because of that, sometimes, like tonight, you had to take the bad with the good. Flashback. Déjà-blue. Or simply, blue. That’s what I preferred to call it. But I was having a bad trip, so I didn’t like to think of it as blue. These sorts of nightmares, I convinced myself, only happened on flashback.

What makes the stuff so damn addictive is that it makes the memories more vivid, like watching your life reinvented by a master director, closing in on all the dramatic shots. But that’s also what makes it all the more terrifying, because with flashback, it’s all about the horrific details. You see, it doesn’t just bring your memories to life; it adds life to your memories. For better. Or for worse.

With that dream-like semi-consciousness of reality and memory, I recognized where I was, where flashback had taken me to, and I desperately wanted to rip open my skull and crawl out of my own mind. But there was no way to resist it, not with that burning blue liquid coursing through my veins. Not with the synapses of my brain firing uncontrollably.

It didn’t matter how many years had passed. It didn’t matter how much I’d changed, how desensitized I’d become since that first time in that crumbling house on Ramey Drive, because in my flashback I was that same pathetic, naïve fool all over again. Fear was something I hadn’t felt in a very long time, but in my flashback I felt every emotion anew.

I felt every paralyzing drop of fear.

I gripped the snub nosed .38 revolver so tightly against my chest that the gun pulsated with the beating of my heart and my knuckles went pale from lack of blood. I pressed my back against the wall at the edge of the opening that led to the kitchen. My breathing was rapid and shallow. I felt like I might hyperventilate. I pressed my head against the wall and forced deep breaths, trying to calm the defiant sounds emanating from my chest. I tried to pay attention to the voices, so close now. I needed to prepare myself for what I would face in the next room. The voices belonged to men, but of how many I couldn’t tell, not with the sounds of my pounding heart and raspy breathing echoing in my ears. My fear-riddled mind tried convincing me that there were dozens of them, ready to strike me down as soon as I exposed myself.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t calm my body. The more I tried to control myself, the more my body rebelled. The sounds of it like the cacophony of a riot in my ears. The men talking in the next room were now just a few feet away from me, but I couldn’t hear a fucking word they said. My lips peeled away from my teeth in a grimace of helpless rage and fear. My eyes shot to the door from which I’d entered. There it was. My refuge. My escape. My salvation from this heinous undertaking. I was still unnoticed. I could end it now just by leaving.

But what about her?

My subconscious latched onto something that one of the men in the next room said, and suddenly the cacophony in my head quieted. It was her name... The asshole had spoken her name.

"That Brianna bitch." That’s what he’d said.

The entirety of my attention fixated on the man’s voice. It was all too familiar. He laughed at the mention of her. The dams within me crumbled. I was overwhelmed by a familiar primal urge, a lethal concoction of hatred, sorrow, and anger. It was the same primal urge that had led me here in the first place. The same primal rage that had given me reason to even get out of bed these past few days.

With no regard for what would happen to me, I turned the corner and took aim at the first thing that moved. Surprisingly, my shot was true, ripping into the body of a wiry Black man who stood up from a small, round table. In the vivid flashback, I saw every muscle of his face contort into a mask of pain as the hollow-point bullet penetrated his stomach and expanded, ripping through his abdomen and intestines. All of this in slow-motion.

Two more shots at him, the gun kicking against my hand like a wild bronco. The second one hit him in the shoulder, jerking his body around so he would land on his stomach, the third high overhead, tearing through the peeling wallpaper of the old kitchen.

Luckily, there were only two men in the kitchen. I turned to the other who had been leaning on the counter. It was him. The one I’d come for. He lunged at me. I shot wildly, the gun recoiling uncontrollably. The memory fast-forwarded as two bullets disappeared harmlessly into the abyss beyond his lunging frame. I hated the bullets. I hated the gun. I hated myself, because I hated him and I had missed my chance.

Why hadn’t the fucking bullets gone where I’d wanted them too?

The gun fired one more time before going silent. I could feel the hammer drop harmlessly against spent cartridges as I continuously pulled the trigger, but there were no more defiant kicks against my wrist. There were no more explosive rapports, only a deafening ringing in my ears and a horrid realization that I was out of bullets. I didn’t see where the last bullet had gone, but I assumed it joined its other insubordinate siblings because his shoulder slammed into my gut, knocking the air from my lungs. I was slammed into the wall with the weight of his body. He was slender, but I felt like I’d been speared by a rhinoceros. I instinctively wrapped my arms around his body, and I was surprised at the taught muscles I felt in his torso. Fear washed over me at the thought of my impending doom. It sapped the strength from my legs. My knees buckled, and I nearly crumbled to the floor. That moment of dreadful horror stretched into eternity. Waves of time washed over me, drowning me in that timeless fear, but also carrying me to the safety of shore every time my instinct to live kicked in. But just as I thought the memory would pass, the sea of time would recede, carrying me back out to the turbulent waters of fear. Somewhere between dream and reality, I caught a glimpse of myself moaning and tossing in bed.

Fortunately, my will to survive finally kicked in, purging the fear from my mind and adrenaline reigniting my muscles like a puppeteer. With all the desperate force I could muster I hefted his body and tossed him aside. He fell to his knees, but he held onto me, bringing me down so I was hunched over and off balance. Through a great force of primal will, he pushed through his heels and sent me tumbling backwards into the table. I fell clumsily over it, the table crashing down under my weight.

I was disoriented. All I could see was rotting cabinets and dirty linoleum flooring. I whirled around to face my attacker. He was on a knee, bracing himself with one hand on the floor. The other hand was on his side. He withdrew the hand on his side and examined it. It was drenched in blood. A .38 hollow-point round had torn through his body after all. I saw the dread in his brows and felt a renewed sense of strength. I had the upper hand. Now I just needed to finish the job. I looked around in desperation for a weapon. I spotted a butter knife that had fallen from the table beside my knee. I took hold of it and charged at him. We grunted like savage beasts as we hit the ground. In pain, his arms instinctively sought to cover his injured side. I saw an opening and plunged the dull knife into his chest with all my strength.

I was so naïve. I quickly realized it was nothing like the movies. Nothing ever was. I was stupid to expect it to be. In the movies, a bad guy gets shot and dies immediately. They go down quietly, without a fight. But he didn’t. He gripped my wrist with one hand, my neck with the other. He wrapped my eyes in his. There was a wild anger circling his irises like fire, but deep inside his eyes, in the dark pools of his pupils, he begged for mercy. I closed my eyes. His hands fought for purchase on my face and arms. He pressed one of his thumbs into the edge of my closed eyes, threatening to claw out my eyeball. He was surprisingly strong. In the flashback I could feel the tension in his muscles as I pulled the knife out of his chest, pulled away from his grip, and plunged the knife down into his gut. He didn’t fail quietly like I expected him to. He fought harder, like the knife was a syringe filled with adrenaline. I feared that I was bringing him back to life, and he would soon overcome me.

I re-lived the sickly feeling of his taught abdominal muscles gripping the knife as I struggled to pull it out. I remember that split-second of hesitation before I plunged it back inside of him. Every time I did, I had to remind myself who he was, what he’d done, and why I was there. He let out horrid gasps and moans with every stab. I could feel his pain through his grunts of agony and through the vibrations that flowed up through the knife and into my hand. I desperately wanted to stop, but the thought of her, my Brianna, kept me going. With every exhausting stab two voices screamed inside my head. One merciful. The other sick and sadistic. I roared in anger, drowning out that merciful voice, letting the sadistic demon inside of me take control.

I continued stabbing, roaring like a mad-man against the intensifying burn of my tiring muscles. In the flashback, those stabs continued on, and on, and on, much longer than they could possibly have gone on in reality.

When my victim finally stopped convulsing and his body went still in a puddle of blood, I stood up. I stared at him. At his dirty blond hair, always so neatly done in the courtroom, now a blood-matted mess. His face, that so often bore a pretentious smirk, now frozen in a mask of death throes, his eyes wide open. Those blue pools, so confident before, now lifeless.

As the adrenaline subsided, the reality of the horrors I’d committed set in. I was disgusted with myself. But more so, I was satisfied.

And I was changed forever.

I woke up to the pathetic sounds of my own moans. I was sweating, my hands clammy and trembling. It all felt so goddamn real.

Fucking flashback.

That wasn’t the first time I’d been sent back to that horrible night. Even without flashback, the memory would occasionally crawl out from the dark recesses of my mind to torment me in my sleep until my pitiful cries grew loud enough to stir me from my sleep.

I shivered at the ghostly sensation of the dull knife in my hands. I could almost swear that my hands were still sticky with his blood. I stumbled out of bed, falling helplessly onto my side. My hands refused to touch anything for fear of getting his blood on anything. I needed to get up. I had to do something to purge the drug from my body and to occupy my mind so I could push the memories back down into the abscess at my core, where my soul used to be.

I took to punching the heavy bag to sweat the toxins from my system. A part of me wanted to promise never to shoot déjà-blue again, but I knew that would be a promise made in vain. I’d made that promise the first time I had a bad trip, but after a few days, the anticipation of joy from a good ride on blue was too powerful to resist. I could never deny that voice that promised the next time I rode the waves of blue I would experience her. That I would be with them again.

Interesting enough, that memory, my first time, was the only bad trip I ever had on the psychotropic drug. And the more I thought about that fact, the more disconcerted I became. Why didn’t any of my other memories haunt me like that one? Why did that night define my nightmares, and not the memory of losing her or my family?

I didn’t want to think anymore. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t that same man anymore. I was a different man. Hell, I was an entirely different fucking species now.

I headed out for a run through the darkened streets of the Big City. I needed to remind myself that it had all occurred in a past life. This was my world now. Nothing like the world of that weak, pathetic excuse of a man who couldn’t even keep his own fucking family safe. Nothing like the world of that naïve fool who placed his trust in the police and the system. I’d grown hard and callous in order to do what I do now. That was the only way I remained functional on that damned drug. I had a habit, I knew, and for most people who’d experienced loss, déjà-blue meant the end of their functioning lives. The promise of returning to those happy years, feeling like you could control your destiny in that moment was too much to resist. Users would spiral into an oblivion of wasted lives buried under recycled syringes and re-runs of a life that was no more. However, I constantly reminded myself that those wonderful memories I chased on lonely nights weren’t mine. They belonged to a different man, in a life completely separate of my own. I was merely a spectator, a pathetic voyeur, taking joy from the life of a strange, beautiful family.

After that night, in the dilapidated house on Ramey Street and later in the mansion of his old man, I left my old life behind. I disappeared. My vengeance had been satiated. And let me tell you this: For those who say that vengeance doesn’t solve anything, I’ll tell you right here and now, that’s complete bullshit. After years of talking to police, restraining orders, courtrooms, and wasted legal fees, I had finally taken matters into my own hands. I put an end to that monster and his piece-of-shit politician father. I’d avenged her. That’s the least I could’ve done for her. For my wife. For the mother of my kids. And I was beyond grateful for that little piece of peace.

Vengeance was absolutely worth it.

But there was no going back after what I’d done. There was no going back from what I’d become. So, I made peace with the demon inside me and let him take over my world. He created a new life for me in the Big City, a city where monsters walked openly amongst the mediocre men and women who served as cogs in a polluted and corrupted system. In the Big City, I became a gun, a hired hand in the city’s shadows. And concealed in those shadows, I found riches beyond most people’s wildest dreams.

By the time I finished my run the sun had broken the horizon somewhere beyond the looming concrete structures that lined the city street. The sky was tinged with purple and gold, and the early working crews were filling the streets.

How you doing, Paulo? I waved to the elderly corner-grocer as I came to a stop near him. He was hefting a crate to his store, nearly a block away, so I offered to give him a hand.

No, no, no, Antonio. I take this. You make me look bad.

Alright then. Don’t go breaking a hip, old man.

Paulo was a proud, hard-working Venezuelan immigrant who, in my opinion, had done well for himself. All things considered.

Antonio, Paulo regarded me with caution in his eyes. La hija de esa güera loca desapareció anoche. La policía acaba de llegar. The daughter of that wild white girl went missing last night. The police just arrived. That last sentence carried the weight of his warning.

I nodded my thanks for the heads up and continued around the corner. Sure enough, there were four cops milling around the entrance of my apartment building. Nikki, the wild white girl that Paulo was referring to, was bawling her eyes out as a strapping young cop tried to console her. She was wearing a short, tight-fitting dress, clearly worn out to the club last night, and house slippers. Mascara ran down her face. A black line of it had creeped into her exposed cleavage, leaving a trail that pulled the young cop’s eyes down into the alluring crevice.

I approached the nearest cop. Excuse me officer, I live here, can I ask what the matter is? The cop was a Black, middle-aged sergeant with a gut that spilled over his belt. I wondered how long it took him to draw his pistol from beneath his bulging waist.

He eyed the tattoos on my body. As a cop, he was put off by them, despite my polite demeanor. Kidnapping, he answered sharply, with a snarl at the edge of his lip. He looked at the tattoo across my exposed chest, and then up at me. Last night.

You mean Hailey? Nicole’s daughter? I asked, ignoring the threat of his gaze.

Yeah, you know her?

"Of course. Not very well, but I live here. There’s not many of us in this building, so we all know of her, at least." I looked towards Nikki. The young cop was rubbing her arms, undoubtedly lying to her, telling her that everything would be fine.

The Black cop stared at me harder. Behind him I saw an unmarked black Charger pull up. No doubt it belonged to the detectives assigned to the case.

I have work in a few hours, and as you can see, I’m in need of a shower. Are we permitted to enter the building? I asked.

Yeah. He stepped back only slightly, so his imposing body was still in my way.

Thank you, officer, I said and stepped around him. I walked briskly towards the entrance and risked a glance towards the Charger. Two detectives had emerged, a man and a woman. The man caught my eye before I could look away. I turned away anyways and took the steps of the old brown-stone apartment two at a time. Nikki and the young cop didn’t even seem to notice me rush by them.

The apartment building was a dump, but I liked it. The neighborhood was largely populated by hard-working, low-income families who emigrated from countries throughout Latin America. Your average middle to upper-middle class citizen would probably go out of her way to avoid this neighborhood just by the look of it, but just because it was the barrio didn’t mean it was inherently dangerous. The older people here were honest workers, and most importantly, loyal. So, as soon as I could, I rented out all six apartments on the top floor. The landlord knew I could afford better. In fact, everyone in my building knew, just based on my lifestyle. But whenever they ask why I live here, I tell them it reminds me of my childhood. They all probably suspect that the work I do isn’t quite legal, which is why Paulo gave me a warning about the cops. Despite their suspicions, they regard me as one of their own, which makes them loyal to me too. I’m part of the community here. I help out when needed. I donate to the local businesses and churches, place big orders during school fundraisers, and offer support money when someone passes or the bread winner of the household can’t work anymore. No matter what goes down, I know I can trust them to have my back. Shit, to be honest, the people here do their best to avoid cops in the first place. With so many undocumented immigrants around these parts, not to mention the deep-seated disdain for the-man, even the saintly abuelitas in this hood wouldn’t readily talk to the cops.

I entered the apartment stairwell and ran up the steps to my apartment on the seventh floor. My footsteps echoed in the concrete stairway. With every hammer of my steps, the hard gazes of the cop and the detective flashed in my mind’s eye. I realized that I was out during what could’ve been the time of the crime, with no alibi.

Fuck...

I reached the top of the landing and stopped. Endorphins were still flowing through me. I convinced myself that the adrenaline from my flashback was exaggerating the perceived danger of the situation. I took mindful breaths and forced the thought of the cops out of my mind. There was nothing I could do about them now. I just had to hope that whoever was responsible for the crime would be caught. Not a good prospect, considering the incompetence of most cops. But, the mother, Nikki, was more than likely the prime suspect. Nikki and her girl, Hailey, had lived in the building for almost a year, and from what I’d seen of Nikki, I wouldn’t put it past her to have snapped and done something to that poor little girl. The only things that woman seemed to care for were to party, get high, and fuck. She wasn’t made to be a mother. Not yet, at least. Probably not ever. A damn shame. Hailey didn’t deserve the hand that had been dealt to her. No child deserved a parent like that.

I felt a pang of guilt and something pull at threads deep inside me. But I reminded myself that it was just the blue messing with my emotions.

I let a steaming shower wash away any lingering remnants of concern. I admired my image in the mirror after the shower, looking for any signs of fat that might be accumulating on my toned physique. I hadn’t always been in pristine shape. In my previous life, I was sedentary after college. My desk job didn’t warrant a lean physique, so I’d sported a gut like most family guys. Now, I couldn’t believe anybody could live a sedentary lifestyle. It’s no wonder everyone’s so goddamned depressed and riddled with diseases. Life wasn’t meant to be lived sitting on your ass all day at a desk under fluorescent lights, or behind the wheel of your car stuck in rush-hour traffic. But then again, there wasn’t enough work to go around for everyone to be a gun.

Realistically, I could relax a bit if I wanted to. I didn’t know any other guns quite as obsessed as me with fitness, with the exception of the Vitruvian Man, of course. Which is exactly why he’d earned that nickname. I could probably make just as much money with half of the effort I put in, but I liked it this way. I was happy when I looked in the mirror, and staying fit kept my mind sharp and occupied.

I made my way to the kitchen to feed my starved muscles. When I’d moved here, the top floor was condemned due to mold infestation. I fronted two years’ worth of rent to help the landlord, Señor Curieles, renovate the floor, and then paid out of pocket to combine two of the units into one. He was reluctant to let me combine the units because