Chasing Mafia's Heart

We all have that one moment in life, where you think, this is just how things are, then that unexpected twist occurs and it changes everything. Sometimes you can see the change as it happens, and other times it’s in the blink of an eye. That’s how it happened for me.

I came home early from an assignment and there it was, that one moment in life that changes absolutely everything. I put my backpack down in the living room and walked down the short hall to our bedroom. The television was on and it drowned out the other noises, otherwise I might have known before I opened that door.

It was slightly ajar and I pushed it open. I took in every little detail. She was on top of him, oblivious to the fact that I was standing at the door. I looked at them for a few moments, gyrating together and I wasn’t even shocked. I wasn’t as hurt and angry as I should have been, maybe I was just humiliated.

“Nice,” I said and turned around as the shock registered on her face. She had a blanket wrapped around herself and she rushed into the living room where I was already putting my backpack on. I picked my helmet up as she grabbed my arm.

“Blake…” I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t care to hear her excuses.

“Go back to your friend, I’m sure you have some unfinished business together,” I said.

She stood in front of the door blocking it and her eyes were pleading. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake! You’ve been so distant lately and you’re never home anymore. You’re always out on assignments.”

I looked at the helmet in my hand and all I wanted was to leave. “That’s your excuse?”

She looked down briefly. “I’m sorry. Can we please just talk about this?”

“What’s there to talk about? I work and you screw other men. It doesn’t work for me.”

Nataly’s grip on my arm tightened. “Blake. Don’t throw away three years just because I had sex with someone else. He doesn’t mean anything.”

“That just makes it worse, Nataly. If you felt something for him, maybe I could try to see how this happened. Emotions cloud our judgment, but the fact that you feel nothing for him just means that you’re easy.”

“Dammit, Blake. Don’t do this,” she said, her voice growing softer.

“Go back to your friend. I’m done here. I’m not mad at you and I’m not going to make a scene. I’m definitely not going to fight for whatever it is we had, because it certainly wasn’t a relationship,” I said.

I pushed past her and opened the front door. Three years of my life had been wasted thinking that I had been happy with her. It was probably not the first time either, I realized.

“Blake!” She yelled after me.

“Goodbye, Nataly.” I walked out of the front door and my home and headed to the elevator. I walked out of our apartment building and I never went back. I left everything behind and just drove. I drove to the apartment I kept in the city and called my handler, Lynda. I took a leave of absence from work and I started my search. I came across a rundown farmhouse for sale in Epworth and I bought it sight unseen.

I spent my time fixing up the house and digging out a basement. I’d never shied away from hard work and spending my time on the farm gave me a new perspective. I didn’t have any real memories of my childhood other than being trained. I was adopted at the age of three by Peter Cavendish and before that, I remembered nothing. 

Peter was the director of the organization I worked for and the first few years of my life I’d been his experiment. I was also his greatest success story to date. When I was four years old I picked up my first Jericho, felt the weight of that gun in my hand and something in my mind clicked. The gun felt like an extension of my arm and Peter began his training.

I was starved, beaten, kept in a dark hole, trained in ballistics, how to suppress my emotions, how to kill without remorse and I took my first life when I was fifteen. Peter was convinced that if you placed a child in a certain set of circumstances and in the right environment, you could alter that child’s genetic personality from what he or she would have been.

I didn’t want to agree with that. A child was born the way they are, with their talents already there. If you hone those talents, work on that skill, then you become what you were always truly meant to be. Every moment in life was a set of circumstances and you played with the cards that life dealt you. The real question was, could you change that? The answer is simple. Yes. Everyone has choices and the ability to change your life if you want to, especially when that unexpected twist happens.

In my case, I had a few twists coming my way. The Nataly twist didn’t really impact my life as much as it would have if I’d really loved her. I was already cold and unfeeling, she just made me less trusting than I already was. I spent six months pouring my soul into that rundown house and by the time I was finished, I felt like a new person.

My name is Blake Cannon but I’m better known as Jericho. I’m six foot three and I average at about two hundred and sixteen pounds. I have dark brown hair and gray eyes and you’ll never see or feel me coming. 

I was a ghost and I killed for a living. It was something I was extremely good at. I was the best in my field and the team that worked with me was once my family. The word held a different meaning to me once I started remembering.

This is my story of how one unexpected twist can change it all, especially when that twist is that you can shift into a wolf.