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“Please,” the woman begged, her long, black hair matted with blood and dirt and hanging limp around her pale face, “I’ll do anything you want, just stop! I have money! I can give you money. Please, I can’t take any more.”
The Soldier remained unsympathetic to her pleas. She was disgusting. So weak. So easily broken.
“You know the crime you pay for,” he intoned without inflection. “No begging will stop it.”
She whimpered. The Soldier would end this soon. He took no pleasure in causing pain, but her death needed to take longer than the others’. She deserved at least that much for what she’d done.
“I don’t,” she protested. “I don’t know. Please, tell me what it was and I can make it right. I can, I promise!”
The Soldier squatted down beside her, fisting one hand in her hair to yank her head back.
“You hurt him,” he snarled in her face. “He trusted you and you betrayed him. That is unforgivable.”
His knife ran across her throat with expert precision, spilling her blood across the ground and splattering his boots. She convulsed once, twice, before her body stilled and her muscles went slack. He watched as the fear and pain in her eyes faded with her life. He dropped her limp form to the ground without preamble and stood. He would need to clean up here, but he could put that off a few minutes.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed a now-familiar number before holding it to his ear.
“Good evening, Soldier,” a posh, British accent spoke before there was even a single ring. “How may I assist you?”
“Remove Sunset Bain from our list.”
“At once. And may I offer my congratulations on excellent progress made? You are most efficient in your task.”
The Soldier hummed in acknowledgement of the compliment.
“I’ll return to the tower in four hours.”
“I will ensure your path is kept clear.”
As the Soldier ended the call, he couldn’t help taking a moment to stare at the picture set as the background on his phone. Tony’s smiling face beamed out at him, eyes warm, caught mid-laugh.
“The easiest part of this whole thing was falling in love with you.”