Heart of Assassin

Chapter 1

I was sitting in a squeaky wooden chair in the hallway next to a spindly, doily-topped table. While through the double doors in front of me lawyers decided my fate. It wasn’t that they were specifically talking about me or cared at all that I existed; no, if I couldn’t be sold for money either whole or cut up for spare parts, I was useless.

They were cutting up those pieces of what was left of my father’s life, weighing the value of houses and cars against what was owed to the bank. What was clear was that my life would be forever changed. I stood up and stared into my face in an oval Victorian styled mirror that hung over the small table. In high school I was labeled “Skank” because my single parent father could not teach me to look and act like a proper girl. I was voted most likely to be locked away in a mental institution. Staring back at me through plain grey eyes was a 19 year old girl with a thin short nose, small mouth with thin lips and a pointed chin that was a bit too small. All of my workouts hadn’t added any woman like shape, just slightly more muscle definition, making me look more like a boy in B cups.

I fussed with my straight mouse brown hair trying to get the top layer to stay in the clip that tied it back. The sound of chairs grating against the wooden floor startled me back to reality signaling the end of the meeting in the next room. A hand grasped the door handle with much more force than necessary, rattling the frosted glass before yanking it open in a show of masculine strength. The smell of cologne preceded the troop of money-eating vultures out of the room, each in their dark grey suits and power ties that draped from their necks like the throbbing penis display of a male baboon.

They didn’t say a word as they marched from the room, jaws clenched, muscles rippling on clean-shaven manly faces, not even looking in my direction. I watched the procession go down the steps and out the side door before I looked towards the open door of the meeting room. Markus Philter, a short, round, balding man who was the lawyer for my father’s estate, was standing there gazing at my breasts.

“You can come in now, Millicent,” he said. I walked into the converted Victorian parlor, now dominated by a simulated wood grained conference table that extended almost to the bay window on the far end. I slowly slid into one of the fake leather swivel chairs, still warm from its previous occupant. I felt somehow soiled.

With his eyes still firmly fixed on the open buttons of my Henley T-shirt, Mr. Philter passed me several sheets of paper.

“As you most likely know Millie, can I call you Millie?” he continued, without waiting for an answer,

“much more was owed on your father’s estate than it was worth. Therefore, there is not really anything left besides what was specifically in your name, which means only the $5,328.63 in your bank account.”

“What about my car?”

“I’m afraid, Millie, that the car is still in your father’s name.”

“Not the Pontiac, the Volkswagen, don’t I get to keep that?”

“I’m afraid not Millie, officially that was still in your father’s name. There are certain items, however, you are entitled to, meaning clothes and personal effects, but you will need to be out of the house by the end of the month.” I was about to pee my pants as reality was finally getting a grip on me.

“Well Millie that’s a list of the terms and items you may take from the premises. If there are no more questions, you may go.” He stood jogging the papers he still held, and ushered me out of the room. The old wood and glass door rattling behind me as it closed.

Still staring at the papers, but unable to focus on the words, I stumbled down the steps and out the side door, just in time to watch my white VW, with the rainbow Apple sticker on the back window, trundle after a tow truck out of the Law Office driveway and down Hampton Street. My dad always thought tyranny would come with uniformed soldiers marching in step down Main Street with guns, forcing everyone to submit. No, it came with more stealth, from men in dark suits, picking us off one at a time. I wandered dazed down Hampton Street, a two-block road behind the town green of Winfield Connecticut. Isn’t this the part where Prince Charming comes galloping up on his white charger to whisk the ugly duckling princess away from her disastrous life with the dead end job to live happily ever after? Shit, the hell with Prince Charming, I’d take the ugly duckling’s old dead end job.