The Toymaker Read Online Free

every day for the last six months. First, his reputation as one of the best assassins in the business had been ruined when he failed to deliver on a contract in what was made into a public spectacle by the meddling of one man. Then several days later he was wounded in a shootout at a mansion in Georgia. Now, he could no longer support his lavish lifestyle and was forced to live like a rat in hiding.
    His last paying contracts had been lucrative but it had left him a pariah. Without work for six months, his cash reserves had dwindled. He needed work.
    Collins sat on a rock atop a hill looking down at the town of Ormos on Ios Island. His sanctuary. His retreat. And the rock—his favorite place for reflection, contemplation, and planning.
    The perch offered a beautiful vista of Ormos harbor; a tranquil sheltered waterfront nestled amidst the Greek Islands. He’d seen a postcard photo taken from the very spot he now sat. A cruise ship in the harbor had just dropped anchor. Soon tourists would flood the streets of his small retreat, buying over-priced trinkets from the merchants near the waterfront.
    Collins owned a small villa on Ios Island, one he’d paid cash for several years earlier while his cash flow was abundant. Whenever he felt threatened, whenever he got that uneasy feeling Interpol was getting too close, or whenever he just needed a break, this was where he came. Here, he was off the grid.
    And off the grid was where he had to stay. His travel would be limited. All expenses paid with cash. No paper trail could be left to follow. Not yet.
    Collins, a former Irish Republican Army hit man turned assassin, once had a lucrative business. He was good, maybe the best. During a time when society seemed to adopt an attitude of solving its problems by eliminating them, he was in the business of eliminating people’s problems—and business was good.
    Society labeled him a psychopath. He preferred “product of his environment.” He’d grown up with violence. In his younger days in Northern Ireland, it was a way of life.
    He hadn’t always been ruthless. He remembered the turning point, now a haunting memory. He was a teenager when an escaped convict came to his hometown of Londonderry. The man beat him, tied him up, and forced him to watch while the man raped a woman, the aunt of Collins’ best friend. He felt helpless and scared but another emotion emerged that day as he watched how powerless the woman was to defend herself. Domination over the weak. The convict was the mighty lion who had stalked his prey, taken what he wanted, and then, satisfied, walked away.
    Collins mastered the skills of an assassin. His hits were clean. Executed with precision and accuracy.
    Keeping a low profile was not easy anymore. After the botched assassination attempt in Savannah, Georgia on St. Patrick’s Day, his likeness and description had been telecast worldwide, and since that day, he was at the top of Interpol’s most wanted list.
    The logical thing was to disguise his appearance. Although distasteful to him personally, he kept his hair bleached and dyed to match the natural white streak in his hair leaving him with a full head of white hair. Dark brown contacts in both eyes masked his mismatched irises, one vivid blue, the other light brown. All traits associated with his Waardenburg’s Syndrome, a hereditary medical condition passed to him by his father.
    During childhood he’d dealt with the ridicule and joking about his different eye color and white streaked hair. He ignored the teasing and pretended it didn’t bother him. But things changed after he witnessed the rape. He began to get in fights, each one more brutal than the last, until he beat a boy to death. He hid the body and was never implicated—another runaway teenager the authorities ruled.
    Fear was soon replaced by the thrill of domination. There were other children who later disappeared and were never found. But they got what they deserved. And so will the