[SP] every time you kill someone, their fatal wound shows up as a scar on your body.
*****
ONE YEAR LATER
The Bahamas.
An archipelagic country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic. It consists of more than 700 islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, and it had its economy built majorly on tourism.
And this was where I finally found myself two months ago, after finally returning from my job. It was a timely retirement - EncroChat had been busted open by French Authorities, and most of those using it - especially musicians and public figures who peddled drugs - had been arrested. But I was free, off the radar, and impossible to track. I had switched offshore accounts, converted 90% of my finances to crypto.
I was off the grid.
I took a sip out of my margarita and sighed as I lay face down under an umbrella, a girl massaging my back. Around here, they assumed that I was an ex-military man or agent with all those scars. I told them it was torture, and everyone sympathized with me. Of course, it was just convenient that there was no manhunt for a man with so many scars all over their body, because no one alive had seen me like that.
As expected, Natahn Prescott survived. He had finally recovered enough to tell everyone the 'full' story of the assassination attempt, and how he suspected it to be courses of business competitors. It gave me insight into how he managed to avoid what I felt was a sure death. At the instant I ended the call, he had already shifted the phone a bit away from bis ear to throw it at the wall in anger, That small movement was enough to give him a grave injury - even the best plastic surgery had to offer could not cover up some of those deep scars, even if his face didn't look as mangled as it should have.
He also lost an eye, and suffered minor brain damage - just enough to slow his reflexes a bit and make him forget some conditioned reflexes - like writing and driving. It was a trying time for him, and the media and NGOs were all over him, kissing his ass and offering help, interviews and using him as some model or frontman for their movements and schemes.
Itb was all very good for business, as sales skyrocketed. While he was comatose and receiving treatments last year, his fashion exhibition owned the London Fashion Week. This year, while he was confined to a wheelchair, he watched on as his line owned that runway again in Paris.
I had just about written him off at that point. Even if he wanted to, where was he going to start from? Revenge is therapeutic, I agree, and I was sure there were a lot of demons he battled with since he survived that attempt. He would probably be satisfied with putting an assault rifle to the back of my head and letting loose, but there was no way he'd do that.
That situation made remember Skeletor, and I laughed. I could almost hear the masseuse smile as she asked me if it tickled.
"It feels really good, is all. You're good with your hands, Maria."#
Now I know she laughed at that. "Not just my hands," she said seductively.
That was smooth. "I'll be the judge of that. 307, 7 PM."
She got the drift.
But that was not why I laughed, It was Skeletor's last act that made me laugh out, because it felt so futile to me. Initially I thought he was in a hurry to complete the job by all means, so that he would get the payment from Prescott whenever he recovered, but now I realized that did not make any sense. At best, Presoctt had a fifty-fifty chance of surviving then.
Then it had to be a personal vendetta. For whatever reason, he had become obsessed with finishing me off. And he was probably decided to do Prescott too if he got the chance. I laughed again, thinking about how naive that thought was. Whatever his motivations were for making that choice, they had died with him.
The skeletons in my cupboard? I'd destroyed that cupboards and I'd taken care of my ghosts, so now I was free from all of that.
I finished my margarita and tapped Maria's thing lightly, telling her that I was okay. She smiled, and walked off, making sure to show off a bitof her cleavage before she left. I needed a refill, and some sleep, because it didn't look like I was going to sleep that night.
As I walked towards the stand, I felt a coarse hand grab my shoulder, as I moved to turn, the familiar voice stopped me in my tracks, as I felt what was unmistakably a gun barrel pressed to my back.
"If you look back, I shoot. Just keep moving till I ask you to stop."
I turned back anyway and starred into the eyes of Nathan Prescott, layers of makeup covering the scars left behind by surgeries and the injury.
"I dare you to, Prescott," I said, closing the distance between us and staring him down. "I really dare you to."
I talked big, but deep down I was scared. How did he find me?
*****
TO BE CONTINUED.
Thanls for Reading!
