Trust Me

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Book excerpt

Chapter One

Christian was almost rattling with nervous excitement. He had never done anything like this before. He’d thought about it – who hadn’t? Surely everyone has thought about it? He pondered while sipping a black Americano. He didn’t need the caffeine – he was already buzzing. Not many would have the balls to go through with his plan. He thought he would feel worse about it than he did. But he didn’t feel bad at all. He felt alive. He felt the most alive he had done in quite some time and the irony was that plotting Sara’s death was what made him feel that way.

He couldn’t sit still. If he wasn’t tapping his fingertips on the small marble table, big enough for two coffee cups maybe with a side plate each but no more than that, he was looking over his shoulder for his hit man to arrive and to check for anyone watching him. No one was close enough to see but, if they were, they would see tiny beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip.

He was afraid of getting caught, nothing else. The bitch had it coming, as far as he was concerned. He felt nothing more and nothing less. The only nerves he had were for his own reputation. She told him repeatedly he was a narcissist. An allegation he had rebuffed every time but now that he had ordered a kill, it had crossed his mind that perhaps he might be. It didn’t bother him. If it meant he could kill and not have a guilty conscience about it, then he was satisfied. He told himself it was a good thing. The plan he was putting into place was inevitable, he reassured himself, and he was lucky he could do it without any feeling. She was the one who had messed his head up. He could have given her everything she wanted but she ended it. He had never been dumped in his life. He felt he had to end her and move on.

As he nursed his black coffee, it occurred to him he didn’t actually know who he was looking for. All he knew was that the guy was called “X”. The meeting and death plot had been much easier to arrange than he would have thought, had it been something he had been planning for a long time.

After another full-blown argument with Sara, he had left the office and gone for drinks with some of his business contacts. They drank neat whisky and smoked some cigars that one of them had brought back from his latest “business trip” with his mistress. They all had mistresses. They all seemed to think they deserved one. Their wives were well kept but, after children and years of marriage, they had gone off sex. As far as the men were concerned, the wives never wanted for anything, so why should they? The only difference was, not one of them knew Christian had one. Sara. They all thought he was the good boy of the group. They assumed he was on the spectrum somewhere due to his obsession with work and nothing else. They had tried to buy him a dance in many strip clubs and told him the girls would “do anything he wanted” but he always laughed it off and told them he was happily married.

If only they knew what I was doing now. I would be the baddest motherfucker out of all of them but this is when keeping your mouth shut pays off. No one knows. No one will know. He smiled at this thought as he took another sip of his coffee. He had been so smart. He never knew it would come to this but he always knew that his friends could never know about Sara.

He watched the clock tick and as he looked up into the glass ceiling of the bustling café in London’s Royal Exchange, he started to feel faint. He undid his top shirt button and loosened his tie. He was nervous but he was excited. I bet all killers feel like this. Every single one of them, no matter what the circumstances, the thrill to do something so bad… the buzz of having that power.

He told himself she deserved it and that he need not feel an ounce of guilt about it. He had showered her with gifts and taken her to luxurious hotels. He had shown her a life no one else had or could. She wasn’t going to get away with ending it and being so ungrateful. She needed to learn that for every action, there is a reaction. She was going to learn the hard way. It was going to cost her her life. She would not be allowed to love again while Christian suffered.

After that last outing with his colleagues, he had stumbled his way back to the tube station. He hadn’t eaten and the whisky had hit him hard. He was desperate to get home before his feet gave up on him. He was so pissed he walked right into someone;

“Whoa, buddy. Watch where you’re going. You OK?’

“I’m fucked. In more ways than one. Everything’s fucked.”

“It can’t be that bad. You look like you could do with some water. Come into my club.”

“The last thing I need is a club.”

“It’s a boxing club and I am not giving you a choice.”

The burly stranger scooped Christian up and led into the dingy, damp boxing club. The air was moist with pheromones and the lights were fuzzy. His new friend sat him in a chair and passed him a bottle of water.

“Drink. You’ll be lucky to get anywhere if you don’t. You’re ready for the land of Nod.” The man muscle mountain laughed as he put both hands against the side of his head and mimed going to sleep.

Christian gulped the bottle down in one and immediately felt slightly better. He looked around and had already forgotten where he was. His speech was slurred and his legs had no strength. He looked over one shoulder then the other and then in front of him. He didn’t know what he was doing here or what the man wanted with him but he didn’t have the energy to care either. He wanted to pass out.

“So what’s up, my man? Business suit, slim build, not a hair out of place yet can hardly hold your own weight. You have drunk more than you normally would, I’m guessing, so who’s pissed you off?”

“You don’t know. You don’t know them but I want them gone. They have ruined my life. I gave them everything and they took and they took. I’m broken. I’m screwed. I’m going to lose everything because I gave it all to them.” He slurred and ranted like a madman.

“Shit man. There are a lot of snakes out there. Look man, how bad do you want them gone? I can help you with that, for a price.”

He had Christian’s attention.

“You can?”

“Sure can, my man. You pay the fee. I’ll get you a call and you take it from there. I don’t like to see a good man down.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred for me and then the hit man will let you know his price.”

“Done. I’ll wire it over now.”

“No fucking way, man. Nothing can ever be traced. Cash by noon tomorrow and we go from there.”

It had been as easy as that. Christian had left the club in a taxi. He thought about the murder plan all the way home and after contemplating various scenarios of how it could happen and then telling himself it couldn’t, he decided it was boring to think it was impossible. He was committed to the buzz. The buzz of his first kill. He assumed it would be his only kill but maybe not. Maybe he would get addicted to the feeling. The power that taking someone’s life would give might be something he couldn’t stop.

By the time he had arrived home that night, he had sobered up. Not that his wife would agree, had she been awake to greet her husband, but that didn’t happen. That never happened any more. That’s why Sara and his other girlfriends had happened.

Christian felt underappreciated. He was getting older but still had the sex drive of a twentysomething-year-old. He was developing a complex over his thinning hair and small but growing wine gut. He needed to feel desired. Susan’s constant rejections had pushed him into the arms of other women. Susan never rejected his credit cards but she had given up on her side of the bargain so he told himself he deserved to get his pleasure where he could.

He’d had a number of casual flings, rarely lasting more than a few weeks and he was always the one who ended it. Until Sara.

After so many brief affairs, Christian wanted a mistress, like his friends. Not that he would ever tell them. Sara came along at the perfect time – or did he find her? It was easy. As easy as it had been to find a hitman. He had watched his friends do it for years so he knew where to go. He took himself to a bar straight from the office one night. He had seen many attractive women go in there night after night in their tight, body-sculpting suits and dresses. They ranged in age and body shapes and sizes. He wasn’t as picky now as he would have been many years ago. He just wanted a release. He wanted somebody to want him. He had seen his ideal woman about 20 times but had always resisted. Then, one night, he cracked. He was sick of wanking and would settle for a hand job from someone else, let alone sex.

He perched at the bar and, after his third beer, Sara appeared. She was gorgeous and out of his league but she was exactly what he wanted to get into bed with. She was the type of woman any man like him would want to get in to bed with. Young, sexy and naïve.

She was supposed to be meeting someone but they hadn’t turned up. Christian told her the same. They had several drinks together, all of which he bought. Anything she wanted. Enough to get her to relax but not so much that she could have him arrested. He let her do all the talking just so that he could agree with her on everything, make her think they were a match and roll into bed together. That’s exactly what happened. It didn’t even take much effort and he got everything he wanted. He took her number, got in a taxi and went home to his wife. He didn’t feel any guilt. He deserved it. He worked hard and he needed to get laid. It was that simple.

He got into bed and kissed Susan on the cheek. She grunted at him. He ran his hand over her body and tried to get in between her thighs. She pushed him away. He didn’t care. He was just showing her nothing was out of the normal. She didn’t need to know that two hours ago he had a stranger bent over her bed while he had unprotected sex with her and finished inside her. He felt great about it. He was the man.

That’s how the affair started and now, 11 months later, he was meeting a Serbian man he knew only as “X” to have her killed.