A Hideous Profession

On the abandoned pier on the East side of a hustling city at eleven in the morning parked an onyx Rolls Royce Phantom with two businessmen sitting inside. They watched a nineteen-year-old boy pointing a gun at a grown, beaten man being held down by two other brawns. The rusted kid was sweating, scared, and shaking beyond control. He didn’t know if he was ready, but he had to be. The boss was watching and if he fucked this up, it would be his head. But why him? Why did it had to be him to pull the trigger?

Lucian Rochelli sat in the back of the luxury vehicle and watched the new kid, Sal, point his shiny new gun at Dominic twenty feet away from the car. Lucian cleared his throat before opening his silver flask to take a swig of his twelve-thousand dollar whisky. He took it from his old man’s treasure chest, but it wasn’t like he was around to drink it anymore.

“Why don’t you kill him yourself to get it over with, why let the new kid do it?” Caravaggio, Lucian’s assistant asked from the driver’s seat.

Lucian adverted his verdant eyes to look into the rearview mirror, meeting Caravaggio’s stare. “It’s because he doesn’t deserve that respect.” He took another swig and closed the flask. The young, twenty-two-year-old man looked out the window again and watched Dominic on his knees, his body completely distorted and blood bleeding down his face like an oil leak, struggling under two pairs of hefty hands.

Sal still held the gun to Dominic’s forehead, finger on the trigger, looking down at the traitor. Lucian could tell he was begging for his life.

Dominic deserved a painful death. Lucian’s family trusted their business with him and then all of a sudden, he broke their faith in him. Dominic had been working for Lucian’s father for ten years and knew the their system better than most. Alonso Rochelli, the second most powerful mafia leader in the city of Silverview, had rules. Every comrade memorized it as if it were the Bible and Dominic broke the number one rule; No messing with drugs. Drugs were banned from the gang and the rule would not be revised. Every member was clean and had their head screwed on straight; the Rochelli’s made sure of it.

Caravaggio’s uncle was right, it was a mistake making Dominic head of shipment deals. He was in charge of making sure every contraband was payed in full, packaged efficiently, and sent immediately to its destination.

Though, ever since Alonso’s death a few months back, Dominic began acting erratically. He became gluttonous of money and would lash out on those who didn’t follow his orders. He would kill off new members of the gang after he stole their money, and then would throw them into the very ocean that surrounded the abandoned pier.

But Dominic wanted more, so he made under the table deals within already under the table deals. He promised top of the line narcotics hidden in the barrels of the weapons being shipped overseas. Any deal the client had with Lucian was still valid, but if the foreigner wanted premium drugs made by the most capable gang in Silverview, Dominic needed them to pay in cash and only to him.

Lucian discovered the arrangement when he had some kind of odd feeling late at night to visit the warehouse to check on the shipment boxes himself. He discovered the pills and bags of white powder shoved into every barrel within every box. Fire rose within his body when he watched the security footage taken in the last week. He saw Dominic and five other men packing away at the boxes after hours.

Lucian looked back at Caravaggio., “you said this kid was ready, even graduated from The Pound, early. So why is he taking so long?” The Dog Pound was where every new recruited member of the Rochelli gang trained before actually working for them. The Rochelli’s believed in efficiency, so every member was handpicked fresh out of prison or off the streets and was sent straight to the Dog Pound.

Caravaggio looked up from his iPad and cleared his throat, “well, he’s good, but he’s never killed someone before.”

Lucian tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He remembered the first time somebody else’s life was in his hands. Lucian knew exactly how Sal was feeling. When Lucian was younger, he’d go to combat training and target practice everyday in an empty field. Combat was his specialty, but his aim needed work.

EIGHT YEARS AGO

“Again, Lucian.”

The young lad looked at his trainer, Serge, and wanted to punch his bald dome in. They were at it for two hours and Lucian, as hard as he tried, could never hit the saucers. It was three, small plates attached to three ropes of different lengths connected to some makeshift contraption Sergio created. The machine that spun the plates rotated at thirty miles per hour and Lucian had to hit every single plate to be done with the day’s training.

Lucian ran his hand through his straight, ink black hair and sighed. “Serge, can we please just call it a day? I’ve been doing this for two hours and I’m bored. I hit those other targets back there,” Lucian pointed to the massacred haystacks with shredded paper targets and arrows laying around everywhere. “so let’s just continue this tomorrow.”

Serge, the physically fit , seventy-year-old man straight out of Russia crossed his arms. In his thick arctic accent, he said, “that was archery and the targets weren’t moving. You passed idle shooting with a gun last week, so now you are training with moving targets.”

Lucian threw his hands up in frustration and the pistol in his left hand accidentally went off, sending a bullet in the sky.

Everyone in the vicinity covered their heads and ducked. Lucian peeked through his arms that were covering his head and looked at Serge who glared at the young buck. He shook his head and told Lucian to take a thirty minute break and left out of sight.

Twenty minutes later, Serge returned to the field dragging a robust middle aged man by the collar of his shirt. Lucian noticed that the guy had his hands tied behind his back and was frantically asking Serge what he was doing and where he was taking him.

Serge shoved the poor bastard to the ground beside Lucian. “I’m going to make this very simple. You either hit all of those targets in a row your next round or this man dies. You hit the targets, he lives and gets to go home. You miss again and you’ll be the one to kill him.”

Shocked at Serge’s proposal, Lucian swallowed his saliva and felt like he was overheating. How the hell was he going to pull this one off? He didn’t want this man to die, but he didn’t know if he had it in him to not miss. It was impossible. The targets were moving too fast and his eyes were getting blurry from not wearing his glasses. Why was he so lazy to put in his contacts that day? Damn him.

Lucian looked at the person below him that was begging for his life. Lucian saw it in his eyes that the man didn’t want to die— he wasn’t ready to. Lucian looked for a wedding ring on the man’s left hand and sure enough there was a gold band hugging his finger.

“You got any kids?” Lucian asked suddenly.

The man nodded his head profusely and started sobbing. “I-I-I have one boy and m-m-my wife is p-pregnant with our little girl.”

Lucian tilted his head up and tightly shut his eyes. The man had a family. How could he be responsible for this man’s death? How could he be so cruel to take away a father from his children and a husband from his wife? How could he be so cruel to not give it everything he had within him?

Lucian opened his eyes and looked straight into Serge’s stare, “I’m ready.”

Serge nodded his head and switched on the machine. The limp ropes elevated and became taut as the plates began spinning around faster and faster. Lucian followed them with his eyes— around and around and around they went. He could barely keep up, but he knew he had to.

Lucian took a deep breath and held up the pistol in his right hand and placed his left hand on the left side of the grip. He exhaled and continued to follow the plates around and around again. Lucian noticed his hands were shaking and scolded himself to get his shit together.

“Don’t shoot where they are, shoot where they’re going to be,” he chanted in his head repeatedly. Lucian clicked the safety and with that sound only, he felt like he suddenly saw everything in slow motion. He could see every ripple, every wavelength, and every rotation. His heart was sprinting to the moon and his eardrums wanted to retire from the sound of the heavy beat. His finger slowly, but surely made it’s way to the trigger. The small, cold metal piece still felt foreign to him, but he knew he needed to learn the language— and fluently.

Then with three fast pulls, he heard shattering of ceramic plates and white pieces went flying all around. The machine slowed down to a stop and nothing was left hanging on the ends of the ropes.

Lucian smiled in triumph and jumped up in excitement. He couldn’t believe it, “I did it! I did it!” He felt something alleviate off his chest and he looked down at the crying figure who looked just as relieved.

The man’s heart was still pounding, but there was so much weight lifted from his body. He was going to see his family again. He lifted his upper body from the ground and stayed there on his knees. “Thank you, thank you so much, sir!”

Serge slowly clapped his hands together as he walked toward Lucian. He patted the boy on his back and took the gun from his hands. “Good job, Lucian, we are done for the day.” Serge then positioned the gun in his right hand and shot the weeping man in his head, sending him to ground.

Lucian’s eyes grew wide. It all happened so fast that he almost couldn't wrap his head around what just occurred in front of him.

Lucian pushed Serge back with rage, “What the hell!? You lied to me! You said if I hit those targets in a row that he’d be safe!”

What Lucian didn’t know was that Barry Flint was going to die anyway. He owed the Rochelli’s a big some of money and was late on his payment.

Serge looked sternly into Lucian’s eyes, “Sometimes you have to lie to get what you want.”

PRESENT

Lucian opened his eyes and asked Caravaggio for a pen. His assistant took out a silver, luxurious tool from the inside of his suit jacket and handed it to Lucian. He looked at the writing utensil in his hand and started quickly weaving it back and forth through his fingers, just thinking. He then rolled down the window, clearly revealing the four figures and smirked. He flipped up the pen so it was rested between his thumb, index and middle finger as if holding a dart.

He aimed and threw the pen straight into the side Dominic’s neck, sending more blood to diffuse from his already blood leaking body. Dominic screamed in pain and was about to topple over when the two men held their grips.

“Hey kid, don’t waste your bullet on this one. He’s already bleeding to death, so just throw him into the water so you guys can grab some lunch.” Lucian was about to roll up the window when he added another thing, “Oh and take the pen out of his neck, sanitize it, and return it back to Caravaggio.” He fully rolled up the window and told his assistant to roll out.

His lanky colleague looked into the rearview mirror and told Lucian he didn’t want the pen back. Lucian smirked in amusement because he knew how much of a germaphobe Caravaggio was.

As the car moved swiftly through the town, Lucian watched as the small buildings in front of him became larger and larger as they approached the inner city.

“Don’t forget that you have a one o’clock lunch with Ms.Nadine later today.” Caravaggio reminded.

Lucian sighed, “I won’t.”