It happened so quickly. We’d just left the reception and were headed for Heathrow. A honeymoon. It’s been so long since I’ve been that happy. I’d about reached the age where I thought I’d never see it happen for me.
A confirmed bachelor. Everyone was saying it. They’d given up on me. I’d given up on me. Love. It’s almost as if I’d forgotten something like love existed. To tell the truth, I can’t remember if I was ever in love before. Not like this. I was more she than she was, and I think she felt the same for me.
You know, I can’t recall any time in my life, with any woman I’ve been close to, that I ever felt the way I felt with Tracy. Will very likely never feel again.
Dammit. I could see the goddamn car coming up behind me but thought nothing of it. And then when it pulled out and passed on the left, in that spit second, I realized what was happening. But it was too late.
I rarely let my guard down like that. In my profession, you’re trained, over years and years for me, to be wary, to be alert in every situation all the time. And I wasn’t, for that critical one time, knocked off-kilter basking in that blissful haze of real, true love and marriage.
I jammed on the breaks in the hope that they’d overshoot me without having a chance for a clear shot. But whoever it was did shoot, and Tracy fell towards me. She died instantly. Her head in my lap. That image. The blood. The surprised expression on her face. I’ll never forget it, never forgive myself.
It should have been me. An old chestnut. Yes, that cliché in literature and the movies. But the reason statements like that become clichés is not that they’re overused. It’s because they are used. They make a point. An appropriate one expressing a genuine human feeling.
They wanted me. Whoever they were, they didn’t care if they killed Tracy in the process, but I was the target. It should have been me.
Revenge is a dish best served cold. Perhaps. Another sentiment much bandied about. But not the way it’ll be for me this time. I can’t quite fathom how I allowed Sir George to talk me into taking time off. Granted, I was hurting badly. And I suppose he’s right that my mind was a bit too scattered to do myself or the job much good.
But these people, they still want me. And I want them. In the worst way. We’ll see when it comes down to it, who walks away.
I owe it to Tracy. For a short space of time, she was my world. And that world has been shattered. The only way I can begin to put the pieces back together is to find and kill every single son of a bitch responsible for her death.
I don’t know. Does that mean the last one should be me? To be or not to be. Another one. Has every story been told before? Perhaps. But the question’s one I’ve been asking myself since it happened. If this is some kind of rehash, though, it’s a flaming one, and it’s ready to be served up piping hot.
But for this. Jesus. This is such a stupidly fine mess I’ve gotten myself into now. A vacation, my arse. And now when my guard is up, they still almost get me before I have my chance to watch them die.
No doubt about it. My best chance to execute what I want to do is to get my feet back on familiar ground. Once I’m back in England, I’ll mount an offensive the likes of which these bastards will never have conceived could be possible.
I’ll get out there, on my home turf, and I’ll bring all holy hell with me. Simply and systematically, I’ll kill every last one of them.
Lanning Lee 