Daniel > Recent Status Updates

“What constitutes a Riordan-worthy hit?”

“They have to deserve death.”

“So, like rapists, murders?”

“Yeah, I was able to sleep at night when they were off the streets. We get people who are hurting and want vengeance. I can’t say no to every one even though I want to. So when a mother says she wants her son’s killer to die slowly and the hit falls under my moral code, I give that mom her pound of flesh.”

I remembered the hit. Order came from a distraught father. His daughter had been raped, tortured for weeks. They caught Diego, but he ended up getting off on a technicality. The father wanted Diego to die by inches. Slowly, and the body was never to be found. “Diego suffered horribly. You peeled his skin in strips, cauterized his junk, and ripped his eyes from his sockets. You put Jones to shame on that kill.”

“That reaction is what will cost Teddy his life. If someone wants to hurt you, they'll strike at your heart. A lot of people think it’s the parents or siblings that garner the most reaction out of someone. It’s not. It’s the other half of a person.” He pointed toward the backyard. “If they get that reaction out of you by saying something like I did about Teddy, you’ll show your hand and the game will be over.”

I didn’t turn around for fear I’d cry. “Thank you, Teddy,” I whispered.

“Happy birthday, Riordan.”

I waited until I heard the shower turn on and was sure Teddy couldn’t hear me. Then I wept for the first time in years. For Felicia and her little boy, for my family I had been avoiding, for the fear of what was going on with Black and his organization, and for the unwavering kindness Teddy had shown me.

I gave him the biggest smile I could muster.

“Oh, sweet God, did you murder someone?” I guessed my face betrayed me.

“Not today,” I joked, and it was true.

“Why are you greeting me like the opening scene of a Leave It to Beaver episode? What’s happening?” His eyes were darting all over the room.

“I’m trying to be friendlier?”

He didn’t look convinced. “I see. Well, it’s freaking me out. Stop it.”

Quite a few times in the dead of night, I’d visit a morgue, slip in undetected, find my kill in the fridge, and claim the head. Those weren’t so much a bother as an inconvenience. It was the ones I had to dig up that were a pain in the ass. Digging into frozen ground to decapitate a corpse was not a fun Friday night. But, I compartmentalized for years and did it. That was how my clients knew the job was done.

I was given the name “The Dullahan.” The Irish version of the headless horseman. Not because I killed. No. It was how I did it. My message. Whenever someone found a body, they knew it was The Dullahan that had done it because I always took the head. One way or another.

I didn’t want to go to jail, so I went to the location Black had given me. It was there I found my calling as an assassin. I killed people for a living. I got a lot of money for it. Mobsters, drug dealers, who knows. I didn’t ask. Much. As long as they deserved death, I did it. Sometimes, their deaths were fast, other times slow.

This was the hardest part of my job. People thought that what I did was simply hold people and then walk away. That wasn’t the case. I volunteered at the hospital and hugged little babies and children who had been abandoned. Or those that craved touch. I’d watched children and babies die. I’d held the hands of patients in hospice as they took their last breath. It never got easier.
🥺

Re-read '25

Doing LOTS of skimming 😒

I'm hooked already!

"When am I supposed to sleep?”

“It won’t be every night. Just when storms are rolling through.”

“Because rain is the perfect condition for a fire to break out.”

“Hold onto your ass, wise guy, but two-thirds of forest fires in this state are started by lightning.”

Luca tugged the obligatory Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires! poster from its nail beside the axe. “But Smokey said it was all down to campers!”

“Now, just a few questions before you settle in. Did you get bitten by a snake?”

“What? No. Why?”

“Any crippling heatstroke or hypothermia?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Did you projectile vomit or crap yourself at any point from eating poisonous berries or drinking fouled water?”

“This ... can’t be a standard checklist?”

“Nope, just tallying up the wagers from the control room. Welcome aboard!"

“Yes. I feared this might happen.”

“Then fucking unhappen it,” Zee snarled.

“I’ve instigated a domino effect that will cut off its vital services one by one. Whatever power source keeping the portal open has shut down. This building is in its death throes. Our situation has become a great deal more precarious than it was moments ago.”

Zee’s tail whipped his fury. “You are the worst vampire sidekick ever.”

Hate that gawdawful cover 😣 ... but I'm in the mood for sweet and fluffy. Let's see if this one delivers. 😏

“I’m sure I’m wrong,” he said, rescuing me. “And this is just a calculation error that has opened up a random door above your bed, Adam. A mere . . . mishap.”

“Yes.” I clicked my fingers. “That’s exactly what this is. An accounting error.”

“Someone typed the wrong numbers into an Excel spreadsheet and summoned a pussy-shaped portal to Adam’s room?” Zee asked, his face screwed up in doubt.

“Erm . . . yeah?”