The Suppressor by Erik Carter (good books to read for beginners .txt) 📕

smile. “Well, there’s still time.” He glanced outside, to the left, to the right, back to the left. His long bangs swung with his quick movements. “There’s plenty of time, don’t ya think?” A nervous chuckle.

Jake peered out his window, leaning down so that he could look up the side of the wall, its red bricks glistening with moisture, its windows darkened.

“Yeah,” Jake said quietly. “There’s still time.”

Chapter Eighteen

Burton rapped a knuckle on the doorframe of the office, which was nestled in the far corner of the Farone mansion, another room of deep brown wood, from the coffered ceiling to the polished floor. A massive desk sat in the center of the room atop a sprawling rug.

Sylvester looked up from his position seated behind the desk.

And there it was—that goofy-ass smile of his.

It had a simple purity that was off-putting when you knew the sort of demented things the man enjoyed. Always smiling. You never knew whether the guy was pondering pinball—a hobby he adored—or surreptitiously jacking himself off to the memory of a man’s screams of agony.

Freak.

Because of his slithering qualities and his sinister nature, Sylvester had often been labeled a snake. But to Burton, he was a salamander. A long, thin body with spindly appendages. Jerky head movements. Wide eyes and thick, smacking lips. And unlike a snake, which was dry, Sylvester always looked moist. Slimy.

The salamander slithered up from the tall, plush leather chair and waved Burton in with a wet smile.

As Burton entered the room, he took off his jacket, laid it across the tufted chair opposite the desk, and rolled up his shirt sleeves.

Sylvester stood and went to the front of the desk, where he met Burton with a handshake.

“Burton. What brings you by, buddy boy?” He glanced at the clock behind the desk. “There’s not much time left before you need to be at Wagner.”

“I came to bury the hatchet.”

Sylvester rubbed his chin “How do you mean?”

“It’s no secret that your daddy has been a father figure to me. So it would only make sense why there are rumors that I’m planning on taking over the family.”

Sylvester smiled wider, waved it off, put a hand on Burton’s shoulder. “Burton, I—”

Burton reached into his back pocket. “And I want you to know that the rumors are true.” He pulled a small knife from its leather sheath and plunged it into Sylvester’s chest.

A screeching wheeze. Sylvester’s eyes went wide.

“Every word of the rumors is true.”

A few sputtering, bloody shrieks.

“Not so much burying a hatchet as burying a knife, I suppose.”

Gurgling. Wide eyes.

“Is this gruesome enough for you, ‘buddy boy?’” Burton said, pressing harder against the knife. Sylvester gasped. “Are you liking this, you goddamn freak?”

A jolt, and Sylvester’s body stiffened. Then went limp. And collapsed in Burton’s arms.

Burton lowered Sylvester into the chair. Salamander arms splayed. Back at an angle, slouching. Eyes and mouth open. A smear of blood on his chest.

As Burton tugged on the knife, it suctioned into Sylvester’s side. He had to give it two tugs to get it out.

His hand bore a sticky, glistening red glove. The knife, too, was entirely coated in blood, hardly even cleanable.

Screw it. Not worth the energy.

He dropped the knife in the trash can by the desk, then used his clean hand to take the sheath from his pocket and dropped it in the can as well.

He went to the office’s tiny half-bath and washed up in the antique porcelain sink. As he lathered off Sylvester’s blood, he watched his reflection. His lips wanted to smile, wanted to relish the victory, and he obliged them a bit by allowing the corners of his mouth to raise slightly.

It was a big step, killing Sylvester, both in terms of his overall plan but also for personal reasons. He’d just eliminated Joey Farone’s biological son. That brought Burton another rung up the ladder of the old man’s good graces. But there was another son—the surrogate son—still higher on the ladder than Burton.

Burton blinked. And came back to himself.

The water rushing over his fingers. His reflected face. The peak of his forehead glistening with a tiny sheen of perspiration.

He couldn’t relish the victory for long. And he certainly couldn’t dwell on the emotional aspect. Much remained to be done that night. On both fronts. Business and personal.

He turned the faucet off, dried his hands, rolled down his sleeves, re-buttoned them.

Back into the office, to the far side of the room where he retrieved his jacket and put it on.

No, tonight’s fun wasn’t over yet. Not even close. He needed to meet with his troops for a moment, then continue to the next step.

He gave his jacket a sharp tug, then reached into each sleeve and pinched the cuffs, pulled them out into view.

A final brush to the front of his jacket. Satisfied, he left the office.

Burton rounded the corner and entered the library.

Cecilia immediately looked up at him from her reclined position on a small sofa. A steaming cup of tea sat on the table beside her. She frowned. Her knees went to her chest. She closed the book she’d been reading, pinching a finger between the pages.

Burton gave her a warm smile. “Whatcha reading, Cecilia?”

She eyed him cautiously. “It’s about accelerationism, the dangers thereof. Technological, social, political.”

Burton stepped closer, smiled broader. “Acceleration? You’re speaking my language. I’m always looking for the next best thing, another opportunity for progress.”

“I’ve heard that about you, yeah.” Her eyes followed him.

“That’s why I’ve come to talk to you. You know, C.C.…” He stopped. “May I call you C.C.? That’s what your little cupcake calls you, isn’t it? I’m gonna call you C.C. You know, C.C., your pop is like the father I never had. But it only occurred to me recently that if Joey Farone is my father, that makes you and Sylvester my siblings. That’s what I’m doing tonight—letting my siblings know how very much they mean to me. I just showed Sylvester, buddy boy, how much I care. Now