Chapter 166: Licensed Killers 1

Draven’s POV

"For the five of you that have agreed to do this job, you have to take an oath," Tony said.

He brought out an iron rod dipped fresh from a furnace.

We were supposed to repeat words after him as he marked us with it.

It was an awful scene, but I figured it was necessary for the job, so I stayed willing.

"Repeat these words after me," Tony said.

We all looked at each other like ... does he know what he’s doing? He did. I feared that this mission we were being sent on was going to be so fucking dangerous, so unavoidable, that we would have no real choice but to go through with it.

"I promise to only obey my master Tony and the organisation, to do their bidding and do whatever is necessary to complete every given task. I dedicate my body and soul to this cause, now and forever," he said.

And we repeated after him.

Those words hit deep. Really deep.

I hadn’t known that was how initiation worked here. I mean, I had been initiated before ... the Mafia Wolves ... but this felt more brutal. There would literally be no mercy for you if you defaulted. That was crazy on a whole different level.

We raised our sleeves, and one by one, that hot iron rod was pressed against our shoulders.

I screamed. We all screamed. Valentina cried, her eyes going bloody red.

That pain lit something in me. I felt formidable ... more than capable of doing anything and fucking up anybody.

"It’s just the process, guys. You’ll enjoy the job," Tony said, then took us up an elevator to a room filled with all manner of sophisticated machines and equipment.

It was impressive as hell. His assistant powered on the screen.

His assistant looked like real work, by the way. I couldn’t wrap my head around why she was twisting her waist and shaking her goddamn ass like that. But I was done with females. Fuck all of them. The only one I loved was Jade.

Tony pulled up a picture of a wolf on the screen.

"Now, this person is the ambassador to the governor of this entire territory. His appointment is government-approved. He was asked to carry out certain dealings that would get his hands dirty, but he’s refusing ... even though he was well aware that was what he signed up for." He paused. "So you’re going to find him. His name is Russell Wilson. You will kill him and his entire family. Spare only his wife."

That landed heavy.

We had killed before, but never like this. We still had some morals, at least. Asking us to wipe out a wolf and his three children just for not falling in line ... that was beyond crazy. But that would be our fate too if we didn’t go through with it. We had no choice.

"Well understood, sir," I said to Mr. Tony.

I knew I was leading the entire team into this, so I had to pull together every ounce of composure I had.

We were each given aliases ... new names, every one of us.

"These will be changed constantly, so don’t get attached to any name," Tony said. "Identify yourself by whatever’s on the card each time you go out. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you don’t exist. Only the government knows that you do."

We memorised the names and slipped the cards into our pockets.

We were armed, handed coordinates on how to reach the target, complete the mission and get out without being noticed.

Tony briefed us on the family’s routine ... they observed a strict curfew at nine sharp every night. We would catch them at the dinner table and be gone before anyone knew we were ever there.

They fitted each of us with a tracker and a hearing aid so small it looked like a tick. It was clipped to our clothes so they could pinpoint our location in case we tried to abandon the mission.

The van was big. We piled in and pulled off.

Zeno drove.

"Do we actually have to do this?" Salvatore asked.

"You saw what they do to people who don’t," Valentina answered. "So yeah, pretty much."

We had no choice.

While we were still on the road, Ciro was already pulling up the family’s profiles from their database ... the wolf and his children. His wife looked far too young to be the mother of those kids. The eldest appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen, and the rest looked to be spaced maybe three years apart.

"I know it’s grey," I said. "Wiping out an entire family. But we just have to. They’re the government. And they’re the ones who got us out of Valdris."

Everyone nodded.

Valdris was more than old news ... it felt like a past life, because it literally no longer existed.

Less than forty-eight hours after we set foot in Bernia, our names had been scrubbed from every grid. It was as if we had never existed. No more bounty alerts. No more announcements. Shit ... they were that good.

We parked several blocks away from the target’s location.

Salvatore held back to watch our perimeter, so he stayed with the van. Ciro got to work hacking the security system ... a high-end one that operated on eye recognition. Within two minutes, he had it overridden so that any set of eyes placed in front of it would trigger an open. Ciro was genuinely the best at what he did.

We entered the house.

Valentina and Zeno slipped into the vents to position themselves above ... that way, if Ciro and I were spotted going in, they still had us covered from above.

The house was screaming wealth. Everything about it felt like luxury. There was something almost surreal about killing someone in a place like this.

We crept forward and peeked into the dining room. Russell Wilson sat at the head of the table with his family ... his wife and his three children.

I was almost slipping into empathy.

But I pushed through it and stormed into the dining room.

"Hands up ... everyone."

They all screamed and obeyed. Zeno, Valentina, and the rest of the team poured in behind me, weapons raised.

"How did you get in here?" Russell demanded.

There was no time for conversation.

We had it all mapped out in our heads. One silenced shot each ... simultaneous. My bullet hit the ambassador. The remaining three shots hit the three children at the same moment.

They all dropped.

Dead.

Except the wife. She was sobbing, screaming ... why, why did you do this?

I turned to leave ... but something stopped me cold.

The smell of the blood.

It wasn’t wolf blood.

I turned back. I crossed the room, crouched down, and sniffed again. Then I pressed two fingers to the pooling blood and brought them to my lips.

"Draven, what the fuck are you doing?" Valentina snapped.

I stood up slowly.

"They’re not wolves," I said. "They’re humans."

The room went silent.

That was a discovery that changed everything ... because it meant there was a whole lot more to be unfolded from here.