Chapter 12: The First Harvest
It was 3 in the morning. The "Purple Lotus" was still a noisy neon blob against the darkness of Miami, but the frenetic energy of midnight had faded, leaving only the persistent and the desperate. The salsa music, now muffled, kept beating through the walls like a tired heart.
In the back alley, the darkness was almost total, broken only by the flickering of a faulty security light. Fifteen-year-old Jonathan descended down a rusty drainpipe, his (stolen) combat boots landing on the wet pavement without making a sound.
Ten meters away, sitting on an overturned plastic chair, was the first obstacle. The guard of the alley. His head was thrown back, his mouth open in a dull snore, half asleep.
Jonathan's mind processed the image with instant coldness. The innate whisper sang: 'Machete. Cervical spine. Ascending cut. 0.2 seconds. Silent. Definitely.'.
A surge of adrenaline accompanied the thought, the old need to obey. But Jonathan crushed her.
'Inefficient,' he thought, applying his Inverted Training. 'The objective is not murder. The goal is capital. A dead body requires cleaning. A sleeping person is just... garbage.'
He moved. It was not walking; It was a way of flowing, gliding over the oily puddles, its form blending into the deepest shadows. The guard snored again, completely oblivious.
Jonathan stopped next to him. He raised his hand. His fingers did not close into a fist to strike, but hardened into a "spearhead." His fingers shot up and hit a single, precise pressure point under the ear, on the vagus nerve.
There was a sigh. The snoring stopped. The guard collapsed, deeply unconscious.
'Neutralized'..
He continued to the basement door. The lock was a joke, a standard model of pin and socket. He opened it in three seconds. The door creaked. He froze. He waited for two heartbeats. Nothing.
He descended into the damp darkness. The air smelled of mold and spilled beer. He found the fuse box on the wall. Its "seams" were obvious: sloppy, unshielded wiring that went upstairs. 'Office'. Using a small piece of wire he had prepared, he bridged the circuit. The alarm indicator light on the panel flashed from green to amber and then back to green. The system was now reporting that everything was normal.
He climbed the narrow service stairs. The smell of stale sweat grew stronger. He heard footsteps ahead, muffled by the music. Another guard.
Jonathan melted into a hole in the wall, right where the water pipes created a deep shadow. His instincts had warned him of the patrol car seconds before it appeared.
The guard walked by, a burly man walking lazily, swinging his flashlight. Jonathan waited for me to turn his back on him.
He slipped behind the man. A quick move. A controlled hand edge blow, not in the throat (lethal), but at the base of the skull (disabling). The guard fell like a sack, his knees hitting the ground with a thud that was swallowed by the bass of the music.
'Neutralized'.
Jonathan reached the end of the hallway. The door of the Capo's office. This lock was better. He pulled out a set of tensioned steel lock picks that he had "freed" from the harbor. He inserted the tension tool, then the lock pick.
Instead of forcing her, he listened, feeling the passers. Click. Click. Click.. The lock opened with a soft, satisfying click.
He opened the door an inch. He sniffed the air. Expensive perfume. Cigarette smoke. And sweat.
The office was dark. Entered.
….
The office was dark, almost silent. The only sound was the distant thump-thump-thump of salsa bass climbing up the floor and the high-pitched hum of the security monitors on the wall. The room smelled of stale cigar smoke, expensive leather, and the faint metallic whiff of an accountant's fear.
Jonathan walked in, a ghost in the room. His feet made no noise on the thick-pile carpet.
He ignored the screens shown by the club's cameras. His target was the opposite wall. His eyes, now perfectly adapted to the darkness, saw the slight misalignment in the wallpaper that his recognition from the roof had identified. He pushed aside a tacky picture of a sailfish. Behind, embedded in the concrete, was the metal dial of a safe.
Jonathan knelt down. His fingers, sensitive enough to feel the slightest imperfection in a gun or the bones of a fish through the skin, landed on the cold metal dial.
He closed his eyes. I didn't listen; I felt.
He turned the dial. Click. He felt the microscopic vibration of the first pinion snap into place. He turned in the other direction. Click. The second. Click. The third. The handle turned in a well-oiled whisper. The heavy door opened.
It was full of wads of cash. Hundred-dollar bills, tightened with rubber bands. Jonathan opened his military backpack and, with quick, silent, and efficient movements, began to transfer the money.
"You know, accountants often use duffel bags. The backpacks are for school children."
The voice was deep, slurred speech, and filled with lazy amusement.
Jonathan froze. It was not a shock. It was an absolute stillness, the instantaneous cessation of all movement.
The voice came from the darkest corner of the room, an area his eyes had dismissed as empty, obscured by the shadow of an indoor palm tree.
A wet click echoed as a cigar cutter closed. Then, the orange glow of a freshly lit cigar briefly lit up a broad, sweaty face.
From a huge high-backed leather armchair, which Jonathan had mistaken for just another piece of furniture, a man emerged. He was corpulent, with a purple silk shirt attached to his sweaty torso. He held a polished gold revolver in one hand and the smoking cigar in the other. The Capo.
He took a drag on his cigarette, the smoke spiraling up. "I saw you on my private cameras, kid," he said, his voice dripping with sadistic amusement. "Ever since you said goodnight to my idiot in the alley. A clean job. Fast. You impressed me."
The Capo smiled, showing several gold teeth. He slowly stood up, the revolver never leaving the center of Jonathan's chest.
"You're good. Really good," the Capo continued, circling the desk. "Fifteen years? Sixteen?" He gestured with the golden gun to the backpack. "But you're still just a kid. And you just walked into a man's office."
…..
Jonathan slowly straightened up, his hands visibly pulling away from the backpack full of money. El Capo smiled, enjoying the moment, mistaking the boy's calm for fear.
But Jonathan wasn't scared. I was calculating.
His mask of calmness held firm as his innate killer instinct broke down the man in front of him. The cold, whispering voice in his mind listed the Capo's flaws with clinical precision.
'Seams', he thought. 'Weight: 140 kg. Excessive adipose tissue. Fine tremors in the hand of the gun; chronic alcoholism. Confirmed enlarged liver. Slow.'. His gaze drifted momentarily to the table. 'Massive femoral artery exposed under the desk. Vulnerable.'. He was a dead man pretending to be a king.
"I like your style, kid," the Capo said, taking a long drag on his cigarette, smoke curling toward the blades of the ceiling fan. "No fear. Clean. I hate loud bullies. I saw you on camera, how you took care of my idiots in the hallway. Fast. Silent."
He rested his considerable weight on the desk, the gold revolver still pointed at Jonathan's chest. "I was going to kill you for the robbery. It's the beginning. But you're too talented to waste it. Work for me. I'll make you rich."
Jonathan cocked his head, his innocent smile returning for a split second, a terribly jarring gesture in the tense room.
"I don't like to be given orders."
The Capo's smile faded. The gold in his teeth seemed to be dulled. "Too bad."
He raised the heavy gold revolver.
Jonathan's world slowed to a halt. The murderous instinct he had suppressed for three years in his 'Reverse Training' was now perfectly aligned with his survival. There was no conflict. Only purpose.
El Capo pulled the trigger.
BANG!
The sound was deafening in the small office. The large-caliber bullet tore through the air, piercing the exact spot where Jonathan's chest had been 0.1 seconds ago.
But Jonathan was no longer there.
It was already moving. He had crossed the three meters of distance between them faster than the human eye could follow. In a single fluid motion, his hand went behind his back, under his worn jacket, and drew the rusty machete, the same weapon he had used to free himself from the Orphanage.
El Capo, with his eyes wide open because of the boy's impossible speed, tried to turn the heavy revolver for a second shot.
It was too slow.
Jonathan's Touki, cold and oppressive, flowed down his arm and focused on the jagged edge of the work weapon.
SHIIING!
The machete sang as it cut through the air. He struck the golden revolver. It didn't bounce. There was no resistance. He cut the polished steel barrel like it was butter.
Without stopping, the blade continued its upward arc. He slashed the Capo's wrist, separating the hand that held the gun. It continued upwards, through its thick throat, and out cleanly over the opposite shoulder.
The fight was over.
The Capo stood still for a second, his glassy eyes fixed on the boy, with an expression of utter disbelief. His body then collapsed into two clean, separate halves that fell to the ground with a dull, wet noise.
Jonathan stood in the middle of the quiet room, his breathing calm and even. He watched the body, the killer instinct receding, the whisper fading.
There was no remorse. There was no pleasure. Just the cold fulfillment of a task. This was not the frenzied massacre of the Orphanage. This was his first death by choice.
…..
Jonathan calmly wiped his rusty machete on the dead Capo's expensive silk shirt, the harsh sound of cloth wiping away the blood. He holstered the weapon on his back, the movement was smooth and practiced. The smell of gunpowder and blood filled the room. He bent down and finished zipping his military backpack, now bulging with the "released" funds. His mission was complete. Efficiency dictated the way out: the window, the roof, disappear.
He was about to turn to the window when he heard it.
A blow. Deaf, rhythmic. Followed by a stifled sob.
He froze.
The sound wasn't coming from the club downstairs. It came from the back wall of the office; of a heavy reinforced steel door marked "PRIVATE", secured with a large industrial padlock.
Blow. Sob.
His instinct was immediate and cold: Ignore. Variable unknown. Inefficient. Unnecessary risk. You already have the capital. The mission is complete. Get out now..
He froze, his hand on the strap of his backpack. He was free. He could leave. He had killed to ensure his survival and his financing. He had won.
Blow. A groan choked with pain.
Jonathan sighed, the sound barely audible. His "Inverted Training" was to control his killer instinct, but this interference, this deviation from the efficient path... this was something else. It was the "straight" side of his nature clashing with his programming. And, frankly, I was curious.
He walked towards the steel door. He looked at the padlock. Tempered steel. I could break it with the machete, but it would be loud and take time. His eyes moved to the hinges.
Seams..
They were welded to the frame, but the weld was of poor quality, rusted by Miami moisture.
He took a step back. He didn't need to prepare. He lifted his combat boot and threw a perfectly controlled side kick, not at the door, but directly at the top hinge. It was not brute force; it was a focused vibration, his latent Touki concentrated in his heel.
CRACK!
The metal squeaked and broke. He repeated the movement on the bottom hinge.
CRACK!
The heavy steel door collapsed inwards with a metallic groan and fell to the ground with a clatter.
The smell of stale fear, sweat and cheap perfume came from the dark room.
In the light of the hallway, he saw the scene. Two young women, dressed only in torn lingerie, were tied to metal chairs. They were gagged, and their eyes, wide with terror, shone with fresh tears. When they saw it, a dark figure silhouetted in the doorway, they shrank, preparing for the next monster.
Jonathan sheathed his machete.
He entered the small room. He pulled out the combat knife he had taken from the sleeping guard in the hallway. The women closed their eyes, sobbing through their gags.
He moved with surgical precision. Zzzt. The first woman's gag fell. Zzzt. His rope ties unraveled.
He turned to the second. Zzzt. Zzzt.
Within five seconds, both were free.
They stood there, trembling, not daring to move, staring at him with a mixture of terror and confusion.
Jonathan backed away toward the door. He put a finger to their lips. His innocent smile, the mask he hadn't worn since he entered the club, returned. She was strange and jarring in the blood-soaked office.
"Shhh," he whispered. "He will not come anymore."
He pointed to the front door. The women stared at him, then looked at each other. Understanding began to seep in. Trembling, they stood on weak legs.
Jonathan offered them his hand. Not gently, but with the efficiency of an extractor. They took it. He led them out of the room, past the mangled remains of the Capo, and guided them to the broken window overlooking the Miami sunrise.
- - - - - - - - - -
A/N
Hello everyone!
Sorry for not uploading a chapter yesterday, I've been very busy.
Today I will upload 2 chapters to make up for yesterday's.
Remember that you can follow me on Patreon and subscribe to read advanced chapters of this and other fanfics.
I would like to know what you think of the fic, what you would change, if it goes too fast, slow, etc. I read your comments.
Mike.
@Patreon/iLikeeMikee