CHAPTER EIGHT
The courtyard was dark and quiet. Not dead quiet, but the kind that forewarns of something coming. The kind that settles on your skin like fog and oozes in around your bones.
Two black trucks stood in the driveway, their engines rumbling low like beasts ready to be unleashed at a prey. I stood in front of them, the night encircling my shoulders like a shawl, dark and unreadable. My men, ten of them clustered there, guns in hand, armed and equipped, their eyes aglow, some covered by masks, others laid bare. Killers. My killers.
I took slow breaths and gazed at my watch. The seconds were going faster tonight. I could tell something was in the air . A crackle, an omen. But it was not important.
"Listen up," I said, speaking low but sharply. They sat up like hounds on command
