I collapsed forward, my shoulder clipping the table before I hit the floor. The last thing I saw was a man standing over me, black gloves pristine against the cheap linoleum.
Perfect.
Minutes later—or maybe seconds; time was fuzzy—I woke to ice-cold water splashed across my face.
“Wakey, wakey.”
The voice carried a heavy accent.
I cracked my eyes open, expecting one person. Maybe two.
There were at least twenty.
All in black baseball caps and long peacoats. Some wore masks pulled high over their mouths and noses. Anonymous by design. Careful.
“So,” I muttered, blinking. “Is this a costume party?”
A boot connected with my shin.
I hissed. “Rude.”
“Congratulations,” the accented voice said. “You passed the first test. Didn’t choke on your own vomit. Woke up faster than anyone we’ve had in the past year.”
Good. The poison I’d microdosed earlier had done its job.
“It seems,” he continued, “you either knew protocol… or you’re built of stronger stuff.”
I shrugged as best I could from the floor. “So, what’s the second test? Since I passed the first one with flying colors?”
His eyes smiled. The rest of his face stayed hidden behind the mask. He seemed young. Too young to be this comfortable with violence.
He tugged the black gloves tighter over his hands. “We’re very selective about who we trust. Lucky for you, you know the right people. You could be… useful.”
He crouched slightly. “Except for one small problem.”
Of course.
“How do we know you won’t betray us?”
I nodded once. Fair question. “I don’t know. Make me prove it? Like every other idiot with a gun?”
His gaze hardened—dark brown, sharp, dangerous. “If word gets out about what we do—what we’ve done—the entire system collapses. And we can’t have that, can we?” He glanced behind him. “Can we, men?”
Interesting. No women.
I stayed quiet.
“There’s someone,” he went on, “making it very difficult to move product through the Seattle port. Any guesses who that might be?”
I almost rolled my eyes. “Take your pick from the Five Families. But the Petrovs used to control Seattle, so my money’s on Andrei.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s what we thought too. Which was a problem, considering his ties to both the Russians and the Italians.” A pause. “But it turns out this particular port belongs to Dante Alfero.”
I didn’t react. Even though my pulse jumped.
“Which means,” he explained pleasantly, “we need him gone. Should be easy for you. Being married to his daughter and all.” His head tilted. “Snap his neck after dessert. Simple.”
This was bad.